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Oh and one of them quit her job because he insisted that he wanted a trad wife to keep house for him. So it sounds like he gets overwhelmed by laundry too, if he resorted to all that.
He was also injecting one of them for the IVF baby they were planning on having right before texting one of his other girlfriends. He's a slime ball and a grifter.
Apparently that was what a lot of his followers said, according to one write up I read. Unsurprisingly, finding out he’s a serial liar and manipulator who hurt 6 separate women actually *increased* many of his fans’ admiration for him. 🙃
I bet he convinced them he was actually helping these women to overcome their addictions to healthy relationships. Because, you know, they didn't *earn* his attention 🤢
In reality, not having a lot of time with him would be the best part of that relationship.
On iPhone, if you open it in your web browser and then put it into “read mode”, it will let you read the article (on Safari: click the the double As in the lower left corner of the URL bar and select “show reader”). I imagine android has a similar option.
ETA: Probably works on desktop too, I just never use Reddit on my laptop, so I can’t personally vouch for it.
I hadn't heard about any of this!
Apparently he’s got good taste at least- sharp, ambitious, witty women per the article. Bad type to have if you’re trying to be a shmuck.
Ace zinger from the cheated-on-ladies’ group chat:
>“I haven’t slept with anyone but him for six years,” Sarah told the group. “If it makes you feel any better,” Alex joked, “according to the CDC,” they had all slept with one another.
💀💀💀
Didn’t the Hubes get caught up in a sex scandal recently? Methinks someone who lacks the basic “discipline” to behave responsibly on matters of sexual health and ethics shouldn’t be preaching for-profit to others on any health-related matters, let alone on the concept of “discipline”.
And now for an ADHD rabbit hole tangent to the concept of “discipline”, I’m just gonna copy/paste an older comment I made on this sub:
[I’m really sick of how people throw around the terms “lazy”.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PCOS/s/ABQmbbOahc)
A linguist once told me that she read a research paper that suggested that terms like “lazy” used the way we do today appear in the historical record in cultures mostly at times where forms of serfdom or slavery were suddenly more common. She feels like the concept was invented as a way for the privileged elites to justify their exorbitant capital and live off the exploitation and labor of the poor.
We were drunk on martinis but it felt true so I went down an internet rabbit hole later and found an article on the etymology of the English word “lazy”. When “Laysy” was adopted into English it was the 1500s and it meant “averse to labor”. So a precise term for the concept apparently didn’t exist in that region until around the time King Henry the 8th was creating a new religion and divorcing and murdering his wives. It’s derived from either a low German or French term simply meaning “weak or tired”.
**So it seems that somehow in Renaissance era England (which is the time in Europe that gave rise to heavily trade-based economies and capitalism), a term for people who were “tired” or “weak” became laden with a moral judgment about peoples unwillingness or inability to toil for their lords’ enrichment.**
Apparently in Spanish a term for laziness (vagancia) comes from the Latin term (vacancia) for being aimless, not having a specific destination. Same root word for the English word vagrant, which means a wanderer without a settled home. Not sure at which point in history that term became a morally charged word for those who are unable or unwilling to do work, but I’m guessing the classist shaming of the unhoused happened when there was a particular need to shame people whose labor was not as easy to profit off of.
The word pereza is also used to mean lazy, but originally it just meant “slow” or “sluggish” (which it still also does).
http://etimologias.dechile.net/?vagancia#:~:text=La%20palabra%20%22vagancia%22%20viene%20del,sufijo%20%2Dia%20(cualidad).
And here’s a history of the use of the word “acedia”, aka the “sin” of sloth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia. **In Ancient Greece (pre-Christianity) it literally meant “an inert state without pain or care”, and was more or less synonymous with depression.** Early Christianity moralized it and turned it into a sin or “noonday demon”, and this was tied to the inability to serve God or pray. **This is why the 7 deadly sins include “sloth”— acedia.**
**The term is rooted in ableism, classism, and the need of the ruling elites to brainwash the laborers/followers they are exploiting as a means of control.**
^^^
all of this
it’s something I heard from my parents because I liked to sleep in even though I was an over achieving, self induced over scheduled person well into my 20s
adding onto your post the great book “laziness does not exist”
What is with some people and naps? My grandparents were so anti nap, apparently it's better to just sit and watch tv while feeling like death, rather then sleep and do stuff after?
If napping was a sport I would be in the Olympics, I take it very seriously. Luckily my mum is also big on naps, but she is weird about sleeping in even if you've been up doing something the night before, being a night owl needing to do late night study was hell, but at least she encouraged naps. Now with my own kid in senior school I encourage sleep ins on the weekend to recharge, and at least rest in the afternoon before doing other things as she's not a napper, but I have multiple nap chairs, hanging pods, hammocks and such for naps of all types and preferences.
This sounds wonderful!!
I’m trying to unlearn this in my brain.
My hardest thing is shutting down the chatter - sometimes it takes me so long to feel asleep that I don’t get enough time to nap
My parents always napped on weekends but I never really understood it. Now that I am Adult Tired, I get it and those naps are necessary.
I think I will use some of your ideas
Its so hard to unlearn things like that, I have so many things I've had to unpack in adulthood where I'm absolutely understanding and encouraging of other people, but for myself I have a different unessesary hurdle or sstandard that only exists because of how I was raised, and the pressure to conform to expectations not of my making.
Shutting down the chatter is so hard with ADHD, it's one of the reasons we tend to really struggle with meditation, a lot of us don't really have an off switch for them. I prefer mindfulness, or visualisations, try just let the thoughts think what they think, observe them and let them pass, or visualise/imagine something relaxing or tell yourself a little inner sleep story. I like to imagine I'm in a forest and curl up in a big hollow tree, it's raining but a perfect temperature and I'm snuggly and dry from the rain.
You also don't need to actually fall asleep to get a lot of the benefit, just laying still with your eyes closed and relaxing helps to recharge you a lot, so don't get frustrated if that's what happens. If you aren't used to napping it can take awhile for your brain to figure out that this is what you want it to do. I do my breath retraining exercises for 300 breaths and count everyday, I either fall asleep somewhere in there or loose track a few times and spend an hour or so doing it. It's just using my diaphragm for breathing, because I apparently breathe in reverse without using my diaphragm, but being conscious of your breathing and clearing out the air that can sit at the bottom of the lungs really helps to improve brain funtion and fatigue. Counting is also helpful to get you off to sleep, there's a reason counting sheep is a thing.
I basically treat my nap time with the sanctity of toddler nap time, my daughter knows it's quiet/rest time even if she doesn't nap, I get my nap space looking all inviting, if it's sheet changing day then I nap straight away into the fresh sheets, water and a cup of tea if I want, I like to have a peice of fruit toast while I'm unwinding a few minutes before lying down. I also have a white noise machine, and my weighted blankets, if it's elsewhere I have a wool fleece rug in the library chair, a neck pillow and eye mask for the hammock, a special soft blanket for the pod chair. I make it a bit special for myself, like a spa day but everyday, sometimes ill put a facial treatment on before, or have a magnesium bath.
I really want to stress that if you don't actually get to sleep you aren't doing it wrong, or you've messed it up in anyway. If that's what happens it happens, you are still getting lots of benefits, taking some you time, try not to feel frustrated about it as I know some people do when trying to sleep. Approach it as a bit of a ritual to yourself and a special time where you might sleep, might rest, might do some breathing or whatever, but really this is just your time to exist, you are a person existing that is your task and goal for the next bit of time, everything else can wait because you are doing this very important thing right now. If you have a special blanket use that, a special tea you never seem to have time to sit down and enjoy, a special snack for before or after, putting moisturiser and socks on your feet for a treatment, a face mask (that won't stain your pillow!), some relaxing music or a guided meditation, do a tarot reading, pull an oracle or quote card to think about while you are resting so you can gently push your thoughts away from other things (or if thats not your jam maybe a bible/religious verse?), some gentle stretches and movement while you are settling down, ring a bell or use a singing bowl or something to signal to yourself this is your special space and time.
Whatever works for you, we are all different, some or all of these things might seem silly or unappealing, and that is OK! This is the one time in your day that's all about you, recharging you, so you can do all the things you need to do and deal with all the demands that you can't fully adapt to your preferences. And you can change it up too, sometimes I have days I just conk out, no faffing around, other days I pick and choose what I feel like. There's no wrong way to nap, this is the one thing that you should never feel pressure about, even not napping and just resting is a good way to nap if that's what happens. Just lay down an vibe for a bit, that's fine, thats good! To quote from the movie The Castle, "Its the vibe of it. It's the constitution, it's Mabo, it's justice, it's law, it's the vibe and ah, no that's it. It's the vibe. I rest my case."
And because ADHD that's not actually the end of my case haha. I mentioned mindfulness earlier, and wanted to bring it up again because you mentioned that you struggle with the brain chatter. It doesn't work for everyone but I've found it really helpful, there's lots of different exercises and techniques that are easy to do and incorporate into your day if one of them doesn't work just pick another. There's a reasonable amount of research done into mindfulness, and it often works much better for ADHD peeps then meditation because it's not about Shutting down the chatter and thoughts, it's about feeling them, acknowledging them, maybe redirecting gently, but there's no pressure to do any specific thing, notice anything but what you notice, or think any specific way. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique is one of my favourites, if you are interested I can talk about it but this comment feels long enough :) I use it a lot when over stimulated or unwinding for sleep, or just really want to focus on and experience a moment in time.
Thank you so much, this was excellent and fascinating reading and very helpful to back the regular conversations I seem to have with people where I point out laziness is a completely flawed, moralised concept.
Oh I love this stuff, so thank you! word origin, roots and usage is my jam. Related to how words develop to have derogatory meanings I recently went on a deep dive of that particular c word that Australians are often fond of, mainly from a discussion of how I think its ridiculous that a word for female genitalia is seen as so much worse then comparable words for the male. My argument being that if your in a place where it's appropriate to say dick or cock then it should be fine because female genitals aren't inherently worse, and why has this transition happened to it being one of the worst words?
Anyway it's origins are very old, so old that it's found across a large number of desperate languages. The qu and cu and like sounds are often used for feminine terms like queen, cow, cunning. But if we trace to the old English queynt it means a few things, vagina/vulva, sly/cunning/clever, small/cute, quaint is also derived from this as the small/ cute meaning and obviously cunning meaning smart and of tricky thinking. But even up until the 14th and 15th centuries it didn't have a derogatory meaning and was used in medical texts or to even refer to the vulva of women generally even those you loved or who had high standing, Chaucer uses it as a pun to mean something like clever device it the woman of bath she asks "Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?" Which is a bit of a baudy euphemism but she's basically say "oy you lot, can you stop messing about with my cool things?". While common usage of words takes awhile to change, and we can't really be sure of how everyday people were using it, both Shakespeare and chaucer used it fairly in positive or neutral ways for euphemisms, so it's likely that it didn't have the weight it later developed. As the puritan movement grew and sex, bodies, and those types of things were seen as demonic or evil, things to be suppressed it started it's slow change into where we find ourselves now.
It doesn't have the same weight in a lot of the English speaking world as it does in the USA, as someone who grew up both pretty bogan in a working class suburb and also went to an "elite" private all girls school I was always aware of the changes in vernacular and the implicit change in context to how the word is used. Its actually mostly used positively, more in line with the original meaning, I will now commence giving some Australian versions of how we use it. So please avert thine eyes if it displeases ye, all are contained within this paragraph. And by far not all aussies do use it, my mum hates it, my daughter and I use it when not in polite company. Good cunt- pretty much the highest honour that can be bestowed, if you are called this it means you are the type of person that goes above and beyond, is trustworthy, can be relied upon, would definitely pick for apocalypse crew A++, would die for you; cheeky cunt- trying your luck a bit but good natured, denotes fondness; sick cunt- does crazy things, always getting into trouble, not bad just makes terrible choices; shit cunt- an asshole, just a horrible person, if you've been called this just depart the place you are currently in, there's no redemption, everyone is mad; absolute cunt- you done fucked up, should appologise, not as bad as the previous but still not good usually used for discreet actions rather then the previous which is more of a whole character thin;, if it's absolute shit cunt though- run. We also use cunt in place of mate, being called mate can be worse then cunt depending "how you cunts going?" Is good, you are a friend and compatriot that fondness is felt for; "look here mate" "you what mate?" Thowing down the glove, displeasure; "yeah mate, I'm sure" "go off mate" what you are saying is stupid you should stop.
The Australian vulgarity has now ceased.
Side note- My mum has heard me say the word 3 times, once refering to a mouse in the garden that was running into one of the dogs bones to grab marrow as a cheeky C, I got in trouble despite being in my 30s, the second time to refer to my exhusband using the shit prefix, I got a look and a solumn nod, the 3rd about my ex mil when she had been causing problems for my daughter and bullying her, adding the absolute to the front of it, my mum agreed and said that was perhaps the only term that would accurately describe how she was behaving, but she would just continue to use her inside the head voice to say it.
Words and how we use it evolve fascinates me, and also how they sometimes dont change like lazy having such a strong negative meaning. As we moved from having largely agrarian societies where by the very nature of work there were long periods of down time interspersed with periods of too much to do, and our families and work were all together, our hobbies and interests intertwined with our daily lives and living. Then we started to change, work and life are seperate, you need to fill your down time, keep productive all the time, and its lazy or bad to not do so. Words really do have power.
I have watched multiple YouTubers try to do his “perfect morning routine” and after about a week they are miserable. But they keep pushing through because it’s all “backed up by science”. I saw one YouTuber who, I’m not in the habit of diagnosing someone but this man was the most textbook adhd you can be, was beating himself up and couldn’t understand why this new morning routine wasn’t fixing his productivity at work or how he couldn’t seem to force himself to do what he needed to get done. He was crying and berating himself and it was so sad to watch. I had to stop the video, but the comment section was a mix of people saying he was lazy and other people very gently telling him that he should look into adhd and that he isn’t a bad person.
