Практика Shadowing: ADHD & How Anyone Can Improve Their Focus | Huberman Lab Essentials - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео
Выберите режим практики
Каждый режим открывает полноэкранную комнату практики.
435 предложений
Если предложения слишком короткие или длинные, нажмите Edit, чтобы их изменить.
1
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science -based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
2
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
3
Today, we are going to talk all about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
4
Now, just a quick reminder that anytime we discuss a psychiatric disorder,
5
it's important that we remember that all of us have the temptation to self -diagnose or to diagnose others.
6
The clear and real diagnosis of ADHD really should be carried out by a psychiatrist,
7
a physician, or a very well -trained clinical psychologist.
8
So right now, the current estimates are that about one in 10 children and probably more have ADHD.
9
Now, fortunately, about half of those will resolve with proper treatment, but the other half typically don't.
10
The other thing that we are seeing a lot nowadays is increased levels of ADHD in adults.
11
For sake of today's discussion, attention, focus, and concentration are essentially the same thing.
12
So people with ADHD have trouble holding their attention.
13
What is attention?
14
Well, attention is perception.
15
It's how we are perceiving the sensory world.
16
For instance, right now you're hearing sound waves.
17
You are seeing things, you are sensing things against your skin, but you are only paying attention to some of those.
18
And the ones that you're paying attention to are your perceptions.
19
So if you hear my voice, you are perceiving my voice.
20
You are not paying attention to your other senses at the moment, okay?
21
You might even be outside in a breeze.
22
And until I said that, you might not be perceiving that breeze, but your body was sensing it all along.
23
So attention and focus are more or less the same thing, but impulse control is something separate
24
because impulse control requires pushing out or putting the blinders on to sensory events in our environment.
25
It means lack of perception.
26
Impulse control is about limiting our perception.
27
People with ADHD have poor attention and they have high levels of impulsivity.
28
Yes, they are distractible.
29
Yes, they are impulsive.
30
Yes, they are easily annoyed by things happening in the room.
31
They sometimes have a high level of emotionality as well.
32
However, people with ADHD can have a hyper focus,
33
an incredible ability to focus on things that they really enjoy or are intrigued by.
34
Now, this is a very important point because people with ADHD have the capacity to attend,
35
but they can't engage that attention for things that they don't really, really want to do.
36
There are a couple of other things that people with ADHD display quite often.
37
One is challenges with time perception.
38
People with ADHD often run late.
39
They often procrastinate.
40
But what's interesting and surprising is that if they are given a deadline, they actually can perceive time very well.
41
And they often can focus very well if the consequences of not completing a task or not attending are severe enough.
42
If they're not really concerned about a deadline or a consequence,
43
well, then they tend to lose track of time and they tend to underestimate how long things will take.
44
The other thing that people with ADHD have real trouble with is so -called working memory.
45
Now, you might think that people with ADHD would have really poor memories, but in fact, that's not the case.
46
People with ADHD often can have a terrific memory for past events.
47
They can remember upcoming events quite well.
48
Their memory is clearly working.
49
However, one aspect of memory in particular that we call working memory is often disrupted.
50
Working memory is the ability to keep specific information online,
51
to recycle it in your brain over and over again so that you can use it in the immediate or short term.
52
A good example of this would be you meet somebody, they tell you their name, they give you their phone number verbally,
53
and you have to walk back to your phone and enter it into your phone.
54
People without ADHD might have to put some effort into it.
55
It might feel like a bit of a struggle, but typically they would be able to recite that phone number in their mind over and over,
56
and then put it into their phone.
57
People with ADHD tend to lose the ability
58
or lack the ability to remember things
59
that they just need to keep online for anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute or two.
60
Okay, so we've more or less established the kind of menu of items that people with ADHD tend to have.
61
Some have all of them, some have just a subset of them.
62
Their severity can range from very intense to mild,
63
but in general, it's challenges with attention and focus, challenges with impulse control.
64
They get annoyed easily.
65
They have kind of an impulsivity.
66
They can't stay on task.
67
Time perception can be off.
68
And they have a hard time with anything that's mundane that they're not really interested in.
69
But again, I just want to highlight that people with ADHD are able to obtain heightened levels of focus,
70
even hyper -focus for things that are exciting to them and that they really want to engage in.
71
So let's drill into this issue of why people with ADHD actually can focus very intensely on things that they enjoy
72
and are curious about.
73
Now, enjoyment and curiosity, they're just the way that we describe our human experience of liking things, wanting to know more about them.
74
But from a neurobiological perspective, they have a very clear identity and signature, and that's dopamine.
75
Dopamine is released from neurons.
76
It's what we call a neuromodulator.
77
And in particular, dopamine creates a heightened state of focus.
