Experts › Sleep & brain › Andrew Huberman

Sleep & brainBalancedEvidence: mixed

Andrew Huberman

Neuroscientist (PhD) · Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford School of Medicine · host of the Huberman Lab podcast

Use free daily behaviours such as morning light, regular sleep timing, exercise and breathing to steer your body and brain, and add supplements only after the basics.

In short

  • 3 lifting days + 3 cardio days a week
  • Outdoor light within an hour of waking
  • Caffeine 90–120 min after waking (his habit)
Build my plan in Huberman’s style
Words explained (4)
Zone 2
Steady cardio at a pace where you can still talk in full sentences, but not sing.
Intervals
Short hard efforts with easy recovery in between, such as 30 seconds fast, 90 seconds slow.
Omega-3 (EPA, DHA)
Healthy fats found mostly in oily fish such as salmon, herring and sardines.
Time-restricted eating
Eating all your meals within a set window of the day, for example 8am to 6pm.

At a glance

Strength 45%Easy cardio 40%Intervals 15%Mobility & stability 0%

Training focus: our estimate from what they recommend.

Morning light
Signature habit
No fixed target
Protein
Balanced
Training style
Mixed
Overall evidence

Background

Andrew Huberman studied psychology at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley, then earned a PhD in neuroscience at UC Davis in 2004. He did postdoctoral research at Stanford University.

He ran his own lab as an assistant professor at UC San Diego from 2011, then moved to Stanford School of Medicine in 2016 as an associate professor of neurobiology. His research has focused on the visual system, including regrowing damaged connections from the eye to the brain, and on stress, fear and how breathing and vision affect our state of mind.

His academic work earned awards including a McKnight Scholar Award, a Pew Biomedical Scholar Award and the Cogan Award for vision science (2017).

In 2021 he launched the Huberman Lab podcast, which explains brain and body science and gives practical 'protocols'. By 2023 it was among the most popular podcasts in the US, and it won an iHeartPodcast award for wellness and fitness in 2025.

Today he combines his Stanford role with the podcast and newsletter. Episodes are often long and feature guest experts on sleep, exercise, nutrition and mental health.

Known for

  • Morning sunlight for sleep and alertness
  • Delaying caffeine after waking
  • The physiological sigh (cyclic sighing)
  • Deliberate cold and heat exposure
  • Detailed supplement 'stacks'
  1. 1998BA in psychology, UC Santa Barbara
  2. 2004PhD in neuroscience, UC Davis
  3. 2005–2010Postdoctoral research at Stanford University
  4. 2011Became assistant professor at UC San Diego
  5. 2016Joined Stanford School of Medicine as associate professor of neurobiology
  6. 2021Launched the Huberman Lab podcast
  7. 2023Co-authored a Stanford study on breathing practices and mood (Cell Reports Medicine)
  8. 2025Podcast won Best Wellness & Fitness Podcast at the iHeartPodcast Awards

Core ideas

  1. Start with behaviours (light, sleep, movement), then food, then supplements, and use prescription drugs only when they are needed.
  2. Your body clock is set mainly by light, so the timing of daylight and darkness shapes sleep, mood and energy.
  3. Good sleep is the foundation that everything else rests on.
  4. A good week of training mixes resistance work with both easy and hard cardio.
  5. You can shift your own state of mind with simple tools such as breathing patterns, rest practices and brief cold exposure.
  6. Test one change at a time and watch how your own body responds.

How Huberman lives

In a 2021 episode he walked through his own typical day, from morning light and delayed caffeine to a late first meal, focused work blocks and an afternoon rest practice.