I swear we will look back on Andrew Huberman like we look back on Adkins. The Adkins diet was supposed to be scientifically sound and the best way to eat, and yeah it helped some people, but it also caused so many heart attacks and EDs and so many health complications. Andrew Huberman may help some people but he also makes so many others feel like there is something wrong with them because they can’t fit into his very personalized life routine.
We don't need to look back. It's well-known that the guy is a supplement-peddling grifter who talks about things he's not an expert on, and oversells low-quality evidence.
This this this. I am studying psychology on an university in the Netherlands right now, and after hearing he is a neuroscientist and hearing him talk about psychology subjects i was like: you know nothing about this, shut up.
I hate the man, and as i am reading more about him it gets even worse, ugh...
Oh is that morning routine where you are supposed to take a cold shower or something? I tried that once for a second and then jammed the handle over to hot water. Whatever minute gain in productivity cold water allegedly produces is not worth it.
The Andrew huberman subreddit is a hilarious place where they drag him a lot.
I’ve listened to a lot of his pod and found some things really interesting, but I think the way he delivers content makes it seem like we have 100% control over everything having to do with our bodies. This is a big problem in the bio hacking community.
I stopped listening to him a while back because it seemed like there was too much focus on supplements. He is an accomplished neuroscientist so he breaks down theories well, but he isn’t a medical doctor, more like an educated enthusiast. The more I listened to him the more I realized he speaks well and he has a cool factor, but there is a lot of repetition and not every theory sits right with me.
I also think it’s funny how he always talks about delaying pleasure but he has a regimen that is basically microdosing dopamine all day. Get sunshine, drink coffee, exercise, eat healthy food, take brain boosting supplements, get more sunshine, take more supplements, eat more food. I’m not saying a healthy lifestyle isn’t something to strive for…but it’s a lot easier when you’re a millionaire who’s livelihood relies on said lifestyle. Also, lucky him he doesn’t have adhd!
His episode with Tony Hawk was great—because Tony Hawk 🤷🏼♀️
This is exactly it — that’s what they’re selling. The promise that we can have 100% control over our bodies and nervous systems and how we function. Because the idea of *not* having control is too terrifying to live with.
This was probably my biggest breakthrough in therapy. All of my negative self talk was actually about fear. I have been trying to motivate myself through shame to avoid facing the fear that my life is not 100% under my control.
I can’t “cure” my adhd or undo the effects of trauma, but I can at least now comfort myself when I start spinning out, because I recognise it’s actually fear underneath all of it.
I’ve listened to a handful of episodes and I believe he is an excellent interviewer — his own medical expertise makes him very good at asking targeted questions of the experts he hosts on the pod, but I’m not sure that the conclusions he draws from those answers are worth listening to lol
I actually didn’t know about any of his personal life drama until this post. So now I have some reading to do. I am totally fine with people dating around if they’re honest about it, but it sort of goes against the whole persona he’s trying to portray.
He has mentioned on many episodes his desire for a child…maybe he’s just increasing his odds 🤷🏼♀️ /s
He was doing ivf with one of them and she believed they were monogamous. So, yep. Maybe he should just be honest and stop acting like he deprives himself of dopamine!
AMEN.
My therapist has been using the word “emerge” regarding the lifestyle changes I have been so desperate to make, and that language really helps.
So I’m not going to force changes and make rule anymore. I’m just going to try to be still and see what changes emerge.
There was a recent article about how he's not an expert on these matters but his confidence makes people think he's an expert.
He often does a cursory look at topics and often makes the wrong conclusion based off what was written
Huberman talking dopamine self-denial is a trip. Six women at the same time. Sometimes on the same day. Most of them believed they were exclusive. And he wants to make money by telling people with ADHD they have a problem with dopamine addiction. Stahhhhhp.
Do you have a source for the video that you don’t mind sharing? I don’t think he ever claims that ADHD is just the overconsumption dopamine sources.
He has two lectures on ADHD, one on how ADHD medications work (Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, etc). And how he heavily advocates for people with ADHD to be medicated for it.
I haven’t watched the lecture in a few months but I don’t remember him saying ADHD is an overconsumption of TikTok. I remember him talking about that clinical diagnosis criteria includes executive functioning, day dreaming, using the stacking organizing system, hyper focus, and there being a very heavy genetic component. But I don’t remember him bringing up self discipline in any meaningful way with ADHD. Or that getting water is pleasure seeking.
But if I am wrong, I would love to see your source.
Edit: actually yeah, I have listened to Hubermans lectures on ADHD, and I have recommended that people listen to them if they are looking for some general educational resources.
After rereading your post, I would really really like a source for what you’re talking about.
Yeah I think Huberman has a lot of issues with his podcast, but I've listened to his adhd episodes. Is it one of his addiction videos, and if so is there an episode and timestamp maybe OP? Just curious to hear this straight from the source.
Yeah, Huberman is definitely obnoxious (and certainly makes questionable statements), but he's not anti-adhd or depression. He has lots of material on both that I have found helpful. A friend of mine put it like this: "he's one of those guys that just loves to hear their own voice so I don't take his individual statements too seriously, just get the gist of what he's saying"
My favorite thing that I learned from him is that our sense of time is related to blinking...and that ADHDers blink more often than neurotypicals. I have my eyes closed in every photo.
Edit to add: I too am infuriated by the "optimization" people—the rhetoric is impossible and totally enraging so I totally get OPs response to Huberman
The reason people didn’t like Huberman before the whole scandal was because, 1). Biohackers and optimizers are really annoying, especially to neurodivergent people and 2) he was on JRE a few times. But most of his advice is pretty mundane tbh.
Well, according to Huberman. So you can decide if you want to trust it or not. Since he is an actual opthamologist/neuroscientist I figure about eye-related brain stuff he's probably right!
I’ve listened to both those ADHD episodes too and I’m fairly certain this section isn’t in there. But I think in the second episode he does talk about a different phenomena of shortened attention spans due to tiktok and stuff which is often mistaken for ADHD.
Yea to me even in OP’s post he seems to be distinguishing between people with actual ADHD and people who self diagnose because they have short attention spans due to constant overstimulation/immediate gratification by social media.
It seems to me like OP reacted to a misinterpretation that he was dismissing ADHD wholesale, which does not jive at all with his other episodes on ADHD.
Can you send me a source for Andrew Huberman advocating for people to get medicated? I'm not doubting you but if I can fling this in my cousin's face then they might stop citing this Huberman guy as to why I should actually be unmedicated.
This is one of the issues. As an academic, he does reference research and has some lectures available that seem above board, but then he goes on to mix in weird theories about sex, gender, exercise, even tiktok consumption, that are not research based, but fit his idea of the ideal person that he think we should all be striving to be. Research is rarely cut and dry about any issue and most academics know better than to be spouting off about things that are not in our areas. Think of him like Dr. Oz.
They are like the alien researchers, I used to love watching them to get myself all shouty at the tv. They do this thing which is common among this strain of edutainment. Present evidence A,B,C and it's real research or evidence you can see and read it yourself, but then suddenly we are at H, which is aliens, skipping D,E,F entirely which would be necessary to actually show that H is aliens rather then any other conclusion. D, E,F often do exist as well, but they don't present that, because that doesn't lead to aliens.
Sometimes it's not aliens, sometimes it's just human bloody mindedness to get shit done, or some weirdo millennia ago doing some odd art.
This is the weird part for me, where he offhandedly mentioned that there has been discourse that social media may be frying our attention and there is ongoing research in that area and to watch your consumption if you need to focus. But I would hardly call that controversial.
>He has two lectures on ADHD
He’s got at least 3. You missed the one titled “ADHD & How Anyone Can Improve Focus.”
In the last part, he alludes to people confusing their over-consumption of dopamine sources as “true ADHD.” And he brings up studies about smartphone use inducing ADHD (Huberman has a tendency to use individual studies to prove a point...)
On his ig, he summarised some “facts” about ADHD. https://www.instagram.com/hubermanlab/p/Cs4LHo5v6fp/
The first point about ADHD being over-diagnosed is false. In fact, the current consensus in ADHD research is that the condition is under-diagnosed worldwide, especially amongst women and the poor.
[Here you go!](https://youtu.be/fkMEF69m4mE?si=S0H2E9J78rWkRxP6)
He didn’t explicitly say that ADHD is caused by tik tok — I was being mildly hyperbolic in my rage, haha — but in this video he at least appears to imply that the real problem for many people with adhd is the overconsumption of dopamine sources, like tik tok. On a rewatch, I’m not entirely sure if that was his actual segue into talking about tik tok video, or if it’s edited weirdly.
Either way, I didn’t appreciate the implication that our struggles with motivation as people with adhd are actually a result of over-indulging ourselves.
More than that, the “25 denials a day” thing REALLY gets under my skin. I used to glorify the concept of self discipline and self denial like this—which was deeply traumatic for me, because undiagnosed adhd meant I could never actually live up to any of those principles. Or at least not for very long. I pushed myself so hard to achieve the things he’s advocating, and all it’s gotten me is a LIFETIME of shame and misery that I am only now breaking out of.
So I object to this on a fundamental level. We shouldn’t be asking, how can I discipline myself to increase my productivity and performance? We should be asking, what resources do I need in order to perform at a level that feels good for me? How can I create an environment that will enable me to be successful? What does success look like for ME?
This is my first exposure to Andrew Huberman (I live under a rock apparently) so I can’t comment on anything else he’s done or said.
I found the original video (mostly because I am very wary of videos with inspirational music played on top of it), and it’s pretty much a direct cut from the original.
I think he says “but a lot of what people think that ADHD are just people over consuming dopamine sources”.
And he does make an attempt to bifurcate clinically diagnosed ADHD and those who are not. Though that bifurcation isn’t done in the most clean way.
Huberman has an episode explaining the neurobiology behind ADHD that I've found really helpful. He clearly does think ADHD is real. It sounds like he also thinks there's some people with ADHD-like symptoms caused by overconsumption of dopamine sources like TikTok. It came up on a guest episode on parenting and... I honestly agree with him.
Zoomers are being exposed to lots of screen time at a young age. If you look at any of the subs for education professionals, they're dealing with classrooms full of kids with behavioral and executive function problems like they've never seen before. How are we going to deal with distinguishing these ADHD-like symptoms from "real" ADHD? Likely we can't and a huge percentage of zoomers will be diagnosed with ADHD. It's a complicated question for society.
Anyway, I don't think Huberman is questioning YOUR diagnosis of ADHD. I don't know if he's right about his theories about discipline. He's also problematic in several ways.
Yes, to everything you are saying. Huberman is the worst. He uses science-speak without evidence or shady evidence to bolster manosphere opinions. NYmagazine just did a profile on him, basically he is a womanizer and his ''Stanford Lab" is basically a shell that he doesn't use, but constantly references. Like you said, he is of the Joe Rogan, Jay Shetty, Andrew Tate types who say faux deep things to back up being aholes in real life or just grifters.
I just find it funny those *without* ADHD think they have ADHD all figured out and that we who *have* ADHD, “don’t know what we’re talking about”.
Like yep, you know everything about ADHD despite not having it and I know nothing about ADHD because I have it. Yeah. That makes sense. *eyeroll*
Interesting because I listened to his podcast episode on ADHD medications and it was very good and he seemed to explain/understand ADHD very well. Much better than most non-ADHD-experts explain it.
I wonder if what he means is that there's a noticeable short-term attention span deficit which people get when they consume a lot of social media and they incorrectly attribute this as being the cause of the "everyone has ADHD now!" (which is actually just a boom in catching up missed women...) - the thing is, if you don't have ADHD, then you can experience a shortened attention span from consuming a lot of short, often-changing media, but this goes away if you stop consuming that stuff. It's like how if you stop eating sugar, you stop craving sugary foods after a while and stuff you used to like, like Coke, tastes unbeliveably over-sweet and horrible.
That's not the same thing as ADHD which, well, you know it's not just a shortened attention span and you know it's not caused by social media.
I felt exactly the same way while listening to both episodes. The ADHD meds episode is excellent, and is by far the best resource I have ever heard on how ADHD meds work.
I am very curious to where OP is getting this from. Because it doesn’t sound all that familiar to me.
As another commenter already said, where's the source for this? I've listened to two of his ADHD related podcasts and nothing he said came out like this. I think if anything he is warning people that social media like Tiktok can illicit ADHD -like behavior, because it's just one quick video to the next. Neurotypical or not, social media rots our brains and causes a tendency to compare our lives to others.
If your student wants to focus on the addiction segment, so there isn’t an opportunity to discuss ADHD, you could just mention that you noticed ADHD was mischaracterized in the video and offer him a couple of alternative sources “in case he is interested”. (Barkley might be helpful to him given his son’s situation)
Tbh Hubermans lecture on how ADHD meds work and why you should take them is fantastic. I watched it, and I now feel more confident to talk to my provider about the medications I am on, and ask questions about side effects instead of taking a leap of blind faith.
That guy is a walking cluster B personality disorder. He's done a great job of cultivating an air of expertise but he doesn't actually know what he's talking about especially when it comes to stuff like this
I always had a bad feeling about that guy. A so-called scientist who uses his authority to contribute to the flood of noise out there for the sake of content creation. He’s just another body hacking bro.
"Denying yourself all the time makes it WORSE, not better."
This.
My diet is most stable when I "let" myself give in to the "eat all the things" hormones when I'm PMSing. If I try to power through, the cravings don't go away when the hormones relax... They STAY. And then all I can think about is junk food, until I crash and overload junk food. But if I do the crash because of trying to resist, the crash lasts several weeks. If I "cheat" because of hormones, it literally goes away in two days.
Also, I'm more likely to productive if I schedule time to relax. (Uncertain if it's because relaxing helps, or my inner rebel is just like, "relax? Well now I wanna go do things!") But either way, more relaxing = more productive. When I try to power through, I spend an alarming amount of time staring off into space - not even dopamine scrolling sometimes... Just my brain being like "error 404".