78
It tends to contract our visual world,
79
and it tends to make us pay attention to things that are outside and beyond the confines of our skin.
80
It's what we call exteroception.
81
So as I mentioned earlier, you have all these senses coming in
82
and you can only perceive some of them because you're only paying attention to some of them.
83
Dopamine, when it's released in our brain, tends to turn on areas of our brain that narrow our visual focus and our auditory focus.
84
So it creates a cone of auditory attention that's very narrow.
85
It creates a tunnel of visual attention that's very narrow.
86
Whereas when we have less dopamine, we tend to view the entire world.
87
We tend to see the whole scene that we are in.
88
We tend to hear everything all at once.
89
So as I describe this,
90
hopefully you're already starting to see and understand how having dopamine release can allow a person, whether or not they have ADHD or not,
91
to direct their attention to particular things in their environment, right?
92
So now what we're doing is we're moving away from attention as this kind of vague, ambiguous term, and we're giving it a neurochemical identity,
93
dopamine, and we are giving it a neural circuit identity.
94
And just to put a little bit of flavor and detail on which neural circuits those are,
95
I want to discuss two general types of neural circuits that dopamine tends to enhance.
96
The first one is called the default mode network.
97
The default mode network is the network of brain areas in your brain,
98
in my brain, and in everybody's brain that is active when we're not doing anything, when we're just sitting there idle at rest.
99
The other set of circuits that we're going to think about and talk about with respect to ADHD are the task networks,
100
the networks of the brain that make you goal -oriented.
101
And those are a completely different set of brain areas.
102
However, the default mode network and these task networks are communicating with one another.
103
And they're doing that in very interesting ways.
104
Frontal cortex, no surprises in the front.
105
And you have a dorsal, the top and side, lateral part, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
106
And then you have a brain area called the posterior cingulate cortex.
107
And then you have an area called the lateral parietal lobe.
108
Again, you don't need to remember these names, but these are three brain areas that normally are synchronized in their activity.
109
So when one of these areas is active
110
In a typical person, the other areas would be active as well.
111
And in a person with ADHD, or even a person who has subclinical ADHD, or in any human being who hasn't slept well,
112
what you find is the default mode network is not synchronized.
113
These brain areas are just not playing well together.
114
Now, the task networks include a different set of structures.
115
It still involves the prefrontal cortex, but it's a different part of the prefrontal cortex, okay? tends to be the medial prefrontal cortex.
116
And there are some other brain areas that the medial prefrontal cortex is communicating to all the time, mainly to suppress impulses.
117
Anytime you're restricting your behavior, these task -directed networks are very active, okay?
118
Now, normally in a person without ADHD, the task networks and the default mode networks are going in kind of seesaw fashion.
119
They are actually what we call anti -correlated.
120
In a person with ADHD, they actually tend to be more correlated.
121
The default mode networks and the task networks are actually more coordinated.
122
And we can now confidently say, based on brain imaging studies,
123
that when somebody gets better when they're treated for ADHD or when they age out of ADHD, as sometimes is the case,
124
that the default mode networks and the task networks tend to become anti -correlated again.
125
What dopamine is doing in this context is dopamine is acting like a conductor.
126
Dopamine is saying this circuit should be active, then that circuit should be active.
127
It should be default mode network.
128
And then when the default mode network is not active, then it should be the task network.
129
And in ADHD, there's something about the dopamine system
130
that is not allowing it to conduct these networks and make sure
131
that they stay what the engineers or physicists or mathematicians would say out of phase to be anti -correlated.
132
So what exactly is going on with the dopamine system in people with ADHD?
133
And what's going on with the dopamine system in people that have terrific levels of attention for any task?
134
Well, in the year 2015, an important paper came out and it formalized the so -called low dopamine hypothesis of ADHD.
135
It turns out that if dopamine levels are too low in particular circuits in the brain,
136
that it leads to unnecessary firing of neurons in the brain
137
that are unrelated to the task that one is trying to do, and that is unrelated to the information that one is trying to focus on.
138
So if you think back before, you've got this default mode network and a task -related network,
139
and they need to be in this kind of concert of anti -correlation and in ADHD, they're firing together.
140
Well, the problem seems to be that when dopamine is low, neurons fire more than they should in these networks that govern attention.
141
This is the so -called low dopamine hypothesis.
142
And if you start looking anecdotally at what people with ADHD have done for decades,
143
what you find is that they tend to use recreational drugs or they tend to indulge in non -drug stimulants.
144
So things like smoking a half a pack of cigarettes and drinking four cups of coffee a day.
145
Or if the person had access to it, using cocaine as a recreational drug or amphetamine as a recreational drug.
