I Studied David Goggins. Here’s What I Found - Andrew Huberman

you had david goggins in the lab to study him for fear what did you learn from looking at that guy yeah david's david's great i always chuckle with david because you know the one thing about david is what you see on social media is actually what you get when you interact with david we worked long hours one day and i was everyone was ready to tap out this was a bunch of people in uh silicon valley for a day you know doing some workshop type thing and he just he was changing into his running shorts midway he was going to run to the airport and he ran to the airport as far as i know i get his flight i believe so you know but there was this moment of should we continue should we take a break and he was like no let's keep going keep going um everything you see and read and hear about david is exactly how he shows up it's really wonderful um he came to the lab and he did you know we have a virtual version of the shark thing um which of course is not the same as the real experience but for people who are afraid of sharks it's quite scary for them and allows us to study fear david was he's very afraid of sharks which was sort of uh amusing to me given that as a seal he had to spend a lot of time in the water but he was first one in wanted to do the vr talked about how he didn't like it but um but that's why he did it you know constant uh testing himself in fact i think even though david's quite successful i think and has many many options of how to spend his time i believe this is correct i think right now he's doing fire jumping he's fighting fires in the wilderness by zip lining in or fast lining in or jumping out of planes so he's constantly pushing that uh that friction lever to create or build or further build this thing about leaning into friction and this is a term that isn't really scientific but that i decided to coin because this idea of limbic friction that when we're very tired and we need to be in action or when we're very stressed and we need to perform in a more calm and controlled way there's friction on both sides getting out of bed when we're exhausted hard very hard often leaning into action in a calm and deliberate way when we're freaking out like going to give a public lecture if one has fear of public speaking also hard so this limbic friction and david just seems to seek what i call limbic friction in every domain of life is that like exposure therapy for limbic friction then essentially yeah i mean what you're training and improving when you're getting better at dealing with stress is this ability to tolerate high amounts of adrenaline in your body and to think clearly and function well i mean adrenaline is epinephrine and just a little bit of physiology it's released from the adrenals obviously above the kidneys that gets your body organs amped up and energized it can't cross the so-called blood-brain barrier you have a high restriction fence that we call the blood-brain barrier around the brain keep bad molecules out adrenaline therefore is released also within the brain from a little cluster of neurons called locus ceruleus the name doesn't matter so when you are stressed your brain and your body both wake up and that adrenaline hijacks certain systems narrows your visual focus etc etc if you look at almost all stress inoculation protocols cold water ice bath cold shower cyclic hyperventilation those all do the same thing they generate a lot of adrenaline release in the brain and a lot of adrenaline release in the body but it's different if those if the adrenaline in the brain and body is evoked by you that you did it because under conditions under which you did the ice bath deliberately and now you're wide awake and really really alert there's this feeling that you have options it wasn't done to you but you can train up an ability to for instance think clearly and calmly um maybe even do some simple math problems in your head or maybe try and relax while there's all this adrenaline in your system and that carries over so that when you you know we've all done it you're driving along the person in front of you stop short and you're almost in the accident right there's that moment where you could panic or that moment where you could you know road rage or that moment where you could freak out but if you are familiar with the feeling of adrenaline in your brain and body you navigate that in a in a calmer way how well because adrenaline is generic there's no adrenaline for the car crash adrenaline for the heights adrenaline for the the uh the relationship situation it's all the same so we can get better we can raise our stress threshold as i like to refer to it and that can be done through cold water or cyclic hyperventilation ideally not at the same time but cold water you know is a universal stimulus for creating adrenaline release and there's a big range of cold not infinite but a big range of cold in which you can generate adrenaline without harming your tissue whereas with heat you get into a very hot environment or very low oxygen environment you'll also get a lot of adrenaline but you can also suffocate and burn yourself so this is why cold is used in navy seal screening and training and this is why i think so many people really like the ice bath in cold showers has a bunch of other positive effects but it is a great trigger for adrenaline what's happening people if you enjoyed that then press here for the full unedited episode and don't forget to subscribe peace you

Channel: Chris Williamson

Views: 1,998,850

Keywords: modern wisdom, podcast, chris williamson, David goggins, goggins, goggins running, endurance, how to run like goggins, Studying David Goggins, Andrew Huberman David goggins

Id: 1Ntj7rTMGjw

Length: 5min 27sec (327 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 12 2022