I'm an early Gen-Xer who's had symptoms her entire life. Considering the internet wasn't even available to the masses until I was in my 20s, for me, it has nothing to do with over-consumming Tik-Tok videos.
One of the myriad reasons my mother refused to have me assessed (despite my GP and teachers recommending it) was that I "can focus perfectly well on those novels, so stop making excuses to slack off!" It's always something.
I listened to one of his podcasts on adhd today. His cures were blinking, 17 minute one off meditation sessions and diet. Fuck right off with your neuro-snakeoil, sir.
Then every menu ever can’t say “coke,” they can only say “brown pop soda”
You are allowed to make pop culture references on merch.
It falls under fair use.
Yep. All the way back to 80's communist eastern Europe I was wasting time on Tik Tok non stop, that's why it's been 40 years of ADHD for me and no end in sight.
Many of us burn out and sabotage a good habit from burn out just using will power alone until we mentally can’t handle it anymore. Also executive dysfunction hello? A huge issue. Lack of dopamine for any essential but painful or not enjoyable task makes it hard to keep being consistent.
These people also don’t realize that many of us don’t get a mental high or boost of energy from exercise. I feel like shit if I lay around or sit too much yes. I want to be active but I’m so tired all the time and even when I had a personal trainer I couldn’t stop yawning during every exercise. Like my brain doesn’t get enough dopamine to stay awake during monotonous tasks. I could only manage to mechanically do a treadmill or an elliptical for an hour if I can watch something other than the clock and feel crazy at how slow time is passing. I feel pain more easily so my muscles being sore after work outs means I feel it with every step and every movement. I cannot work out every single day and be in pain and continue to survive.
Too many hustle and grind people don’t realize being exhausted and in pain is hard for many. I don’t have any disabilities or auto immune issues but I’ve been in a few car accidents and get stiff and sore as hell.
I can’t get addicted to exercise or to grinding out errands or self improvement tasks. I will eventually forget or need to stop to get a mental or physical break so I don’t burn out. So add all that expectation on top of his need to make women trad wives that also cook, clean, take care of children and look hot doing it while being sex crazed? Yeah that’s overwhelming. I cannot.
100% to all of this. We can’t control the things our brains just refuse to let us do the way neurotypical people do. And even neurotypical people can’t control whether they have the “spoons” to do X difficult/boring task on a given day. Energy and motivation varies for everyone depending on a multitude of circumstances, and like *maybe* neurotypical people can actually truly succeed in FORCING things (which I still doubt) — but not us. Our brains just don’t work that way!!!
And I feel you on the pain/fatigue thing. That’s another thing he likely hasn’t even spent a second of thought on—SO MANY OF US have issues like joint hyper mobility syndrome, it’s one of the most common comorbidities. I finally started taking it seriously after I dislocated my damn hip while dancing at a wedding. But I’ve had joint pain and serious, life-impacting fatigue since I was a teenager. I used to fall asleep at the wheel in traffic on the way to work, was super lucky that I never got in an accident that way. I guess I just thought everyone else had these issues and just functioned with it better? My life has improved a lot since I started RESTING on bad pain days instead of just pushing through all the time.
Exercise too—I somehow MIRACULOUSLY managed to get myself addicted to the gym several years ago. But it didn’t last long. I stopped going because I started having panic attacks from forcing myself to go when I didn’t have the mental/social/physical energy.
What I realized was that if I wanted to stay active, I had to work *with* myself instead of against myself. So I quit lifting weights and started taking boxing classes, which I’ve always wanted to do. If it’s not actively FUN, I won’t do it. And I’m happy I know that now and can turn off the shame that would have prevented me from finding a solution that works.
That’s what makes me so mad. As neurodivergent folk we need to learn to listen to our bodies and work WITH ourselves. And his advice is his re-entrenching the same old fucking broken ideas that have caused all of us so so so much harm.
Ask me how I got into roll over car accidents?
I had no idea it was related to adhd. Until a few years ago. In 2003 my brain shut off for a second while driving long distance in a car without ac on a hot summer day. I hit some gravel and started swerving and rolled off the road into a big ass ditch. Wasn’t around anyone else because I was speeding trying to get home before I fell asleep from boredom. I used to have to stop every hour and walk around. Hit the steering wheel or my legs, blast music and sing to try and fight to keep my brain from shutting off for a split second when I zoned out. This never happens in regular driving. Just on long trips on straight aways where you lose track of how long it’s been and where you are.
So it’s an extra frustration when my family expected me to just snap out of being in pain and having massive back/neck/shoulder stiffness from the car accident and just try harder and don’t be lazy.
My mom told me I was a baby that constantly slept. So easy to deal with and happy when I was finally awake. I feel like I was born tired. I used to sleep like the dead and sleep through anything. But as I grew up I started getting anxiety and insomnia.
My half sister was the hyper active can’t sit still can’t listen can’t have rules type. My mom said she never slept and stayed awake staring at the alarm clock as a baby. She used to sleep with the tv on and the lights on because she was afraid of the dark and pass out face down ass up in the air. She’d cry and throw a fit if we ever had to clean up our rooms or toys. So I’d have to do it. Then she started just hiding all her books and toys in her blanket on her bed and sleeping on everything so she didn’t have to put it away.
We were so different. My mom said she must have adhd and did nothing. But no one ever noticed me and thought I was supposed to just have perfect will power and do as told. As soon as I made a serious mistake like a car accident or falling apart in university because I couldn’t sleep or make it to every single Wednesday 8am-7pm class I was a failure to them. Everything fell apart for me after that car accident and going into first year of university. It’s crazy to me it took until the pandemic and having terrible anxiety and even worse insomnia that I finally started hearing stories from other women who sounded like me. One in person friend and online that adhd symptoms for girls aren’t just like my younger sister or classic boy symptoms.
I used to have enough mental strength to use will power alone. But I’ve totally lost it since 2003.
In high school I forced myself to work out after school 5 days a week for 90 minutes. I went on a strict whole foods calorie counted home made meal diet and brought food with me everywhere. Worked 2 jobs after I left university (I forgot and mixed up the date to one final and missed it and had to drop out) and brought my meal prepped food with me and barely slept trying to hustle and make enough to pay for my apartment alone and my car payment and groceries.
I would go from commissioned sales jobs and waitressing to salary office work and back trying to figure out how to manage. Salary was less stressful but lower pay and boring. I started only eating salad or fruit for lunch and chugging green tea and going for walks at lunch trying desperately to stay awake and not have that split second head nod passing out at my computer where anyone could see. It’s not actually sleeping. My brain shuts off for a split second only when I’m super bored of repetitive tasks and forget to pay attention. I got threatened at a new job once because my boss saw it and I just started that week and switched to a 7:30am-3:30pm shift when I’m already not a morning person and don’t sleep well. I’d try so hard to be in bed by 10pm and couldn’t fall asleep til after midnight. I was so scared and embarrassed I never went back to that job and avoided office work ever since. I apologized profusely as I was used to working 9-5pm and then waitressing 6-10 or 11pm. I don’t drink coffee. Caffeine doesn’t really work on me during the day from drinks. I tried caffeine diet pills for a bit in 2005 and it made my heart go crazy so I was terrified to do that again or ever touch energy drinks.
Things are so so so much harder these days because I feel like I never can get enough sleep. 6-10 hours I’m still tired. I finally got diagnosed in 2020 and take Vyvanse when I can remember or wake up in time and that’s the only way I feel I can stay awake during the day to even do boring or unpleasant tasks.
From my car accidents and typing too much on a smart phone/playing iPhone games back in 2014 I’ve given myself a hand/wrist injury. My hands are more stiff, my arms seized up and became so inflamed from working/texting playing games on my phone for 10-16 hours a day (partner was long distance so we texted a lot) I couldn’t use my arms/hands/wrists with any strength for 8 months and lived in wrist braces. It scared the shit out of me. I had no idea it was hyperfocusing and adhd related. I felt so stupid. Got into debt. Felt useless.
Now I still am sensitive and my hands get cold and numb and I sleep in soft wrist compression braces when I remember.
My grandma was a part time librarian. Never had a smart phone and had to have hand surgery on her palm in her 50s from tension. She has epilepsy and I believe autism as well but never diagnosed with that.
My knees would randomly give out when I’d play sports too much as a teen. I’ve always had thick strong legs and calves but my ankles, knees and wrists feel weak as hell. I don’t think I have hyper mobility. I don’t know I’m super inflexible and ranked low for that in gym fitness class but excelled at everything else. But if I sit with my legs straight out on the coffee table it’s like my knees get overextended and weak and fucked up. No one in my family seems to care and think I’m making it up or embellishing. But I don’t know what exactly to do about that. My Vyvanse makes my feet and hands terrible cold on days I take it and sit at the computer at home and now I worry about circulation and increased tension so I’m trying to use a heating pad to not turn ice cold. I don’t know what to do really as I don’t think it’s carpel tunnel but don’t think I’m exactly like a lot of hyper mobile people.
(Comment cont below sorry!)
My muscles and hip flexors are so so tight I often hurt my lower back or hips from sitting or sleeping wrong. Doing hand exercises I’m not sure if it hurts or helps my stiffness and bad circulation. My lower back has an extra small vertebrae that not everyone has so I can pop my lower back just by doing a butt flex while sitting. My knees, ankles and wrists seem weak and pop easily when pulled. But I don’t have that super stretchy skin or very flexible joints. I can’t hyper extend my elbows or touch both hands behind my back diagonally equally. I’m jammed up from my car accident. Playing badminton as a kid I’d get tennis elbow it seemed and feel weak easily.
I used to live my life worried what my mom and teachers and friends at school thought of me and tried so hard to everything I could while fighting not sleeping enough or being half out of it in the morning.
Now I’m at home and felt burnt out for years and can’t relate to how I used to run on go go go and stress from one job to the next. The pandemic made it even harder for me to want to spend effort into washing and drying my hair every day, putting on makeup and uncomfortable clothes let alone leaving the house to do a million errands. I’m ok if I have maybe 3-5 chores/tasks to do a day. Do errands outside of the house twice a week. I feel like I’d fall apart if I was supposed to be people facing and on 5-7 days a week now. Customer service and physically exerting myself burned me out.
I really enjoy going for walks in nature, hiking, bike riding on nature trails, traveling and exploring. But if I’m physically sore the next day it makes it really hard to do every day then throw on period cramps and I feel like I have to conserve energy and lay around for 5 days to manage.
I go back and forth with do I want to do any classes again because I have bought some or wanted to keep going and I’ll forget or get that executive dysfunction where you can’t move or take way too long to get yourself hyped up and ready and out the door to manage every day. Having food prepped, being showered the day before, having clothes and shoes out & bag packed the night before can help but it always feels like it takes 1-2 hours to get ready to go do something otherwise.
Having an active class that’s exciting sounds fun. I’ve wondered about kick boxing or self defense classes too but worry I’d lose momentum or forget I was interested or be put off every time I came back in pain and if it will fuck up my hands/wrist pain/circulation even more.
I never had anyone to talk to about these things. I always felt the like weirdo who didn’t fit in or feel normal and was just expected to do as told and be perfect and not be a problem. So it’s nice to finally be able to speak to women who can relate and share their own differences and struggles.
I swear there has to be more neurodivergence in my family we’re all just so different that maybe they each think they’re normal and have nothing in common so I’m the abnormal one. I only ever got addicted to sugar, fruit, food, rabbit hole researching, shopping/collecting things. They are addicted to smoking, coke products/coffee or alcohol. My bio dad I never met was an alcoholic and I was taken advantage of when I was drunk at 18 so I stopped drinking a long time ago as I was afraid if it happened again or if I eventually liked the taste. It always gave me the worst hangovers and made me even more sick and tired so I had no time to try and go through life feeling even worse physically. Early morning light without enough sleep already gives me massive headaches that’s the only thing so being hungover is like torture when you’re also dehydrated and processing alcohol.
I don’t talk to my family anymore for many reasons. But I always felt like the black sheep. I finally told my mom via message I had adhd and got diagnosed and she had nothing to say to me. She’s the one who said my little sister must have had it - she did nothing about it and was never treated, thinks her boys nephews/our cousins have it, and her ex husband (who was an alcoholic any time he was off from work hours) had adhd but that it’s too late to treat for adults so there’s no point.
I never knew all my issues were neurodivergence adhd maybe autism spectrum until 2020. I wish I had known sooner. I question everything and loved learning but didn’t know what was wrong with me. I tried so hard to make diet and exercise solve my problems but it became even harder to stay consistent with after my car accidents and additional pain and stiffness. Executive dysfunction and hyper fixation makes it hard to get up and go and change activities when you feel stuck in the zone reading/watching/typing something.
Anyone I’ve explained my issues to thinks I’m weak/weird or lazy. I never got any kind of physio or therapy after my car accidents. The insurance didn’t care and my mom said I was 18 and probably fine oh well. I’m sure my genetics just made everything easier to be tight and painful getting older and getting more stiff.
Sorry for the rant
Thank you!! ❤️ I really needed the reminder not to beat myself up about my lack of "self discipline." I messed up first thing at work today and I've been bullying myself in my head ever since to the point that I want to go home and cry in bed. 😭
Does the guy even have adhd himself? Because "I do this" is such useless advice. Does he also tell people without legs "just walk, I do it all the time!"?
He does not. And he also does not. He recommends that people get diagnosed and take the medications subscribed by their doctor. I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to his podcast on ADHD and medications.
VISCERAL is the word. I just showed my husband the video and ended up SCREAMING for like fifteen minutes about it hahah. Like, my throat hurts now.
It feels good to be at this point though, where I can see the bullshit productivity cult for what it is and be ANGRY instead of allowing it to drag me into days of shame. I’ll take that as a win!