146
All of those substances that I just described, in particular cocaine and amphetamine, but also coffee and cigarettes,
147
increased levels of multiple neurotransmitters, but all have the quality of increasing levels of dopamine in the brain and in particular,
148
in the regions of the brain that regulate attention and these task -related and default mode networks.
149
Now, young children fortunately don't have access to those kinds of stimulants most of the time, but if you look at children,
150
even very young children with ADHD, they show things like preference for sugary foods, which also act as dopamine -inducing stimulants.
151
For a long time, it was thought
152
that children with ADHD consumed too many sugary foods
153
or drank too much soda or adults with ADHD would take recreational drugs like methamphetamine
154
or cocaine or would drink coffee to excess or smoke cigarettes to excess
155
because they had poor levels of attention and because they couldn't make good decisions, they were too impulsive and so forth.
156
Knowing what we now know about dopamine and the fact
157
that having enough dopamine is required in order to coordinate these neural circuits that allow for focus and quality decision -making.
158
An equally valid idea is that these children and these adults are actually trying to self -medicate by pursuing these compounds, right?
159
Things like cocaine lead to huge increases in dopamine.
160
Well, what happens when somebody with ADHD takes that drug?
161
It turns out they actually obtain heightened levels of focus,
162
their ability to focus on things other than things they absolutely care intensely about, goes up.
163
Likewise, children who consume anything that increases their levels of dopamine, if those children have ADHD,
164
they tend to be calmer.
165
They tend to be able to focus more.
166
So dopamine and low levels of dopamine apparently are what's wrong in people with ADHD.
167
That dopamine hypothesis is what led to the idea that treating people,
168
children and adults included, with dopaminergic compounds would somehow increase their ability to focus.
169
And if you look at the major drugs that were developed and now marketed by pharmaceutical companies for the treatment of ADHD,
170
those drugs have names like Ritalin.
171
Nowadays, it's typically things like Adderall, Modafinil, and some of the other derivatives they all serve to increase levels of dopamine,
172
in particular dopamine in the networks that control task -directed behavior
173
and that coordinate the default mode network and these task -related networks.
174
Let's take a step back for a second and just ask, what are these drugs?
175
We know they increase dopamine, but what are they really?
176
Well, Ritalin, also called methylphenidate, is very similar to amphetamine,
177
speed, or what's typically called speed in the street drug nomenclature.
178
Adderall is basically a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine.
179
Now, some of you probably realize this, that Adderall is amphetamine, but I'm guessing that they're.. a good number of you out there,
180
perhaps even parents and kids that don't realize that these drugs like cocaine and amphetamine,
181
methamphetamine, which are incredibly dangerous and incredibly habit forming and have high potential for abuse.
182
Well, the pharmaceutical versions of those are exactly what are used to treat ADHD.
183
Now they're not exactly like cocaine or methamphetamine, but they are structurally and chemically very similar.
184
And their net effect in the brain and body is essentially the same, which is to increase dopamine primarily,
185
but also to increase levels of a neuromodulator called epinephrine or norepinephrine, also called noradrenaline and adrenaline.
186
Those names are the same.
187
So what I'm essentially saying is that the drugs that are used to treat ADHD are stimulants, and they look very much like,
188
in fact, nearly identical to some of the so -called street drug stimulants that we all hear are so terrible.
189
However, I do want to emphasize that at the appropriate dosages,
190
and working with a quality psychiatrist or neurologist or family physician, it does have to be a board certified MD that prescribes these things.
191
Many people with ADHD achieve excellent relief with these drugs.
192
Not all of them, but many of them do, especially if these treatments are started early in life.
193
So now knowing what these drugs are, I want to raise the question of why prescribe these drugs?
194
Children have a brain that's very plastic, meaning it can remodel itself and change in response to experience very, very quickly compared to adults.
195
Taking stimulants as a child, if you are a child diagnosed with ADHD,
196
allows that forebrain task -related network to come online, to be active at the appropriate times.
197
And because those children are young, it allows those children to learn what focus is and to sort of follow or enter that tunnel of focus.
198
Now by taking a drug, it's creating focus artificially.
199
It's not creating focus because they're super interested in something.
200
It's chemically inducing a state of focus.
201
And let's face it, a lot of childhood and school
202
and becoming a functional adult is about learning how to focus even though you don't want to do something.
203
So what are we to make of this whole picture that we need more dopamine, but these kids with ADHD,
204
they're getting their dopamine by way of a drug, which is for all the world, amphetamines.
205
What are the long -term consequences?
206
What are the short -term consequences?
207
Well, in order to get to some of those answers, I went to one of my colleagues,
208
a pediatric neurologist that specializes in the treatment of epilepsy and ADHD in kids of all ages, from age three to 21.
209
I asked the following questions.
210
First of all, I asked, what do you think about giving young kids amphetamine?
