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How Do Caffeine, Nicotine, and alpha-GPC Differ?

Ross Edgley says that toward the end of the Yukon swim they were getting into grams of caffeine, and that 400 milligrams made a hurting, mundane stretch feel better about 15 minutes later.

Andrew Huberman says he loves caffeine and has a high tolerance for it. Nicotine sets up a quick dependence for him, a fast up and down, so he does not treat it as an everyday tool. He keeps it as oral nicotine, such as a lozenge, not smoking or vaping. He calls alpha-GPC a milder alternative to nicotine. If he takes it late in the day, he says it can increase REM sleep instead of wrecking sleep the way many stimulants do. If he takes it too early, he crashes in the late afternoon. Besides caffeine, he says using these regularly creates more problems than solutions, so he saves them for when he really needs them.

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Unlocking Persistent Motivation & Extreme Resilience | Ross Edgley ·

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  2. Why Does the Anterior Midcingulate Cortex Grow?Andrew Huberman says the anterior midcingulate cortex enlarges when people do hard things. It shrinks when people tend to shy away from hard things.
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  4. Why Did Ross Edgley Rush the Iceland Swim?Ross Edgley rushed the finish in Iceland because his first child was due in a week's time and he feared missing the birth.
  5. What Happened on Ross Edgley's Loch Ness Swim?Ross Edgley picked up cellulitis on a 56-hour nonstop swim of Loch Ness. The water was about four degrees, barely above freezing. He did not stop for sleep.
  6. Why Does Prefrontal Activity Turn a Loser Into a Winner?Andrew Huberman says activity in a top-down circuit from the prefrontal cortex drives persistence and winning when other factors stay roughly equal.
  7. Why Did Brown Bears Worry Ross Edgley on the Yukon?Ross Edgley says black bears on the Yukon in Canada were skittish and felt fine, while brown bears were not skittish and looked at him as if they were…
  8. Why Did Andrew Huberman Swim Toward Great White Sharks?Andrew Huberman says his lab recorded great white sharks in the wild to bring into a VR lab.
  9. Why Did Doubt Stop Helping Ross Edgley?Ross Edgley says outside doubt became less and less useful across his career because fewer people doubted him.
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  11. What Four Things Make Up a Japanese Reason for Being?Ross Edgley says a Japanese idea of a reason for being is why you get up in the morning, made of four things that all have to be there: what you love, what…
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  13. What Does a Yaminawa Initiation Feel Like?Ross Edgley says initiation with the Yaminawa tribe felt cathartic. The ceremony ended with a good feeling, short of euphoria, and a sense of wow, we did it.
  14. What Is Deliberate Cold Exposure?Andrew Huberman says deliberate cold exposure, done as a shower or a cold plunge and done safely, lets a person get familiar with a flood of adrenaline.
  15. Why Does Ross Edgley Strength Train for Swims?Ross Edgley strength trains heavily between country-length swims because a ligament or a tendon is what stops the swim, not lactic threshold, VO2, or technique.
  16. Why Does Tunnel Vision Raise Energy?Andrew Huberman says aiming vision at one target raises arousal and the ability to recruit physical energy and mental energy.
  17. How Do Cuttlefish Eyes Change When They Hunt?When a cuttlefish sees something it wants to eat, the eyes move from the sides of the head to the front, and the animal becomes a depth-perception hunter.
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