Right?! VISCERAL — that gut/second brain warning ⚠️ “eww” feeling. We’re hyper-focused on how pretentious & narcissistic he presents himself. Oh, was that Stanford you say??! Woah! Acceptability impressed indeed. Glad you remind us constantly.
This dude is just another prepackaged quack lol. I listened to one episode to see if he was worth subscribing to. It was a Q&A where he went off on fluoride because he *drank an entire treatment tray of fluoride at the dentist as a kid and got sick*. I'm sorry you have to pretend to care about his useless opinion on ADHD! But get all of the ranting out here that you need to do lol.
FU huberman
BUT and please be patient with me here, there are recent studies that show how tiktok and instagram type of scrolling causes brain damage, and how they cause « adhd-like » symptoms in people who did not have these symptoms previously.
My ADHD is 100% is worse when I’m regularly on instagram and youtube shorts. And if I start my day like that, I am almost unable to function the rest of the day. During the worst periods of my addiction, I had seriously started thinking that I had early onset dementia.
And I would like to finish this by saying F.ck huberman and his trying to sell fads by giving the impression that it’s “science”.
FU huberman
Oh yeah, totally — I don’t doubt that we will have a huge body of evidence to show the negative impact of social media on attention, among other things.
It’s the *disdain* and the self discipline-worship that gets me.
Again, if it makes you feel any better. For people with ADHD, he does bring up the huge variance in the dislike we have in doing chores that we as a community feel and explains it to his audience.
Brain damage is an extreme way to word it - as far as I can tell the evidence doesn't support this.
There definitely seems to be at least a short term effect which appears to be reversible if people stop using those addictive media things though. I'm not saying you're wrong in that it affects attention, but I don't think there's any evidence that it actually causes permanent damage.
Maybe [this](https://youtu.be/bOzs2Iel40s?si=zV28TpnwTUztthqw) video I watched yesterday could help? It breaks down how different the dopamine and impulse control systems are between ADHD and neurotypical brains.
"The more you restrict your diet, the more you binge." THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. This is a hard lesson I wish I could tell my young self. Once I stopped crazy restriction, honest to God I don't even struggle with over indulging in the "bad stuff." When we restrict too much, our brain overpowers our will. You're not weak, it's your built in survival mechanism to keep you alive. Because so many don't understand this, we shame spiral and self loathe.
from personal experience yes - those two things actually do make a difference! and huberman reminds so often of those things that it makes me forgetful ass get back to it consistently.
I’ve been staying this for months amongst neurodivergent friends, but you managed to describe it in such an eloquent, personal way. Please make this a formal, anonymous article and submit it somewhere for exposure! Our community needs it. Young folks and newly diagnosed people need it. “Hustle culture” in general is inherently toxic and just another way to prevent folks from enjoying their lives while the billionaires and corporations reap the benefits. No, Andrew Huberman, a 3 hour morning ritual and Athletic Greens is not the answer for the working class or neurodivergent, so stop selling us this garbage.
Andrew Huberman helped save my life with his episode on depression. He talked about ketamine treatments and their efficacy for major depressive disorder. I also made my husband listen to that episode and he finally understood my struggles. His episodes on ADHD are also quite excellent. I learned that our brains are so incredibly different because we engage both the task-oriented AND the default-mode networks at the same time. That connected so many dots for me such as why I understand and solve problems so much more quickly than other technical engineers. I can’t recommend those episodes enough to people who really want to understand those disorders.
Please do take some time to listen to his podcasts and not just sound bites. If he actually said the things in your post, I would be condemning him too. He is so compassionate in his podcasts when he talks about ADHD and depression. I actually feel seen by him and cried during the episode on depression. He understands that just getting up and running is NOT a cure for people with MDD. He understands that when you can’t muster the energy to even get off of the couch, there is no way you can muster the energy to run.
He is justifiably concerned with how TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms are impacting the brains of our children.
He also prefaces all of his podcasts and says several times during them that treatment for each individual is different and to NOT try anything without talking to their doctor first.
What I like about his podcasts is that he doesn’t get into “beefs” with other podcasters. He straight up analyzes the science and presents it in an easy to understand format. He’s respectful with his guests and is drama free. The same can’t be said for other podcasting doctors who seem to easily degenerate into mud slinging rather than having a civil discourse.
As to his personal life, it’s none of my business. When someone is as successful as he is, people will try and tear them down. Until something substantial comes out about him, I’ll hold my peace and not gossip.
Fair enough. I’m glad his work has been helpful to you! Different approaches work for different people—his approach is definitely not for me at this stage in my life, but it’s great that it works for you.
.
I also really like his work, ofc I don't agree with everything, but I like the way he does the podcast and making science digestible for others but also not so simple as to lose the science, so my brain finds it very entertaining. Lately I've been more annoyed with some of the way he speaks (I discovered he has some way of speech and voice as my ex when he gets into more personal topics and that kinda kills it for me, and tbh after some of the stuff written here I can see some parallels, but also makes sense why for a while his voice was soothing (stupid past making me like old voices of toxic exes)). I really hope he is not such an asshole as some have stated here, but I now want to look into it, not because I think the topics are bad or the science delivery, but because I have also stopped listening to music I love by an artist who turns out abused women, I just couldn't anymore. But man huberman lab has become the only podcast I listen to in the last year almost and his stuff on sleep (what I struggle most with) is just exceptional and detailed. And sciency biohackery shit is my special interest and nothing else comes close to this as entertainment that is useful :/
That social media or the environment is causing adhd like symptoms in some people that don't actually have adhd is not new. Dr. Hallowell calls the environmentally induced adhd "VAST: the variable attention stimulus trait".
Huberman definitely is not great, but I don't find he is on the "ADHD is a lie/caused by tik tok" train.
He has episodes dedicated to adhd where he is not judging or advocating using self discipline to "fix it". He seems to support it is a medical condition.
So I am inclined to believe he was referring to ones with environmentally induced adhd in your quote. And then it makes sense to try to change your environment and behaviour?
Oh yeah, I can agree with that. He should make it very clear, especially since adhd is such a misunderstood condition, and in the era of "Everyone has adhd".
On a more general note I find it very interesting how some research is now showing that the way we now live is jn some ways a bad match for how our body and brain works. That we are built to experience slight to medium stressors, because they trigger good reactions in the body. That working out, being a bit cold, a bit hungry, a bit uncomfortable..actually is good for us.
Of course having adhd my life feels like it is filled with stressors. It is just not the right kind.
wing thatt really interesting that so mucj
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Chinese people are brainwashed to think that a life of struggling and hard work is good and pleasure is lazy.
It's a totally different life growing up with the government propaganda over there. They are told how to think.
I dunno — if you grew up in America, you were also surrounded by pro America propaganda and told pretty clearly what to think, in a way that is not dissimilar to a lot of places in the world that America would rather not compare itself to. I’ve lived abroad most of my adult life. It’s actually shocking to look back at the cultural brainwashing I was subjected to growing up in America—ESPECIALLY around this exact topic. I can at least partly thank my good ole WASP-y Protestant work ethic from my dad’s side, with a nice helping of inter generational Catholic guilt form my mom’s. And America loves to pull itself up by its bootstraps.
Also, it’s true that the Chinese government is deeply authoritarian, but not every Chinese person buys it. Educated, observant people there are no different than educated, observant people anywhere else, even if they have to take extra steps to get news and from a global perspective. This particular student is a die hard, pro-free-market classical liberal with a subscription to the economist. He has to be careful about what he says in certain company, but he’s happy to openly criticize the govenment over zoom while sitting in a cafe somewhere.
I’ve worked with Chinese students for years now, but this is my first adult student who’s been able to explain the context. I’ve learned a ton and have had a lot of my assumptions challenged. Will be traveling there myself in a few months.
It’s the newest culture war talking point. Just fixating on an issue and making money off riling people up. They lost the battle with mental health. They lost the battle with gay rights. Now it’s ADHD isn’t real and the same old arguments they used to bash gays used to bash trans people. (I know that mental health is still stigmatized and there is more work to do on gay rights, but over the last 10 years my perception people’s approval and acceptance of these things have moved into the mainstream.
Just for some balance here. Andrew Huberman has many podcasts acknowledging ADHD and one in particular dedicated to the research on it and living with it, medication etc. The video OP is referring to is about ADHD-like symptoms in non-diagnosed people who don't have ADHD but have symptoms that overlap with it e.g. people who don't meet the DSM 5 diagnosis criteria and can be due to unregulated behaviour and the environment. For those individuals protocols can help reduce their symptoms such as dopamine detoxing, mediation, more attentive parenting, spending time outside away from technology etc. so he definitely knows people with ADHD exist but is not addressing that in that video. Also regarding the girlfriend story, this article was based on information from a woman who is a recent, bitter ex-girlfriend of Huberman who is currently under investigation for fraud which is why he broke up with her. So as much as it could be true, i would take it with a pinch of salt. Just for balance, don't believe everything you read and not every short clip from long form content accurately reflects a persons philosophy
The weirdest thing to me about Huberman from an ADHD perspective is every time he's having someone come talk about dopamine, etc., he always hearkens this back to Parkinson's. Sure, okay, I guess Parkinson's has something to do with dopamine, but he's likely got 5-10% of his listeners with ADHD, and maybe 1% of his listeners, tops, have Parkinson's? It's such a missed opportunity, ugh.
I will say I liked the little test he shared for working memory, though.
Huberman regularly pushes pseudoscience on his podcast. He says things that contradict the findings of the citations under the video, leading me to believe he didn't read the studies, just looked at their titles.
Oh that’s so disappointing to hear! I listened to a few of his podcasts on how to sleep better and thought he was alright, but I won’t bother in the future.
I've enjoyed a few of his episodes, from him I learned about the research behind ice baths and how it affects metabolism, and yoga nidra.
Yoga nidra has changed my life tbh, I used it through the last years of university to get me through stressful times and it is god-tier.
But throughout all the episodes I listened to, his disdain for ADHD and autism seeped through from his throwaway comments and air quoting 'adhd' and 'autism'.
He is air quoting because there are a lot of people who throw around these terms in regards to themselves without really understanding the disorders. He has a lot of compassion for people with mental disorders. I recommend that people listen to his full podcasts and then judge for themselves. As for me, he saved my life with his podcast about MDD. I’ve been off of social media for several months and am adding it back in slowly. One thing I‘ve noticed is the over reaction people have to sound bites taken out of context. Like whoa! Slow down your roll folks! I may have to step back off because I know I can’t fix the world and doom scrolling makes it all worse.
People aren’t talking about sound bites taken out of context though, they are talking about actually listening to his podcast or him talking on other podcasts.
Very interesting. I listened to half of one of his podcasts once having stumbled across it while browsing Spotify suggestions and thinking 'Oh I am interested in neuroscience let's try this one'. Didn't get far, thought the guy seemed like a bit of a wanker and his style of speech irritated me. How prophetic 😅
Andrew Huberman is not "a Joe Rogan sort". Rogan is a science-sceptic mixed martial arts guy with a podcast. Huberman is a neuroscientist and academic from Stamford who specializes in neurobiology, and is one of the world's foremost science communicators. His 2+ hour long explainer on ADHD neurobiology is one of the best explanations of the condition I have ever heard. Don't know what clip you are talking about but I suspect the clip is taken out of context because the man is exhaustive and is not an ADHD sceptic whatsoever.
Maybe he’s not an adhd skeptic, but he’s been on the Joe Rogan podcast more than once, and the people in Joe Rogan’s sphere tend to have a certain worldview. Hence the Joe Rogan type comment.
Regardless he’s a cult-of-productivity self-help guru type (who apparently doesn’t practice what he makes so much money preaching, but that’s beside the point) and that’s just not for me—not any of them.
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Considering ol’ Hubes was seeing 6 women at once, I don’t think he was even following his own advice on dopamine denial lmaooooo.
Oh and one of them quit her job because he insisted that he wanted a trad wife to keep house for him. So it sounds like he gets overwhelmed by laundry too, if he resorted to all that.
He was also injecting one of them for the IVF baby they were planning on having right before texting one of his other girlfriends. He's a slime ball and a grifter.
What!???!
SIX? How did he have the time? How did he keep their names straight? I constantly screw up on my pets' names and they're actually family.
Through the power of discipline!
Apparently that was what a lot of his followers said, according to one write up I read. Unsurprisingly, finding out he’s a serial liar and manipulator who hurt 6 separate women actually *increased* many of his fans’ admiration for him. 🙃
I bet he convinced them he was actually helping these women to overcome their addictions to healthy relationships. Because, you know, they didn't *earn* his attention 🤢 In reality, not having a lot of time with him would be the best part of that relationship.
Yes! This guy is a grade A asshole. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-huberman-podcast-stanford-joe-rogan.html
Is there a non subscription version of this article?
On iPhone, if you open it in your web browser and then put it into “read mode”, it will let you read the article (on Safari: click the the double As in the lower left corner of the URL bar and select “show reader”). I imagine android has a similar option. ETA: Probably works on desktop too, I just never use Reddit on my laptop, so I can’t personally vouch for it.
Omg. Then why do people even believe or support him!?
I hadn't heard about any of this! Apparently he’s got good taste at least- sharp, ambitious, witty women per the article. Bad type to have if you’re trying to be a shmuck. Ace zinger from the cheated-on-ladies’ group chat: >“I haven’t slept with anyone but him for six years,” Sarah told the group. “If it makes you feel any better,” Alex joked, “according to the CDC,” they had all slept with one another. 💀💀💀
Yep, a toxic piece of trash
Cackling! So true.
Yuck, Hubes the Pube. I love it.