211
Provided that the lowest possible dose is used and that
212
that dosage is modulated as they grow older and develop those powers of attention,
213
their observation was that they've seen more kids benefit than not benefit from that.
214
Now, the fact that this person, this now friend of mine and colleague of mine
215
has so much expertise in the way that the brain works and is considering putting their child on such medication,
216
I said, you know, why wouldn't you wait until your kid reaches puberty.
217
I mean, we know that in boys and in girls,
218
there are increases in testosterone and estrogen during puberty that dramatically change the way that the body appears,
219
but also that dramatically change the way that the brain functions.
220
In particular, we know this, that puberty triggers the activation of so -called frontotemporal task -related executive functioning.
221
That's just fancy science speak for being able to focus, being able to direct your attention, and being able to control your impulses.
222
And their answer was very specific and I think very important.
223
What they said was, look, neuroplasticity is greatest in childhood and tapers off after about age 25,
224
but neuroplasticity from age three until age 12 or 13 is exceedingly high.
225
If you have the opportunity to work with a quality physician and treat these things early, these drugs can allow these frontal circuits,
226
these task -related circuits, to achieve their appropriate levels of functioning and for kids to learn how to focus in a variety of different contexts.
227
So we've talked about the neural circuits of focus and the chemistry of focus,
228
but we haven't talked yet about what would make us better at focusing and what focusing better really is.
229
So let's take a step back and think about how we focus and how to get better at focus.
230
And I'm going to share with you a tool for
231
which there are terrific research data that will allow you in a single session to enhance your ability to focus. in theory forever.
232
What we're about to talk about is when attention works and when attention falters.
233
And what we are specifically going to talk about are what are called attentional blinks, not actual eye blinks.
234
Attentional blinks are really easy to understand if you think about a where's Waldo task.
235
You know this task, where's Waldo, where there are a bunch of people and objects and things in a picture,
236
and somewhere in there is Waldo with the striped hat
237
and the glasses and kind of a skinny dude and you have to find Waldo.
238
And so it's a visual search and it's visual search for an object that has distinct features,
239
but is embedded in this ocean of other things that could easily be confused as Waldo.
240
So you tend to look, look, look, look, look, look, look, when you find Waldo,
241
or when you search for a target in some other visual search task, at that moment, your nervous system celebrates a little bit
242
and it celebrates through the release of neurochemicals that make you feel good.
243
You found it and you pause.
244
Now the pause is interesting because when you pause,
245
what we know from many experiments is that in that moment of pause and mild celebration,
246
however mild, you are not able to see another Waldo sitting right next to it.
247
So what this means is in attending to something, in searching and in identifying a visual target,
248
your attention blinked, it shut off for a second.
249
If you see something that you're looking for or you're very interested in something,
250
you are definitely missing other information in part because you're over focusing on something.
251
And this leads to a very interesting hypothesis about what might go wrong in ADHD,
252
where we've always thought that they cannot focus and yet we know they can focus on things they care very much about.
253
Well, maybe just maybe they are experiencing more attentional blinks than people who do not have ADHD.
254
And indeed, there are data now to support the possibility that that's actually what's happening.
255
So what they really need is this property that we call open monitoring.
256
First of all, your visual system has two modes of processing.
257
It can be highly focused, a soda straw view.
258
However, there's also a property of your visual system that allows you to dilate your gaze, to be in so -called panoramic vision.
259
Panoramic vision is actually mediated by a separate stream or set of neural circuits going from the eye into the brain.
260
And it's a stream or set of circuits that isn't just wide angle view.
261
It also is better at processing things in time.
262
Its frame rate is higher.
263
You can use panoramic vision to access the state that we call open monitoring.
264
When people do that, they are able to attend to and recognize multiple targets.
265
So this is something that can be trained up and people can practice, whether or not they have ADHD or not.
266
What it involves is learning how to dilate your gaze consciously.
267
That's actually quite easy for most people.
268
You can consciously go into open gaze and then you can contract your field of view as well.
269
That might not seem like a significant or unusual practice or that it would have any impact at all,
270
but remarkably, just doing that once for 17 minutes significantly reduced the number of attentional blinks that people would carry out.
271
In other words, their focus got better in a near permanent way without any additional training.
272
Now let's talk about actual blinks, the sort that you do with your eyelids.
273
Believe it or not, your perception of time is also changed on a rapid basis, moment to moment basis by how often you blink.
274
I want to just emphasize one study in particular, which is quite appropriately titled
275
Time Dilates After Spontaneous Blinking.
276
They examined the relationship between fluctuations in timing and blinking.
277
And to make a long story short, what they found is that right after blinks, we reset our perception of time.
278
Now, what's interesting, and will immediately make sense to you as to why this is important,
279
is that the rate of blinking is controlled by dopamine.
280
So what this means is that dopamine is controlling attention, blinks relate to attention and focus,
281
and therefore the dopamine and blinking system is one way that you constantly modulate and update your perception of time.
282
And fortunately, it's also one that you can control.
283
So the basic takeaway of this study was that blinking controls time perception,
284
but also that levels of dopamine can alter your sense of time and stay with me here.
285
and that blinking and dopamine are inextricably linked.
286
They are working together to control your attention.
287
Let's remember back to the very beginning of the episode, what's going on in people with ADHD.
288
They are not good at managing their time.
289
They tend to run late or they are disorganized.
290
Their dopamine is low.
291
We know that as well.
292
And so they are underestimating time intervals.
293
And so it makes perfect sense that they would be late.
294
It makes perfect sense that they would lose track of time or the ability to focus.
295
This is really exciting because what it means is that children with ADHD,
296
adults with ADHD, or people with normal levels of focus that want to improve their ability to focus
297
can do so through a training that involves learning how often to blink and when, and how to keep their visual focus on a given target.
298
And it turns out this study has actually been done entitled
299
Improvement of Attention in Elementary School Students through fixation -focused training activity.
300
I won't go through all the details, but what they found was a short period of focusing on a visual target
301
allowed these school children to greatly enhance their ability to focus on other types of information.
302
And a significant component of the effect was due to the way that they were controlling the shutters on their eyes,
303
their eyelids, and controlling their blinks.
304
So what they did in the study is they had these kids focused their visual attention on some object
305
that was relatively close, like their hand, for a minute or so, which actually takes some effort if you try and do that.
306
They were allowed to blink.
307
It only took a few minutes each day to do this, 30 seconds in one condition or maybe a minute,
308
and then at another station of looking a little bit further out and a little bit further out.
309
However, there was an important feature of this study that is definitely worth mentioning, which is before they did this visual focus task or training,
310
they did a series of physical movements with the kids so
311
that the kids could sort of eliminate
312
or move out some of their desire to move and would thereby enhance their ability to sit still.
313
Now it should make perfect sense that these shutters on the front of your eyes,
314
they aren't just there for winking and they aren't just there for cosmetic purposes.
315
They are there to regulate the amount of information going into your nervous system.
316
And they're there to regulate how long you are bringing information into your nervous system and in what bins,
317
how widely or finely you are binning time is set by how often you blink
318
and how widely or specifically you are grabbing attention from the visual world is set by whether
319
or not you're viewing things very specifically like across here
320
or through a soda straw view like this or whether or not you are in this panoramic sort of whole environment mode,
321
this kind of fisheye lens or wide angle lens mode.
322
So now I want to switch back to talking about some of the drugs
323
that are typically used to access those systems, prescription drugs.
324
And I want to talk about some of the new and emerging non -prescription approaches to increasing the levels of dopamine,
325
acetylcholine, and serotonin in the brain using various supplement type compounds,
326
because several of them are showing really remarkable efficacy in excellent peer reviewed studies.
327
So before moving to some of the newer atypical compounds and things sold over the counter,
328
I'd like to just briefly return to the classic drugs that are used to treat ADHD.
329
These are the ones I mentioned earlier, methylphenidate, also called Ritalin, modafinil,
330
armodafinil is another one, and Adderall.
331
Again, all of these work by increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.
332
I think it is important to understand the extent to which they all carry more or less the same side effect,
333
such as high propensity for addiction and abuse,
334
amphetamines of any kind, as well as cocaine can cause sexual side effects because they're vasoconstrictors.
335
So these drugs are not without their consequences.
336
In addition, they almost all carry cardiac effects, right?
337
They increase heart rate, but they also have effects on constriction of blood vessels
338
and arteries and veins and so forth in ways that can create cardiovascular problems.
339
The best use of things like Adderall, Modafinil,
340
R -Modafinil and Ritalin is going to be to combine those treatments with behavioral exercises
341
that actively engage the very circuits that you're trying to train up and enhance.
342
And then perhaps, I want to highlight perhaps, tapering off those drugs so that then one can use those circuits without any need for chemical intervention.
343
So despite any controversy that might be out there, I think it's fair to say
344
that the consumption of omega -3 fatty acids can positively modulate the systems for attention and focus.
345
So then the question becomes how much EPA, how much DHA, does that differ for what's helpful for depression, et cetera?
346
And actually it does differ.
347
In reviewing the studies for this, it appears that a threshold level of 300 milligrams of DHA turns out to be an important inflection point.
348
So typically fish oils or other sources of omega -3s will have DHA and EPA.