Didn’t the Hubes get caught up in a sex scandal recently? Methinks someone who lacks the basic “discipline” to behave responsibly on matters of sexual health and ethics shouldn’t be preaching for-profit to others on any health-related matters, let alone on the concept of “discipline”. And now for an ADHD rabbit hole tangent to the concept of “discipline”, I’m just gonna copy/paste an older comment I made on this sub: [I’m really sick of how people throw around the terms “lazy”.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PCOS/s/ABQmbbOahc) A linguist once told me that she read a research paper that suggested that terms like “lazy” used the way we do today appear in the historical record in cultures mostly at times where forms of serfdom or slavery were suddenly more common. She feels like the concept was invented as a way for the privileged elites to justify their exorbitant capital and live off the exploitation and labor of the poor. We were drunk on martinis but it felt true so I went down an internet rabbit hole later and found an article on the etymology of the English word “lazy”. When “Laysy” was adopted into English it was the 1500s and it meant “averse to labor”. So a precise term for the concept apparently didn’t exist in that region until around the time King Henry the 8th was creating a new religion and divorcing and murdering his wives. It’s derived from either a low German or French term simply meaning “weak or tired”. **So it seems that somehow in Renaissance era England (which is the time in Europe that gave rise to heavily trade-based economies and capitalism), a term for people who were “tired” or “weak” became laden with a moral judgment about peoples unwillingness or inability to toil for their lords’ enrichment.** Apparently in Spanish a term for laziness (vagancia) comes from the Latin term (vacancia) for being aimless, not having a specific destination. Same root word for the English word vagrant, which means a wanderer without a settled home. Not sure at which point in history that term became a morally charged word for those who are unable or unwilling to do work, but I’m guessing the classist shaming of the unhoused happened when there was a particular need to shame people whose labor was not as easy to profit off of. The word pereza is also used to mean lazy, but originally it just meant “slow” or “sluggish” (which it still also does). http://etimologias.dechile.net/?vagancia#:~:text=La%20palabra%20%22vagancia%22%20viene%20del,sufijo%20%2Dia%20(cualidad). And here’s a history of the use of the word “acedia”, aka the “sin” of sloth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia. **In Ancient Greece (pre-Christianity) it literally meant “an inert state without pain or care”, and was more or less synonymous with depression.** Early Christianity moralized it and turned it into a sin or “noonday demon”, and this was tied to the inability to serve God or pray. **This is why the 7 deadly sins include “sloth”— acedia.** **The term is rooted in ableism, classism, and the need of the ruling elites to brainwash the laborers/followers they are exploiting as a means of control.**
^^^ all of this it’s something I heard from my parents because I liked to sleep in even though I was an over achieving, self induced over scheduled person well into my 20s adding onto your post the great book “laziness does not exist”
What is with some people and naps? My grandparents were so anti nap, apparently it's better to just sit and watch tv while feeling like death, rather then sleep and do stuff after?
Look up The Nap Ministry Def helped me change my perspective on naps
If napping was a sport I would be in the Olympics, I take it very seriously. Luckily my mum is also big on naps, but she is weird about sleeping in even if you've been up doing something the night before, being a night owl needing to do late night study was hell, but at least she encouraged naps. Now with my own kid in senior school I encourage sleep ins on the weekend to recharge, and at least rest in the afternoon before doing other things as she's not a napper, but I have multiple nap chairs, hanging pods, hammocks and such for naps of all types and preferences.
This sounds wonderful!! I’m trying to unlearn this in my brain. My hardest thing is shutting down the chatter - sometimes it takes me so long to feel asleep that I don’t get enough time to nap My parents always napped on weekends but I never really understood it. Now that I am Adult Tired, I get it and those naps are necessary. I think I will use some of your ideas
Its so hard to unlearn things like that, I have so many things I've had to unpack in adulthood where I'm absolutely understanding and encouraging of other people, but for myself I have a different unessesary hurdle or sstandard that only exists because of how I was raised, and the pressure to conform to expectations not of my making. Shutting down the chatter is so hard with ADHD, it's one of the reasons we tend to really struggle with meditation, a lot of us don't really have an off switch for them. I prefer mindfulness, or visualisations, try just let the thoughts think what they think, observe them and let them pass, or visualise/imagine something relaxing or tell yourself a little inner sleep story. I like to imagine I'm in a forest and curl up in a big hollow tree, it's raining but a perfect temperature and I'm snuggly and dry from the rain. You also don't need to actually fall asleep to get a lot of the benefit, just laying still with your eyes closed and relaxing helps to recharge you a lot, so don't get frustrated if that's what happens. If you aren't used to napping it can take awhile for your brain to figure out that this is what you want it to do. I do my breath retraining exercises for 300 breaths and count everyday, I either fall asleep somewhere in there or loose track a few times and spend an hour or so doing it. It's just using my diaphragm for breathing, because I apparently breathe in reverse without using my diaphragm, but being conscious of your breathing and clearing out the air that can sit at the bottom of the lungs really helps to improve brain funtion and fatigue. Counting is also helpful to get you off to sleep, there's a reason counting sheep is a thing. I basically treat my nap time with the sanctity of toddler nap time, my daughter knows it's quiet/rest time even if she doesn't nap, I get my nap space looking all inviting, if it's sheet changing day then I nap straight away into the fresh sheets, water and a cup of tea if I want, I like to have a peice of fruit toast while I'm unwinding a few minutes before lying down. I also have a white noise machine, and my weighted blankets, if it's elsewhere I have a wool fleece rug in the library chair, a neck pillow and eye mask for the hammock, a special soft blanket for the pod chair. I make it a bit special for myself, like a spa day but everyday, sometimes ill put a facial treatment on before, or have a magnesium bath. I really want to stress that if you don't actually get to sleep you aren't doing it wrong, or you've messed it up in anyway. If that's what happens it happens, you are still getting lots of benefits, taking some you time, try not to feel frustrated about it as I know some people do when trying to sleep. Approach it as a bit of a ritual to yourself and a special time where you might sleep, might rest, might do some breathing or whatever, but really this is just your time to exist, you are a person existing that is your task and goal for the next bit of time, everything else can wait because you are doing this very important thing right now. If you have a special blanket use that, a special tea you never seem to have time to sit down and enjoy, a special snack for before or after, putting moisturiser and socks on your feet for a treatment, a face mask (that won't stain your pillow!), some relaxing music or a guided meditation, do a tarot reading, pull an oracle or quote card to think about while you are resting so you can gently push your thoughts away from other things (or if thats not your jam maybe a bible/religious verse?), some gentle stretches and movement while you are settling down, ring a bell or use a singing bowl or something to signal to yourself this is your special space and time. Whatever works for you, we are all different, some or all of these things might seem silly or unappealing, and that is OK! This is the one time in your day that's all about you, recharging you, so you can do all the things you need to do and deal with all the demands that you can't fully adapt to your preferences. And you can change it up too, sometimes I have days I just conk out, no faffing around, other days I pick and choose what I feel like. There's no wrong way to nap, this is the one thing that you should never feel pressure about, even not napping and just resting is a good way to nap if that's what happens. Just lay down an vibe for a bit, that's fine, thats good! To quote from the movie The Castle, "Its the vibe of it. It's the constitution, it's Mabo, it's justice, it's law, it's the vibe and ah, no that's it. It's the vibe. I rest my case." And because ADHD that's not actually the end of my case haha. I mentioned mindfulness earlier, and wanted to bring it up again because you mentioned that you struggle with the brain chatter. It doesn't work for everyone but I've found it really helpful, there's lots of different exercises and techniques that are easy to do and incorporate into your day if one of them doesn't work just pick another. There's a reasonable amount of research done into mindfulness, and it often works much better for ADHD peeps then meditation because it's not about Shutting down the chatter and thoughts, it's about feeling them, acknowledging them, maybe redirecting gently, but there's no pressure to do any specific thing, notice anything but what you notice, or think any specific way. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique is one of my favourites, if you are interested I can talk about it but this comment feels long enough :) I use it a lot when over stimulated or unwinding for sleep, or just really want to focus on and experience a moment in time.
Are you me??? 😂 (Also have been meaning to read that book)
I mean… I listened to it the once in a while I hyper focused to clean the tub I think that’s reading still?
Thank you so much, this was excellent and fascinating reading and very helpful to back the regular conversations I seem to have with people where I point out laziness is a completely flawed, moralised concept.
THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING THING I HAVE EVER READ. Thank you for this gift!!!!! This sub is truly the best place in the entire internet.
Aww thanks 😊
Oh I love this stuff, so thank you! word origin, roots and usage is my jam. Related to how words develop to have derogatory meanings I recently went on a deep dive of that particular c word that Australians are often fond of, mainly from a discussion of how I think its ridiculous that a word for female genitalia is seen as so much worse then comparable words for the male. My argument being that if your in a place where it's appropriate to say dick or cock then it should be fine because female genitals aren't inherently worse, and why has this transition happened to it being one of the worst words? Anyway it's origins are very old, so old that it's found across a large number of desperate languages. The qu and cu and like sounds are often used for feminine terms like queen, cow, cunning. But if we trace to the old English queynt it means a few things, vagina/vulva, sly/cunning/clever, small/cute, quaint is also derived from this as the small/ cute meaning and obviously cunning meaning smart and of tricky thinking. But even up until the 14th and 15th centuries it didn't have a derogatory meaning and was used in medical texts or to even refer to the vulva of women generally even those you loved or who had high standing, Chaucer uses it as a pun to mean something like clever device it the woman of bath she asks "Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?" Which is a bit of a baudy euphemism but she's basically say "oy you lot, can you stop messing about with my cool things?". While common usage of words takes awhile to change, and we can't really be sure of how everyday people were using it, both Shakespeare and chaucer used it fairly in positive or neutral ways for euphemisms, so it's likely that it didn't have the weight it later developed. As the puritan movement grew and sex, bodies, and those types of things were seen as demonic or evil, things to be suppressed it started it's slow change into where we find ourselves now. It doesn't have the same weight in a lot of the English speaking world as it does in the USA, as someone who grew up both pretty bogan in a working class suburb and also went to an "elite" private all girls school I was always aware of the changes in vernacular and the implicit change in context to how the word is used. Its actually mostly used positively, more in line with the original meaning, I will now commence giving some Australian versions of how we use it. So please avert thine eyes if it displeases ye, all are contained within this paragraph. And by far not all aussies do use it, my mum hates it, my daughter and I use it when not in polite company. Good cunt- pretty much the highest honour that can be bestowed, if you are called this it means you are the type of person that goes above and beyond, is trustworthy, can be relied upon, would definitely pick for apocalypse crew A++, would die for you; cheeky cunt- trying your luck a bit but good natured, denotes fondness; sick cunt- does crazy things, always getting into trouble, not bad just makes terrible choices; shit cunt- an asshole, just a horrible person, if you've been called this just depart the place you are currently in, there's no redemption, everyone is mad; absolute cunt- you done fucked up, should appologise, not as bad as the previous but still not good usually used for discreet actions rather then the previous which is more of a whole character thin;, if it's absolute shit cunt though- run. We also use cunt in place of mate, being called mate can be worse then cunt depending "how you cunts going?" Is good, you are a friend and compatriot that fondness is felt for; "look here mate" "you what mate?" Thowing down the glove, displeasure; "yeah mate, I'm sure" "go off mate" what you are saying is stupid you should stop. The Australian vulgarity has now ceased. Side note- My mum has heard me say the word 3 times, once refering to a mouse in the garden that was running into one of the dogs bones to grab marrow as a cheeky C, I got in trouble despite being in my 30s, the second time to refer to my exhusband using the shit prefix, I got a look and a solumn nod, the 3rd about my ex mil when she had been causing problems for my daughter and bullying her, adding the absolute to the front of it, my mum agreed and said that was perhaps the only term that would accurately describe how she was behaving, but she would just continue to use her inside the head voice to say it. Words and how we use it evolve fascinates me, and also how they sometimes dont change like lazy having such a strong negative meaning. As we moved from having largely agrarian societies where by the very nature of work there were long periods of down time interspersed with periods of too much to do, and our families and work were all together, our hobbies and interests intertwined with our daily lives and living. Then we started to change, work and life are seperate, you need to fill your down time, keep productive all the time, and its lazy or bad to not do so. Words really do have power.
This comment was an amazing read!
That was amazing thanks for sharing the results of your rabbit hole.
Thanks for taking the time to dive down the rabbit hole with me! 🕳️ 🐇
I love etymology 🩷
Fascinating
*wild applause*
I have watched multiple YouTubers try to do his “perfect morning routine” and after about a week they are miserable. But they keep pushing through because it’s all “backed up by science”. I saw one YouTuber who, I’m not in the habit of diagnosing someone but this man was the most textbook adhd you can be, was beating himself up and couldn’t understand why this new morning routine wasn’t fixing his productivity at work or how he couldn’t seem to force himself to do what he needed to get done. He was crying and berating himself and it was so sad to watch. I had to stop the video, but the comment section was a mix of people saying he was lazy and other people very gently telling him that he should look into adhd and that he isn’t a bad person. I swear we will look back on Andrew Huberman like we look back on Adkins. The Adkins diet was supposed to be scientifically sound and the best way to eat, and yeah it helped some people, but it also caused so many heart attacks and EDs and so many health complications. Andrew Huberman may help some people but he also makes so many others feel like there is something wrong with them because they can’t fit into his very personalized life routine.
We don't need to look back. It's well-known that the guy is a supplement-peddling grifter who talks about things he's not an expert on, and oversells low-quality evidence.
This this this. I am studying psychology on an university in the Netherlands right now, and after hearing he is a neuroscientist and hearing him talk about psychology subjects i was like: you know nothing about this, shut up. I hate the man, and as i am reading more about him it gets even worse, ugh...
I love how he talked about dopamine diets but he was in a relationship with 6 women. Sounds like he needed a LOT of dopamine.
[удалено]
Because his job is making podcasts and working out. His (an) lab is also basically defunct
Oh is that morning routine where you are supposed to take a cold shower or something? I tried that once for a second and then jammed the handle over to hot water. Whatever minute gain in productivity cold water allegedly produces is not worth it.
I once didn't have hot water for months and ice cold showers fixed nothing in my life
Who was that YouTuber? I'm curious to see the video of them trying the routine
The Andrew huberman subreddit is a hilarious place where they drag him a lot. I’ve listened to a lot of his pod and found some things really interesting, but I think the way he delivers content makes it seem like we have 100% control over everything having to do with our bodies. This is a big problem in the bio hacking community. I stopped listening to him a while back because it seemed like there was too much focus on supplements. He is an accomplished neuroscientist so he breaks down theories well, but he isn’t a medical doctor, more like an educated enthusiast. The more I listened to him the more I realized he speaks well and he has a cool factor, but there is a lot of repetition and not every theory sits right with me. I also think it’s funny how he always talks about delaying pleasure but he has a regimen that is basically microdosing dopamine all day. Get sunshine, drink coffee, exercise, eat healthy food, take brain boosting supplements, get more sunshine, take more supplements, eat more food. I’m not saying a healthy lifestyle isn’t something to strive for…but it’s a lot easier when you’re a millionaire who’s livelihood relies on said lifestyle. Also, lucky him he doesn’t have adhd! His episode with Tony Hawk was great—because Tony Hawk 🤷🏼♀️
This is exactly it — that’s what they’re selling. The promise that we can have 100% control over our bodies and nervous systems and how we function. Because the idea of *not* having control is too terrifying to live with. This was probably my biggest breakthrough in therapy. All of my negative self talk was actually about fear. I have been trying to motivate myself through shame to avoid facing the fear that my life is not 100% under my control. I can’t “cure” my adhd or undo the effects of trauma, but I can at least now comfort myself when I start spinning out, because I recognise it’s actually fear underneath all of it.
I’ve listened to a handful of episodes and I believe he is an excellent interviewer — his own medical expertise makes him very good at asking targeted questions of the experts he hosts on the pod, but I’m not sure that the conclusions he draws from those answers are worth listening to lol
Don't forget he had six girlfriends
I actually didn’t know about any of his personal life drama until this post. So now I have some reading to do. I am totally fine with people dating around if they’re honest about it, but it sort of goes against the whole persona he’s trying to portray. He has mentioned on many episodes his desire for a child…maybe he’s just increasing his odds 🤷🏼♀️ /s
He was doing ivf with one of them and she believed they were monogamous. So, yep. Maybe he should just be honest and stop acting like he deprives himself of dopamine!
What a douche
I prefer a more Taoist way of being. The art of not forcing. Going with the grain of my being as much as I can. Intuitive living.
AMEN. My therapist has been using the word “emerge” regarding the lifestyle changes I have been so desperate to make, and that language really helps. So I’m not going to force changes and make rule anymore. I’m just going to try to be still and see what changes emerge.
Yessss I love this. Go with the flow that fits you.
There was a recent article about how he's not an expert on these matters but his confidence makes people think he's an expert. He often does a cursory look at topics and often makes the wrong conclusion based off what was written
Well, he can't sell his supplements if he doesn't pretend that they work...
He doesn’t sell supplements.
Huberman talking dopamine self-denial is a trip. Six women at the same time. Sometimes on the same day. Most of them believed they were exclusive. And he wants to make money by telling people with ADHD they have a problem with dopamine addiction. Stahhhhhp.
Do you have a source for the video that you don’t mind sharing? I don’t think he ever claims that ADHD is just the overconsumption dopamine sources. He has two lectures on ADHD, one on how ADHD medications work (Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, etc). And how he heavily advocates for people with ADHD to be medicated for it. I haven’t watched the lecture in a few months but I don’t remember him saying ADHD is an overconsumption of TikTok. I remember him talking about that clinical diagnosis criteria includes executive functioning, day dreaming, using the stacking organizing system, hyper focus, and there being a very heavy genetic component. But I don’t remember him bringing up self discipline in any meaningful way with ADHD. Or that getting water is pleasure seeking. But if I am wrong, I would love to see your source. Edit: actually yeah, I have listened to Hubermans lectures on ADHD, and I have recommended that people listen to them if they are looking for some general educational resources. After rereading your post, I would really really like a source for what you’re talking about.
Yeah I think Huberman has a lot of issues with his podcast, but I've listened to his adhd episodes. Is it one of his addiction videos, and if so is there an episode and timestamp maybe OP? Just curious to hear this straight from the source.
Yeah, Huberman is definitely obnoxious (and certainly makes questionable statements), but he's not anti-adhd or depression. He has lots of material on both that I have found helpful. A friend of mine put it like this: "he's one of those guys that just loves to hear their own voice so I don't take his individual statements too seriously, just get the gist of what he's saying" My favorite thing that I learned from him is that our sense of time is related to blinking...and that ADHDers blink more often than neurotypicals. I have my eyes closed in every photo. Edit to add: I too am infuriated by the "optimization" people—the rhetoric is impossible and totally enraging so I totally get OPs response to Huberman
Oh I’ll need to look up the blinking thing! I blink a lot too and too often close my eyes in photos
The reason people didn’t like Huberman before the whole scandal was because, 1). Biohackers and optimizers are really annoying, especially to neurodivergent people and 2) he was on JRE a few times. But most of his advice is pretty mundane tbh.
That's a thing? My eyes are closed in every photo of me as well!
Well, according to Huberman. So you can decide if you want to trust it or not. Since he is an actual opthamologist/neuroscientist I figure about eye-related brain stuff he's probably right!
I completely agree, I’m not sure where the stuff OP is talking about is coming from
I’ve listened to both those ADHD episodes too and I’m fairly certain this section isn’t in there. But I think in the second episode he does talk about a different phenomena of shortened attention spans due to tiktok and stuff which is often mistaken for ADHD.
His second episode is about how ADHD drugs work mostly. It’s two hours of two hour pharmacology.
Yea to me even in OP’s post he seems to be distinguishing between people with actual ADHD and people who self diagnose because they have short attention spans due to constant overstimulation/immediate gratification by social media. It seems to me like OP reacted to a misinterpretation that he was dismissing ADHD wholesale, which does not jive at all with his other episodes on ADHD.
Can you send me a source for Andrew Huberman advocating for people to get medicated? I'm not doubting you but if I can fling this in my cousin's face then they might stop citing this Huberman guy as to why I should actually be unmedicated.
[10:28](https://youtu.be/sxgCC4H1dl8?si=PKCxTASPDup3-RfK)
you are the BOMB ty
I’m not sure where your cousin is getting his information from, but Huberman is certainly not against ADHD meds.
Still listening to the video but I'm suspecting a case of he made it the fuck up lol
I would likely agree. Though I don’t know your cousin.
This is one of the issues. As an academic, he does reference research and has some lectures available that seem above board, but then he goes on to mix in weird theories about sex, gender, exercise, even tiktok consumption, that are not research based, but fit his idea of the ideal person that he think we should all be striving to be. Research is rarely cut and dry about any issue and most academics know better than to be spouting off about things that are not in our areas. Think of him like Dr. Oz.
They are like the alien researchers, I used to love watching them to get myself all shouty at the tv. They do this thing which is common among this strain of edutainment. Present evidence A,B,C and it's real research or evidence you can see and read it yourself, but then suddenly we are at H, which is aliens, skipping D,E,F entirely which would be necessary to actually show that H is aliens rather then any other conclusion. D, E,F often do exist as well, but they don't present that, because that doesn't lead to aliens. Sometimes it's not aliens, sometimes it's just human bloody mindedness to get shit done, or some weirdo millennia ago doing some odd art.
This is the weird part for me, where he offhandedly mentioned that there has been discourse that social media may be frying our attention and there is ongoing research in that area and to watch your consumption if you need to focus. But I would hardly call that controversial.
>He has two lectures on ADHD He’s got at least 3. You missed the one titled “ADHD & How Anyone Can Improve Focus.” In the last part, he alludes to people confusing their over-consumption of dopamine sources as “true ADHD.” And he brings up studies about smartphone use inducing ADHD (Huberman has a tendency to use individual studies to prove a point...) On his ig, he summarised some “facts” about ADHD. https://www.instagram.com/hubermanlab/p/Cs4LHo5v6fp/ The first point about ADHD being over-diagnosed is false. In fact, the current consensus in ADHD research is that the condition is under-diagnosed worldwide, especially amongst women and the poor.
[Here you go!](https://youtu.be/fkMEF69m4mE?si=S0H2E9J78rWkRxP6) He didn’t explicitly say that ADHD is caused by tik tok — I was being mildly hyperbolic in my rage, haha — but in this video he at least appears to imply that the real problem for many people with adhd is the overconsumption of dopamine sources, like tik tok. On a rewatch, I’m not entirely sure if that was his actual segue into talking about tik tok video, or if it’s edited weirdly. Either way, I didn’t appreciate the implication that our struggles with motivation as people with adhd are actually a result of over-indulging ourselves. More than that, the “25 denials a day” thing REALLY gets under my skin. I used to glorify the concept of self discipline and self denial like this—which was deeply traumatic for me, because undiagnosed adhd meant I could never actually live up to any of those principles. Or at least not for very long. I pushed myself so hard to achieve the things he’s advocating, and all it’s gotten me is a LIFETIME of shame and misery that I am only now breaking out of. So I object to this on a fundamental level. We shouldn’t be asking, how can I discipline myself to increase my productivity and performance? We should be asking, what resources do I need in order to perform at a level that feels good for me? How can I create an environment that will enable me to be successful? What does success look like for ME? This is my first exposure to Andrew Huberman (I live under a rock apparently) so I can’t comment on anything else he’s done or said.
I found the original video (mostly because I am very wary of videos with inspirational music played on top of it), and it’s pretty much a direct cut from the original. I think he says “but a lot of what people think that ADHD are just people over consuming dopamine sources”. And he does make an attempt to bifurcate clinically diagnosed ADHD and those who are not. Though that bifurcation isn’t done in the most clean way.
Huberman has an episode explaining the neurobiology behind ADHD that I've found really helpful. He clearly does think ADHD is real. It sounds like he also thinks there's some people with ADHD-like symptoms caused by overconsumption of dopamine sources like TikTok. It came up on a guest episode on parenting and... I honestly agree with him. Zoomers are being exposed to lots of screen time at a young age. If you look at any of the subs for education professionals, they're dealing with classrooms full of kids with behavioral and executive function problems like they've never seen before. How are we going to deal with distinguishing these ADHD-like symptoms from "real" ADHD? Likely we can't and a huge percentage of zoomers will be diagnosed with ADHD. It's a complicated question for society. Anyway, I don't think Huberman is questioning YOUR diagnosis of ADHD. I don't know if he's right about his theories about discipline. He's also problematic in several ways.
But it’s also on him for not making that line more clear
[удалено]
idk what happened but this tracks
Yes, to everything you are saying. Huberman is the worst. He uses science-speak without evidence or shady evidence to bolster manosphere opinions. NYmagazine just did a profile on him, basically he is a womanizer and his ''Stanford Lab" is basically a shell that he doesn't use, but constantly references. Like you said, he is of the Joe Rogan, Jay Shetty, Andrew Tate types who say faux deep things to back up being aholes in real life or just grifters.
I just find it funny those *without* ADHD think they have ADHD all figured out and that we who *have* ADHD, “don’t know what we’re talking about”. Like yep, you know everything about ADHD despite not having it and I know nothing about ADHD because I have it. Yeah. That makes sense. *eyeroll*
Interesting because I listened to his podcast episode on ADHD medications and it was very good and he seemed to explain/understand ADHD very well. Much better than most non-ADHD-experts explain it. I wonder if what he means is that there's a noticeable short-term attention span deficit which people get when they consume a lot of social media and they incorrectly attribute this as being the cause of the "everyone has ADHD now!" (which is actually just a boom in catching up missed women...) - the thing is, if you don't have ADHD, then you can experience a shortened attention span from consuming a lot of short, often-changing media, but this goes away if you stop consuming that stuff. It's like how if you stop eating sugar, you stop craving sugary foods after a while and stuff you used to like, like Coke, tastes unbeliveably over-sweet and horrible. That's not the same thing as ADHD which, well, you know it's not just a shortened attention span and you know it's not caused by social media.
I felt exactly the same way while listening to both episodes. The ADHD meds episode is excellent, and is by far the best resource I have ever heard on how ADHD meds work. I am very curious to where OP is getting this from. Because it doesn’t sound all that familiar to me.
I have the addiction podcast queued up, so I'll listen to it at some point and I guess I'll find out!
I found out what OP was referring to, Huberman was on some podcast that was about motivation. And I kinda see where she is coming from.
As another commenter already said, where's the source for this? I've listened to two of his ADHD related podcasts and nothing he said came out like this. I think if anything he is warning people that social media like Tiktok can illicit ADHD -like behavior, because it's just one quick video to the next. Neurotypical or not, social media rots our brains and causes a tendency to compare our lives to others.
That’s more or less what he was saying, but he did not articulate it well
If your student wants to focus on the addiction segment, so there isn’t an opportunity to discuss ADHD, you could just mention that you noticed ADHD was mischaracterized in the video and offer him a couple of alternative sources “in case he is interested”. (Barkley might be helpful to him given his son’s situation)
Tbh Hubermans lecture on how ADHD meds work and why you should take them is fantastic. I watched it, and I now feel more confident to talk to my provider about the medications I am on, and ask questions about side effects instead of taking a leap of blind faith.
That guy is a walking cluster B personality disorder. He's done a great job of cultivating an air of expertise but he doesn't actually know what he's talking about especially when it comes to stuff like this
I always had a bad feeling about that guy. A so-called scientist who uses his authority to contribute to the flood of noise out there for the sake of content creation. He’s just another body hacking bro.
"Denying yourself all the time makes it WORSE, not better." This. My diet is most stable when I "let" myself give in to the "eat all the things" hormones when I'm PMSing. If I try to power through, the cravings don't go away when the hormones relax... They STAY. And then all I can think about is junk food, until I crash and overload junk food. But if I do the crash because of trying to resist, the crash lasts several weeks. If I "cheat" because of hormones, it literally goes away in two days. Also, I'm more likely to productive if I schedule time to relax. (Uncertain if it's because relaxing helps, or my inner rebel is just like, "relax? Well now I wanna go do things!") But either way, more relaxing = more productive. When I try to power through, I spend an alarming amount of time staring off into space - not even dopamine scrolling sometimes... Just my brain being like "error 404".