349
And typically it's the EPA that's harder to get at sufficient levels,
350
meaning you have to take quite a lot of fish oil in order to get above
351
that 1 ,000 milligram or 2 ,000 milligram threshold to improve mood and other functions.
352
But for sake of attention, there are 10 studies that have explored this in detail.
353
And while the EPA component is important, the most convincing studies point to the fact
354
that getting above 300 milligrams per day of DHA is really where you start to see the attentional effects.
355
Now, fortunately, if you're getting sufficient EPA for sake of mood and other biological functions,
356
almost without question, you're getting 300 milligrams or more of DHA.
357
What's interesting is that there's another compound, phosphatidylsterene, that has been explored for its capacity to improve the symptoms of ADHD.
358
Phosphatidylsterene taken for two months for 200 milligrams per day, was able to reduce the symptoms of ADHD in children.
359
It has not been looked at in adults yet, at least as far as I know,
360
but that this effect was greatly enhanced by the consumption of omega -3 fatty acids.
361
So now we're starting to see synergistic effects of omega -3 fatty acids and phosphatidylsteering.
362
So I'd like to talk about the drug modafinil and the closely related drug R -modafinil.
363
That's A -R -modafinil.
364
Because modafinil and R -modafinil are gaining popularity out there, both for treatment of ADHD and narcolepsy,
365
but also for communities of people
366
that are trying to stay awake long periods of time so it's actively used in the military by first responders.
367
It's gaining popularity on college campuses and people are using it more
368
and more as an alternative to Adderall and Ritalin and excessive amounts of coffee.
369
It does increase focus and to a dramatic extent.
370
Want to emphasize that unlike Ritalin and Adderall, modafinil and armodafinil are weak dopamine reuptake inhibitors,
371
and that's how they lead to increases in dopamine.
372
Now you may notice that I haven't talked much about acetylcholine.
373
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that at the neuron to muscle connections, the so -called neuromuscular junctions,
374
is involved in generating muscular contractions of all kinds for all movements.
375
Acetylcholine is also released from two sites in the brain.
376
There is a collection of neurons in your brainstem that send projections forward, kind of like a sprinkler system that's very diffuse
377
to release acetylcholine and those neurons reside in an area or a structure that's called the pedunculopontine nucleus, the PPN.
378
And then there's a separate collection of neurons in the basal forebrain called unimaginatively nucleus basalis, the nucleus at the base.
379
And they also hose the brain with acetylcholine, but in a much more specific way.
380
So one is sort of like a sprinkler system
381
and the other one is more like a fire hose to a particular location.
382
And those two sources of acetylcholine collaborate to activate particular locations in the brain
383
and really bring about a tremendous degree of focus to whatever is happening at those particular synapses.
384
So now you have an example and you have an understanding
385
and hopefully a picture in your mind of how all this is working.
386
Not surprisingly then, drugs that increase cholinergic or acetylcholine transmission will increase focus and cognition.
387
One such compound is so -called alpha -GPC, which is a form of choline and increases acetylcholine transmission.
388
Dosages as high as 1 ,200 milligrams per day, which is a very high dosage spread out.
389
Typically it's 300 or 400 milligrams spread out throughout the day.
390
Have been shown to offset some of the effects of age -related cognitive decline, improve cognitive functioning people that don't have age -related cognitive decline.
391
Typically when people are using alpha -GPC to study or to enhance learning of any kind.
392
They will take somewhere between 300 and 600 milligrams.
393
That's more typical.
394
Again, you have to check with your doctor.
395
You have to decide if the safety margins are appropriate for you.
396
And there are some over -the -counter compounds
397
that are in active use out there for treatment of ADHD and in use for simply trying to improve focus.
398
L -tyrosine, it's an amino acid that acts as a precursor to the neuromodulator dopamine.
399
I mean, the dosaging can be very tricky to dial in.
400
Sometimes it makes people feel too euphoric or too jittery or too alert that they are then unable to focus well.
401
So the dosage ranges are huge.
402
You see evidence for 100 milligrams all the way up to 1200 milligrams.
403
It's something that really should be approached with caution,
404
especially for people that have any kind of underlying psychiatric or mood disorder because this regulation of the dopamine system is,
405
you know, central to many of the mood disorders such as depression, but also especially mania, mania bipolar disorder,
406
schizophrenia, things of that sort.
407
So it's something that really should be approached with caution.
408
Everybody nowadays seems to have a smartphone.
409
They grab our attention entirely, but within that small box of attention, there are millions of attentional windows scrolling by, right?
410
So just because it's one device that we look at that does not mean that we are focused.
411
We are focused on our phone, but because of the way in which context switches up so fast within the phone,
412
it's thought that the brain is struggling now to leave that rapid turnover of context.