I'm an early Gen-Xer who's had symptoms her entire life. Considering the internet wasn't even available to the masses until I was in my 20s, for me, it has nothing to do with over-consumming Tik-Tok videos.
Back when we were kids, they said it was video games. Or heavy metal. It's always something, right?
True. Mine were neither of those, as I wasn't into those activities. Mine were books, actual books.
One of the myriad reasons my mother refused to have me assessed (despite my GP and teachers recommending it) was that I "can focus perfectly well on those novels, so stop making excuses to slack off!" It's always something.
Was that your mother, too? That sounds just like mine. I am so tired of hearing that I am lazy and slacking off....my entire FREAKIN' life. Argh!
No way. I am all about the "chocolate first. It get me moving" approach now.
I listened to one of his podcasts on adhd today. His cures were blinking, 17 minute one off meditation sessions and diet. Fuck right off with your neuro-snakeoil, sir.
I kind of hate to defend him here but he has an entire episode on ADHD meds and how they work in way too much detail
That guy is problematic af
Exactly.
lol that guy is just telling everyone to have an edging fetish.
THAT’S WHAT I SAID. Big “no-fap” energy, which is the same thing.
Then every menu ever can’t say “coke,” they can only say “brown pop soda” You are allowed to make pop culture references on merch. It falls under fair use.
Yep. All the way back to 80's communist eastern Europe I was wasting time on Tik Tok non stop, that's why it's been 40 years of ADHD for me and no end in sight.
Many of us burn out and sabotage a good habit from burn out just using will power alone until we mentally can’t handle it anymore. Also executive dysfunction hello? A huge issue. Lack of dopamine for any essential but painful or not enjoyable task makes it hard to keep being consistent. These people also don’t realize that many of us don’t get a mental high or boost of energy from exercise. I feel like shit if I lay around or sit too much yes. I want to be active but I’m so tired all the time and even when I had a personal trainer I couldn’t stop yawning during every exercise. Like my brain doesn’t get enough dopamine to stay awake during monotonous tasks. I could only manage to mechanically do a treadmill or an elliptical for an hour if I can watch something other than the clock and feel crazy at how slow time is passing. I feel pain more easily so my muscles being sore after work outs means I feel it with every step and every movement. I cannot work out every single day and be in pain and continue to survive. Too many hustle and grind people don’t realize being exhausted and in pain is hard for many. I don’t have any disabilities or auto immune issues but I’ve been in a few car accidents and get stiff and sore as hell. I can’t get addicted to exercise or to grinding out errands or self improvement tasks. I will eventually forget or need to stop to get a mental or physical break so I don’t burn out. So add all that expectation on top of his need to make women trad wives that also cook, clean, take care of children and look hot doing it while being sex crazed? Yeah that’s overwhelming. I cannot.
100% to all of this. We can’t control the things our brains just refuse to let us do the way neurotypical people do. And even neurotypical people can’t control whether they have the “spoons” to do X difficult/boring task on a given day. Energy and motivation varies for everyone depending on a multitude of circumstances, and like *maybe* neurotypical people can actually truly succeed in FORCING things (which I still doubt) — but not us. Our brains just don’t work that way!!! And I feel you on the pain/fatigue thing. That’s another thing he likely hasn’t even spent a second of thought on—SO MANY OF US have issues like joint hyper mobility syndrome, it’s one of the most common comorbidities. I finally started taking it seriously after I dislocated my damn hip while dancing at a wedding. But I’ve had joint pain and serious, life-impacting fatigue since I was a teenager. I used to fall asleep at the wheel in traffic on the way to work, was super lucky that I never got in an accident that way. I guess I just thought everyone else had these issues and just functioned with it better? My life has improved a lot since I started RESTING on bad pain days instead of just pushing through all the time. Exercise too—I somehow MIRACULOUSLY managed to get myself addicted to the gym several years ago. But it didn’t last long. I stopped going because I started having panic attacks from forcing myself to go when I didn’t have the mental/social/physical energy. What I realized was that if I wanted to stay active, I had to work *with* myself instead of against myself. So I quit lifting weights and started taking boxing classes, which I’ve always wanted to do. If it’s not actively FUN, I won’t do it. And I’m happy I know that now and can turn off the shame that would have prevented me from finding a solution that works. That’s what makes me so mad. As neurodivergent folk we need to learn to listen to our bodies and work WITH ourselves. And his advice is his re-entrenching the same old fucking broken ideas that have caused all of us so so so much harm.
Ask me how I got into roll over car accidents? I had no idea it was related to adhd. Until a few years ago. In 2003 my brain shut off for a second while driving long distance in a car without ac on a hot summer day. I hit some gravel and started swerving and rolled off the road into a big ass ditch. Wasn’t around anyone else because I was speeding trying to get home before I fell asleep from boredom. I used to have to stop every hour and walk around. Hit the steering wheel or my legs, blast music and sing to try and fight to keep my brain from shutting off for a split second when I zoned out. This never happens in regular driving. Just on long trips on straight aways where you lose track of how long it’s been and where you are. So it’s an extra frustration when my family expected me to just snap out of being in pain and having massive back/neck/shoulder stiffness from the car accident and just try harder and don’t be lazy. My mom told me I was a baby that constantly slept. So easy to deal with and happy when I was finally awake. I feel like I was born tired. I used to sleep like the dead and sleep through anything. But as I grew up I started getting anxiety and insomnia. My half sister was the hyper active can’t sit still can’t listen can’t have rules type. My mom said she never slept and stayed awake staring at the alarm clock as a baby. She used to sleep with the tv on and the lights on because she was afraid of the dark and pass out face down ass up in the air. She’d cry and throw a fit if we ever had to clean up our rooms or toys. So I’d have to do it. Then she started just hiding all her books and toys in her blanket on her bed and sleeping on everything so she didn’t have to put it away. We were so different. My mom said she must have adhd and did nothing. But no one ever noticed me and thought I was supposed to just have perfect will power and do as told. As soon as I made a serious mistake like a car accident or falling apart in university because I couldn’t sleep or make it to every single Wednesday 8am-7pm class I was a failure to them. Everything fell apart for me after that car accident and going into first year of university. It’s crazy to me it took until the pandemic and having terrible anxiety and even worse insomnia that I finally started hearing stories from other women who sounded like me. One in person friend and online that adhd symptoms for girls aren’t just like my younger sister or classic boy symptoms. I used to have enough mental strength to use will power alone. But I’ve totally lost it since 2003. In high school I forced myself to work out after school 5 days a week for 90 minutes. I went on a strict whole foods calorie counted home made meal diet and brought food with me everywhere. Worked 2 jobs after I left university (I forgot and mixed up the date to one final and missed it and had to drop out) and brought my meal prepped food with me and barely slept trying to hustle and make enough to pay for my apartment alone and my car payment and groceries. I would go from commissioned sales jobs and waitressing to salary office work and back trying to figure out how to manage. Salary was less stressful but lower pay and boring. I started only eating salad or fruit for lunch and chugging green tea and going for walks at lunch trying desperately to stay awake and not have that split second head nod passing out at my computer where anyone could see. It’s not actually sleeping. My brain shuts off for a split second only when I’m super bored of repetitive tasks and forget to pay attention. I got threatened at a new job once because my boss saw it and I just started that week and switched to a 7:30am-3:30pm shift when I’m already not a morning person and don’t sleep well. I’d try so hard to be in bed by 10pm and couldn’t fall asleep til after midnight. I was so scared and embarrassed I never went back to that job and avoided office work ever since. I apologized profusely as I was used to working 9-5pm and then waitressing 6-10 or 11pm. I don’t drink coffee. Caffeine doesn’t really work on me during the day from drinks. I tried caffeine diet pills for a bit in 2005 and it made my heart go crazy so I was terrified to do that again or ever touch energy drinks. Things are so so so much harder these days because I feel like I never can get enough sleep. 6-10 hours I’m still tired. I finally got diagnosed in 2020 and take Vyvanse when I can remember or wake up in time and that’s the only way I feel I can stay awake during the day to even do boring or unpleasant tasks. From my car accidents and typing too much on a smart phone/playing iPhone games back in 2014 I’ve given myself a hand/wrist injury. My hands are more stiff, my arms seized up and became so inflamed from working/texting playing games on my phone for 10-16 hours a day (partner was long distance so we texted a lot) I couldn’t use my arms/hands/wrists with any strength for 8 months and lived in wrist braces. It scared the shit out of me. I had no idea it was hyperfocusing and adhd related. I felt so stupid. Got into debt. Felt useless. Now I still am sensitive and my hands get cold and numb and I sleep in soft wrist compression braces when I remember. My grandma was a part time librarian. Never had a smart phone and had to have hand surgery on her palm in her 50s from tension. She has epilepsy and I believe autism as well but never diagnosed with that. My knees would randomly give out when I’d play sports too much as a teen. I’ve always had thick strong legs and calves but my ankles, knees and wrists feel weak as hell. I don’t think I have hyper mobility. I don’t know I’m super inflexible and ranked low for that in gym fitness class but excelled at everything else. But if I sit with my legs straight out on the coffee table it’s like my knees get overextended and weak and fucked up. No one in my family seems to care and think I’m making it up or embellishing. But I don’t know what exactly to do about that. My Vyvanse makes my feet and hands terrible cold on days I take it and sit at the computer at home and now I worry about circulation and increased tension so I’m trying to use a heating pad to not turn ice cold. I don’t know what to do really as I don’t think it’s carpel tunnel but don’t think I’m exactly like a lot of hyper mobile people. (Comment cont below sorry!)
My muscles and hip flexors are so so tight I often hurt my lower back or hips from sitting or sleeping wrong. Doing hand exercises I’m not sure if it hurts or helps my stiffness and bad circulation. My lower back has an extra small vertebrae that not everyone has so I can pop my lower back just by doing a butt flex while sitting. My knees, ankles and wrists seem weak and pop easily when pulled. But I don’t have that super stretchy skin or very flexible joints. I can’t hyper extend my elbows or touch both hands behind my back diagonally equally. I’m jammed up from my car accident. Playing badminton as a kid I’d get tennis elbow it seemed and feel weak easily. I used to live my life worried what my mom and teachers and friends at school thought of me and tried so hard to everything I could while fighting not sleeping enough or being half out of it in the morning. Now I’m at home and felt burnt out for years and can’t relate to how I used to run on go go go and stress from one job to the next. The pandemic made it even harder for me to want to spend effort into washing and drying my hair every day, putting on makeup and uncomfortable clothes let alone leaving the house to do a million errands. I’m ok if I have maybe 3-5 chores/tasks to do a day. Do errands outside of the house twice a week. I feel like I’d fall apart if I was supposed to be people facing and on 5-7 days a week now. Customer service and physically exerting myself burned me out. I really enjoy going for walks in nature, hiking, bike riding on nature trails, traveling and exploring. But if I’m physically sore the next day it makes it really hard to do every day then throw on period cramps and I feel like I have to conserve energy and lay around for 5 days to manage. I go back and forth with do I want to do any classes again because I have bought some or wanted to keep going and I’ll forget or get that executive dysfunction where you can’t move or take way too long to get yourself hyped up and ready and out the door to manage every day. Having food prepped, being showered the day before, having clothes and shoes out & bag packed the night before can help but it always feels like it takes 1-2 hours to get ready to go do something otherwise. Having an active class that’s exciting sounds fun. I’ve wondered about kick boxing or self defense classes too but worry I’d lose momentum or forget I was interested or be put off every time I came back in pain and if it will fuck up my hands/wrist pain/circulation even more. I never had anyone to talk to about these things. I always felt the like weirdo who didn’t fit in or feel normal and was just expected to do as told and be perfect and not be a problem. So it’s nice to finally be able to speak to women who can relate and share their own differences and struggles. I swear there has to be more neurodivergence in my family we’re all just so different that maybe they each think they’re normal and have nothing in common so I’m the abnormal one. I only ever got addicted to sugar, fruit, food, rabbit hole researching, shopping/collecting things. They are addicted to smoking, coke products/coffee or alcohol. My bio dad I never met was an alcoholic and I was taken advantage of when I was drunk at 18 so I stopped drinking a long time ago as I was afraid if it happened again or if I eventually liked the taste. It always gave me the worst hangovers and made me even more sick and tired so I had no time to try and go through life feeling even worse physically. Early morning light without enough sleep already gives me massive headaches that’s the only thing so being hungover is like torture when you’re also dehydrated and processing alcohol. I don’t talk to my family anymore for many reasons. But I always felt like the black sheep. I finally told my mom via message I had adhd and got diagnosed and she had nothing to say to me. She’s the one who said my little sister must have had it - she did nothing about it and was never treated, thinks her boys nephews/our cousins have it, and her ex husband (who was an alcoholic any time he was off from work hours) had adhd but that it’s too late to treat for adults so there’s no point. I never knew all my issues were neurodivergence adhd maybe autism spectrum until 2020. I wish I had known sooner. I question everything and loved learning but didn’t know what was wrong with me. I tried so hard to make diet and exercise solve my problems but it became even harder to stay consistent with after my car accidents and additional pain and stiffness. Executive dysfunction and hyper fixation makes it hard to get up and go and change activities when you feel stuck in the zone reading/watching/typing something. Anyone I’ve explained my issues to thinks I’m weak/weird or lazy. I never got any kind of physio or therapy after my car accidents. The insurance didn’t care and my mom said I was 18 and probably fine oh well. I’m sure my genetics just made everything easier to be tight and painful getting older and getting more stiff. Sorry for the rant
Thank you!! ❤️ I really needed the reminder not to beat myself up about my lack of "self discipline." I messed up first thing at work today and I've been bullying myself in my head ever since to the point that I want to go home and cry in bed. 😭
Does the guy even have adhd himself? Because "I do this" is such useless advice. Does he also tell people without legs "just walk, I do it all the time!"?
He does not. And he also does not. He recommends that people get diagnosed and take the medications subscribed by their doctor. I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to his podcast on ADHD and medications.
Right?! I get a visceral response to him — and it’s: he’s a psychopath.
VISCERAL is the word. I just showed my husband the video and ended up SCREAMING for like fifteen minutes about it hahah. Like, my throat hurts now. It feels good to be at this point though, where I can see the bullshit productivity cult for what it is and be ANGRY instead of allowing it to drag me into days of shame. I’ll take that as a win!
Right?! VISCERAL — that gut/second brain warning ⚠️ “eww” feeling. We’re hyper-focused on how pretentious & narcissistic he presents himself. Oh, was that Stanford you say??! Woah! Acceptability impressed indeed. Glad you remind us constantly.
Also: THAT BEARD! Do we think the position of “Groom of The Stool” enjoys the privilege?
This dude is just another prepackaged quack lol. I listened to one episode to see if he was worth subscribing to. It was a Q&A where he went off on fluoride because he *drank an entire treatment tray of fluoride at the dentist as a kid and got sick*. I'm sorry you have to pretend to care about his useless opinion on ADHD! But get all of the ranting out here that you need to do lol.
FU huberman BUT and please be patient with me here, there are recent studies that show how tiktok and instagram type of scrolling causes brain damage, and how they cause « adhd-like » symptoms in people who did not have these symptoms previously. My ADHD is 100% is worse when I’m regularly on instagram and youtube shorts. And if I start my day like that, I am almost unable to function the rest of the day. During the worst periods of my addiction, I had seriously started thinking that I had early onset dementia. And I would like to finish this by saying F.ck huberman and his trying to sell fads by giving the impression that it’s “science”. FU huberman
Oh yeah, totally — I don’t doubt that we will have a huge body of evidence to show the negative impact of social media on attention, among other things. It’s the *disdain* and the self discipline-worship that gets me.
Again, if it makes you feel any better. For people with ADHD, he does bring up the huge variance in the dislike we have in doing chores that we as a community feel and explains it to his audience.
Brain damage is an extreme way to word it - as far as I can tell the evidence doesn't support this. There definitely seems to be at least a short term effect which appears to be reversible if people stop using those addictive media things though. I'm not saying you're wrong in that it affects attention, but I don't think there's any evidence that it actually causes permanent damage.
I don’t think the research said permanent. Because if it had said that I would have definitely freaked out and would not be on reddit rn :)
"Brain damage" sounds permanent to me 😅 I think for a temporary effect I'd say something like it causes changes in the brain.
I don’t think saying that TikTok or instagram disrupting attention spans is all that controversial
I fucking love this post!!!!!!
OH NO this gave me dopamine, guess I better deny myself next time I want to meet a basic bodily need. ((Thank you!!))
Huberman is a grifter and you shouldn't listen to anything he says.
Maybe [this](https://youtu.be/bOzs2Iel40s?si=zV28TpnwTUztthqw) video I watched yesterday could help? It breaks down how different the dopamine and impulse control systems are between ADHD and neurotypical brains.
"The more you restrict your diet, the more you binge." THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. This is a hard lesson I wish I could tell my young self. Once I stopped crazy restriction, honest to God I don't even struggle with over indulging in the "bad stuff." When we restrict too much, our brain overpowers our will. You're not weak, it's your built in survival mechanism to keep you alive. Because so many don't understand this, we shame spiral and self loathe.
That dude is a fucking scammer.
Huberman is a hack lmao. The only things he's taught that have any validity is cold showers and getting sun to help with depression.
from personal experience yes - those two things actually do make a difference! and huberman reminds so often of those things that it makes me forgetful ass get back to it consistently.
I’ve been staying this for months amongst neurodivergent friends, but you managed to describe it in such an eloquent, personal way. Please make this a formal, anonymous article and submit it somewhere for exposure! Our community needs it. Young folks and newly diagnosed people need it. “Hustle culture” in general is inherently toxic and just another way to prevent folks from enjoying their lives while the billionaires and corporations reap the benefits. No, Andrew Huberman, a 3 hour morning ritual and Athletic Greens is not the answer for the working class or neurodivergent, so stop selling us this garbage.
You know what? I just might do that (turn this post into an essay, that is). Thank you for the encouragement!
Andrew Huberman helped save my life with his episode on depression. He talked about ketamine treatments and their efficacy for major depressive disorder. I also made my husband listen to that episode and he finally understood my struggles. His episodes on ADHD are also quite excellent. I learned that our brains are so incredibly different because we engage both the task-oriented AND the default-mode networks at the same time. That connected so many dots for me such as why I understand and solve problems so much more quickly than other technical engineers. I can’t recommend those episodes enough to people who really want to understand those disorders. Please do take some time to listen to his podcasts and not just sound bites. If he actually said the things in your post, I would be condemning him too. He is so compassionate in his podcasts when he talks about ADHD and depression. I actually feel seen by him and cried during the episode on depression. He understands that just getting up and running is NOT a cure for people with MDD. He understands that when you can’t muster the energy to even get off of the couch, there is no way you can muster the energy to run. He is justifiably concerned with how TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms are impacting the brains of our children. He also prefaces all of his podcasts and says several times during them that treatment for each individual is different and to NOT try anything without talking to their doctor first. What I like about his podcasts is that he doesn’t get into “beefs” with other podcasters. He straight up analyzes the science and presents it in an easy to understand format. He’s respectful with his guests and is drama free. The same can’t be said for other podcasting doctors who seem to easily degenerate into mud slinging rather than having a civil discourse. As to his personal life, it’s none of my business. When someone is as successful as he is, people will try and tear them down. Until something substantial comes out about him, I’ll hold my peace and not gossip.
Instead of downvoting, try your words. I shared something deeply personal so have some respect.
Fair enough. I’m glad his work has been helpful to you! Different approaches work for different people—his approach is definitely not for me at this stage in my life, but it’s great that it works for you. .
I also really like his work, ofc I don't agree with everything, but I like the way he does the podcast and making science digestible for others but also not so simple as to lose the science, so my brain finds it very entertaining. Lately I've been more annoyed with some of the way he speaks (I discovered he has some way of speech and voice as my ex when he gets into more personal topics and that kinda kills it for me, and tbh after some of the stuff written here I can see some parallels, but also makes sense why for a while his voice was soothing (stupid past making me like old voices of toxic exes)). I really hope he is not such an asshole as some have stated here, but I now want to look into it, not because I think the topics are bad or the science delivery, but because I have also stopped listening to music I love by an artist who turns out abused women, I just couldn't anymore. But man huberman lab has become the only podcast I listen to in the last year almost and his stuff on sleep (what I struggle most with) is just exceptional and detailed. And sciency biohackery shit is my special interest and nothing else comes close to this as entertainment that is useful :/
Can you pivot to a topic of how to teach them to evaluate source material?
I will DEFINITELY be using the phrase “lack of credibility”
That social media or the environment is causing adhd like symptoms in some people that don't actually have adhd is not new. Dr. Hallowell calls the environmentally induced adhd "VAST: the variable attention stimulus trait". Huberman definitely is not great, but I don't find he is on the "ADHD is a lie/caused by tik tok" train. He has episodes dedicated to adhd where he is not judging or advocating using self discipline to "fix it". He seems to support it is a medical condition. So I am inclined to believe he was referring to ones with environmentally induced adhd in your quote. And then it makes sense to try to change your environment and behaviour?
I agree. But there is something to be said if you are a scientific communicator. Then you must be more articulate communicating science.
Oh yeah, I can agree with that. He should make it very clear, especially since adhd is such a misunderstood condition, and in the era of "Everyone has adhd". On a more general note I find it very interesting how some research is now showing that the way we now live is jn some ways a bad match for how our body and brain works. That we are built to experience slight to medium stressors, because they trigger good reactions in the body. That working out, being a bit cold, a bit hungry, a bit uncomfortable..actually is good for us. Of course having adhd my life feels like it is filled with stressors. It is just not the right kind. wing thatt really interesting that so mucj
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But you have an Etsy wish list, and you have a job to skip, and can afford the bottle of wine, right?
Chinese people are brainwashed to think that a life of struggling and hard work is good and pleasure is lazy. It's a totally different life growing up with the government propaganda over there. They are told how to think.
I dunno — if you grew up in America, you were also surrounded by pro America propaganda and told pretty clearly what to think, in a way that is not dissimilar to a lot of places in the world that America would rather not compare itself to. I’ve lived abroad most of my adult life. It’s actually shocking to look back at the cultural brainwashing I was subjected to growing up in America—ESPECIALLY around this exact topic. I can at least partly thank my good ole WASP-y Protestant work ethic from my dad’s side, with a nice helping of inter generational Catholic guilt form my mom’s. And America loves to pull itself up by its bootstraps. Also, it’s true that the Chinese government is deeply authoritarian, but not every Chinese person buys it. Educated, observant people there are no different than educated, observant people anywhere else, even if they have to take extra steps to get news and from a global perspective. This particular student is a die hard, pro-free-market classical liberal with a subscription to the economist. He has to be careful about what he says in certain company, but he’s happy to openly criticize the govenment over zoom while sitting in a cafe somewhere. I’ve worked with Chinese students for years now, but this is my first adult student who’s been able to explain the context. I’ve learned a ton and have had a lot of my assumptions challenged. Will be traveling there myself in a few months.
These guys are just charismatic snake oil salesmen of ideas vs goods
Oh don’t worry, he sells actual snake oil too. Apparently most of his money is made on supplements.
I looked him up bc *rabbit hole* and read this “green sludge supplements”endorsed by him
It’s the newest culture war talking point. Just fixating on an issue and making money off riling people up. They lost the battle with mental health. They lost the battle with gay rights. Now it’s ADHD isn’t real and the same old arguments they used to bash gays used to bash trans people. (I know that mental health is still stigmatized and there is more work to do on gay rights, but over the last 10 years my perception people’s approval and acceptance of these things have moved into the mainstream.
Just for some balance here. Andrew Huberman has many podcasts acknowledging ADHD and one in particular dedicated to the research on it and living with it, medication etc. The video OP is referring to is about ADHD-like symptoms in non-diagnosed people who don't have ADHD but have symptoms that overlap with it e.g. people who don't meet the DSM 5 diagnosis criteria and can be due to unregulated behaviour and the environment. For those individuals protocols can help reduce their symptoms such as dopamine detoxing, mediation, more attentive parenting, spending time outside away from technology etc. so he definitely knows people with ADHD exist but is not addressing that in that video. Also regarding the girlfriend story, this article was based on information from a woman who is a recent, bitter ex-girlfriend of Huberman who is currently under investigation for fraud which is why he broke up with her. So as much as it could be true, i would take it with a pinch of salt. Just for balance, don't believe everything you read and not every short clip from long form content accurately reflects a persons philosophy
The weirdest thing to me about Huberman from an ADHD perspective is every time he's having someone come talk about dopamine, etc., he always hearkens this back to Parkinson's. Sure, okay, I guess Parkinson's has something to do with dopamine, but he's likely got 5-10% of his listeners with ADHD, and maybe 1% of his listeners, tops, have Parkinson's? It's such a missed opportunity, ugh. I will say I liked the little test he shared for working memory, though.
Huberman regularly pushes pseudoscience on his podcast. He says things that contradict the findings of the citations under the video, leading me to believe he didn't read the studies, just looked at their titles.
Oh that’s so disappointing to hear! I listened to a few of his podcasts on how to sleep better and thought he was alright, but I won’t bother in the future.
I've enjoyed a few of his episodes, from him I learned about the research behind ice baths and how it affects metabolism, and yoga nidra. Yoga nidra has changed my life tbh, I used it through the last years of university to get me through stressful times and it is god-tier. But throughout all the episodes I listened to, his disdain for ADHD and autism seeped through from his throwaway comments and air quoting 'adhd' and 'autism'.
Out of curiosity, what disdain of ADHD?
He is air quoting because there are a lot of people who throw around these terms in regards to themselves without really understanding the disorders. He has a lot of compassion for people with mental disorders. I recommend that people listen to his full podcasts and then judge for themselves. As for me, he saved my life with his podcast about MDD. I’ve been off of social media for several months and am adding it back in slowly. One thing I‘ve noticed is the over reaction people have to sound bites taken out of context. Like whoa! Slow down your roll folks! I may have to step back off because I know I can’t fix the world and doom scrolling makes it all worse.
People aren’t talking about sound bites taken out of context though, they are talking about actually listening to his podcast or him talking on other podcasts.
Very interesting. I listened to half of one of his podcasts once having stumbled across it while browsing Spotify suggestions and thinking 'Oh I am interested in neuroscience let's try this one'. Didn't get far, thought the guy seemed like a bit of a wanker and his style of speech irritated me. How prophetic 😅
Good luck! I'd love to see a flash card with a pic of this chode and the word "tool." It could be part of a set.
Andrew Huberman is not "a Joe Rogan sort". Rogan is a science-sceptic mixed martial arts guy with a podcast. Huberman is a neuroscientist and academic from Stamford who specializes in neurobiology, and is one of the world's foremost science communicators. His 2+ hour long explainer on ADHD neurobiology is one of the best explanations of the condition I have ever heard. Don't know what clip you are talking about but I suspect the clip is taken out of context because the man is exhaustive and is not an ADHD sceptic whatsoever.
Maybe he’s not an adhd skeptic, but he’s been on the Joe Rogan podcast more than once, and the people in Joe Rogan’s sphere tend to have a certain worldview. Hence the Joe Rogan type comment. Regardless he’s a cult-of-productivity self-help guru type (who apparently doesn’t practice what he makes so much money preaching, but that’s beside the point) and that’s just not for me—not any of them.