413
Even though there are trillions, infinite number of bits of information in the actual physical world,
414
your attentional window, that aperture of constriction and dilating
415
that visual window is the way in which you cope with all that overwhelming information typically.
416
Well, within the phone, your visual aperture is set to a given width and within there,
417
your attentional window is grabbing a near infinite number of bits of information, colors, movies.
418
And so the question is, does that sort of interaction on a regular basis lead to deficits in the types of attention
419
that we need in order to perform well in work and school relationships, et cetera?
420
And the short answer is yes, we are inducing a sort of ADHD.
421
I'm not here to tell you what to do, but I think whether or not you have ADHD or not,
422
if you're an adolescent, limiting your smartphone use to 60 minutes per day or less,
423
and if you are an adult to two hours per day or less,
424
is going to be among the very best ways to maintain your ability to focus at whatever level you can now.
425
And as I always say, most of the things that we get recognized for in life, success in life in every endeavor,
426
whether or not it's school, relationships, sport, creative works of any kind are always proportional to the amount of focus that we can bring that activity.
427
It is important to rest of course, to get proper sleep, but I stand behind that statement.
428
And I leave you with that about attention and cell phones and how cell phones are indeed eroding our attentional capacities.
429
So I realized I covered a lot of information about ADHD
430
and the biology of focus and how to get better at focusing.
431
We talked about the behavioral and psychological phenotypes of ADHD.
432
We talked about the underlying neural circuitry.
433
We also talked about the neurochemistry.
434
And we talked about the various prescription drug treatments
435
that are aimed at that neurochemistry and aimed at increasing focus in children and adults with ADHD.
Скачать приложение
Всё для свободной речи
ИИ-оценка произношенияОценка каждой фразы
Практика IPAОсвойте каждый звук
СловарьСоберите свой словарный запас
Игра со словамиУчитесь играя
Тот же канал
C11,317
Why Reading (Books) Makes Us Better at Speaking
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Essentials: How Smells Influence Our Hormones, Health & Behavior | Dr. Noam Sobel
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C157
Why Women Over 30 Should Consider Freezing Their Eggs
University StudentsWorking Adults
C13
Your Memories & Emotions Impact Immune Status
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2Dr. Arthur Brooks: The 3 Macronutrients of True Happiness
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
How Foods & Nutrients Control Our Moods | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Food & Supplements for Brain Health & Cognitive Performance | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
The Science & Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C129
The Cure for Addiction
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
Essentials: Neuralink & Technologies to Enhance Human Brains | Dr. Matt MacDougall
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
Essentials: The Biology of Slowing & Reversing Aging | Dr. David Sinclair
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Dr. Andy Galpin
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C134
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
Build Muscle Size, Increase Strength & Improve Recovery | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C14
Essentials: Micronutrients for Health & Longevity | Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C120
Tools to Set Your Cortisol Rhythm
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C15
Essentials: Optimal Protocols to Build Strength & Grow Muscles | Dr. Andy Galpin
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C118
You Can Learn New Habits Very Fast: Brain Circuits Rewire Faster With Urgency
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
The Science of Making & Breaking Habits | Huberman Lab Essentials
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C16
Control Your Brain Chemistry for Focus, Motivation & Well-Being | Huberman Lab Essentials
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Рекомендуемое видео
C11
107 предложений
How to Quickly Improve Focus - Andrew Huberman
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
336 предложений
AuDHD: Why You Can’t Start (or Stop) Anything
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
327 предложений
How to Control Yourself, Read People & Build Discipline | Chase Hughes
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
167 предложений
Mental Debugging: How to Build Resilience After Failure
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
35 предложений
What is Inattentional Blindness? (Easiest Explanation)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
232 предложений
How to Train Your Brain to Enjoy Hard Work | Andrew Huberman
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1766 предложений
Take Back Your Focus | Real English Conversation Practice (B2–C1) | English Podcast
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
79 предложений
The 15% Rule: How to Learn Faster | Andrew Huberman
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
12 предложений
How ADHD Medication Works
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
75 предложений
Neuroscientist: How To Boost Your Focus PERMANENTLY in Minutes
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку
Этот урок разговорной практики построен на видео «ADHD & How Anyone Can Improve Their Focus». Чаще всего повторяются слова: Adhd, focus, dopamine, attention, drug. В этом видео 435 предложений и 6155 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 37:49. Говорящий говорит в естественном темпе, около 163 слов в минуту, близком к повседневной речи. 82% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка; остальные стоит разобрать перед занятием.
Ключевая лексика этого видео
15 слов из видео, которые стоит выучить, с произношением и значением:
| Слово | Произношение | Значение |
|---|---|---|
| blink глагол | /ˈblɪŋk/ | морга́ть, моргну́ть |
| circuit существительное | /ˈsɝ.kɪt/ | кругооборо́т, цикл |
| default существительное | /dɪˈfɔlt/ | дефо́лт, неплатёж |
| perception существительное | /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/ | восприя́тие, перце́пция |
| compound существительное | /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/ | соедине́ние, сочета́ние |
| cocaine существительное | /koʊˈkeɪn/ | кокаи́н |
| cortex существительное | /ˈkɔɹtɛks/ | кора |
| enhance глагол | /ɪnˈhæns/ | увели́чивать, увели́чить |
| impulse существительное | /ˈɪmpʌls/ | и́мпульс, поры́в |
| perceive глагол | /pɚˈsiv/ | воспринима́ть, восприня́ть |
| dosage существительное | /ˈdəʊsɪd͡ʒ/ | до́за, дозиро́вка |
| acid существительное | /ˈæsɪd/ | кислота́, кисля́тина |
| mood существительное | /muːd/ | настрое́ние, расположе́ние |
| disorder существительное | /dɪsˈɔɹdɚ/ | беспоря́док, каварда́к |
| consequence существительное | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | после́дствие, сле́дствие |
Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите
| Слово | Произношение | Значение |
|---|---|---|
| turn out глагол | ока́зываться, оказа́ться | |
| carry out глагол | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | выноси́ть, вы́нести |
| come out глагол | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | выходи́ть, вы́йти |
| go up глагол | поднима́ться, подня́ться | |
| move out глагол | съезжа́ть, съе́хать | |
| think back глагол | вспоминать |
Фразы, которые стоит повторять
Короткие законченные фразы из видео, которые пригодятся в повседневном разговоре:
- It's how we are perceiving the sensory world.
- For instance, right now you're hearing sound waves.
- It's what we call a neuromodulator.
- It's what we call exteroception.
- We know they increase dopamine, but what are they really?
Грамматика в этом видео
Конструкции, которые говорящий использует чаще всего, с точными словами из видео:
| Конструкция | В видео |
|---|---|
| Present Perfect have/has + причастие прошедшего времени — прошлое действие, важное сейчас | hasn't slept · have done · they've seen |
| Пассивный залог be + причастие прошедшего времени — важно, что происходит, а не кто это делает | should be carried · is increased · are intrigued |
| Придаточные определительные who / which + предложение — уточнение о человеке или предмете | person who has · people that have · children who consume |
Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание
Говорящий использует 64 сокращённых и редуцированных форм, например you're, they're, we're. Произносите их коротко, так, как слышите.
- Звуки «th»: hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, threshold /ˈθɹɛʃ(h)oʊld/, methamphetamine /ˌmɛθæmˈfɛtəˌmiːn/, methylphenidate /ˌmɛθ əlˈfɛn ɪˌdeɪt/
- Звуки «sh» и «zh»: perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, physician /fəˈzɪʃən/, prescription /pɹəˈskɹɪp.ʃən/, consumption /kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/
- Длинные слова — следите за ударением: fortunately /ˈfɔɹ.t͡ʃə.nɪt.li/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, popularity /ˌpɑ.pjəˈlæɹ.ə.ti/
Звуки, трудные для русскоязычных:
- /w/ — губы округлены, это не /v/: consequence /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/, whereas /(h)wɛɹˈæz/, equally /ˈiːkwəli/
- /h/ — лёгкий выдох, а не русское «х»: enhance /ɪnˈhæns/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, highlight /ˈhaɪˌlaɪt/, threshold /ˈθɹɛʃ(h)oʊld/, behavioral /bɪˈheɪvjəɹəl/
- Звонкие согласные в конце слова — не оглушайте их: compound /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/, perceive /pɚˈsiv/, dosage /ˈdəʊsɪd͡ʒ/, acid /ˈæsɪd/, mood /muːd/
Как заниматься с этим видео
- Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
- Начните со скорости 0,75×, повторяйте предложение за предложением и вернитесь к обычной скорости, когда станет легко.
- Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как blink, circuit, default.
Что такое техника Shadowing?
Shadowing — это научно обоснованная техника изучения языка, изначально разработанная для подготовки профессиональных переводчиков и популяризированная полиглотом доктором Александром Аргуэльесом. Метод прост, но эффективен: вы слушаете аудио на английском от носителей языка и немедленно повторяете вслух — как тень, следующая за говорящим с задержкой в 1–2 секунды. В отличие от пассивного прослушивания или грамматических упражнений, Shadowing заставляет мозг и мышцы рта одновременно обрабатывать и воспроизводить реальные речевые паттерны. Исследования показывают, что это значительно улучшает точность произношения, интонацию, ритм, связную речь, понимание на слух и беглость речи — что делает его одним из самых эффективных методов для подготовки к IELTS Speaking и реального общения на английском.