10–30 min
outdoor morning light (reported)
90–120 min
after waking before caffeine (reported)
~60 min
per training session, about 5 days a week (reported)
11 am–noon
usual first meal (reported, 2021)
  1. 6–7 amWakes, then walks outdoors for 10–30 minutes of natural light, without sunglasses
  2. MorningDrinks water with a little salt or an electrolyte drink. Caffeine, mostly yerba maté or guayusa tea, comes 90–120 minutes after waking
  3. Late morningFocused work in 90-minute blocks with the phone off and the internet blocked
  4. MiddayTrains for about an hour, then a first meal around noon (protein and fats) followed by a short walk
  5. AfternoonAbout 10 minutes of a hypnosis or rest practice instead of a nap, and more outdoor light in the late afternoon
  6. EveningDinner built around starchy carbohydrates with some protein, and dim lights at night

The protocol

Training

  • Three resistance days a week (legs; chest, shoulders and back; arms and neck), about 50–60 minutes eachStrong evidence
  • Build toward 180–200 minutes of Zone 2 cardio a week, including one long 60–75 min sessionStrong evidence
  • One moderate cardio session of about 35 minutes at 75–80% effortSome evidence
  • One interval session: 20–30 s hard, 10 s rest, 8–12 rounds, at about 95% effortSome evidence
  • Alternate months of heavier (4–8 reps) and moderate (8–12 reps) liftingPersonal habit
  • Avoid cold-water immersion within about 4 hours after training if building muscle is the goalSome evidence

Go deeper: Strength (Brad Schoenfeld) · Heart & fitness (Benjamin Levine, Martin Gibala) · Mobility & balance (Mike Fitch, Jules Mitchell)

Eating

  • Has described eating his first meal around 11 am–noon (2021)Personal habit
  • Protein and fats at lunch. Carbohydrates mainly on training days and at dinnerPersonal habit
  • Gives no protein target of his own. His guests suggest about 1.6 g per kg a dayNote

Go deeper: Eating (Tim Spector, Chris van Tulleken)

Supplements

  • Omega-3: 1–3 g of EPA a daySome evidence
  • Sleep stack 30–60 min before bed: magnesium threonate 145 mg or bisglycinate 200 mg, apigenin 50 mg, theanine 100–400 mg. Add one at a timePersonal habit
  • Has taken the greens powder AG1 since 2012. AG1 is a long-time podcast sponsorPersonal habit
  • Alpha-GPC 300 mg before mental work or training (personal use)Personal habit
  • Herbal hormone products such as tongkat ali (200–600 mg) or Fadogia agrestis (about 600 mg) only with blood tests before and after, and taken in cyclesDoctor only
  • Not a fan of melatonin except occasionally for jet lagNote

Sleep & recovery

  • Outdoors within 30–60 min of waking: about 10 min of light if sunny, 20 if cloudy, 30–60 if very overcastSome evidence
  • No caffeine in the last 8–10 hours before bedStrong evidence
  • Delay the first caffeine 90–120 minutes after waking (his own practice)Personal habit
  • Keep regular sleep and wake times, and a cool, dark bedroomStrong evidence
  • Avoid bright overhead light from about 10 pm to 4 amSome evidence
  • Keep naps under 90 minutes, or use a 10–20 minute rest practice (NSDR or yoga nidra) insteadPersonal habit

Go deeper: Sleep (Matthew Walker, Colleen Carney)

Stress & mind

  • Cyclic sighing, a breathing practice with long exhales, for about 5 minutes a daySome evidence
  • Deliberate cold: about 11 minutes a week in total, split into 2–4 sessions of 1–5 minutes, early in the daySome evidence
  • Weekly heat and cold session: 3–5 rounds of about 20 min sauna and about 5 min cold bath (7–10 °C)Personal habit
  • Morning walk outdoors, which he says helps calm the stress responsePersonal habit

Go deeper: Stress & connection (Elissa Epel, Robert Waldinger)

Brain health

  • Focused work in 90-minute blocks with distractions removedPersonal habit
  • Takes omega-3 EPA for brain health, mood and focusSome evidence
  • Caffeine at 1–3 mg per kg about 30 minutes before a mental task, not after about 2 pmSome evidence

Go deeper: Brain health (Miia Kivipelto, Wendy Suzuki)

Strong evidence = trials or large studies · Some evidence = smaller or observational studies · Personal habit = their own choice, little evidence · Doctor only = prescription or blood-test dosing, never in your plan.

Huberman’s style in your plan

Choose “Follow one expert” and we keep this balance of training and the methods above, then fit them to your age, your available time and your health screen.

What we adapt

Session length and number to your week. Loads start from your self-tests, never a one-rep max. Hard sessions never on back-to-back days.

Never in your plan

Anything marked “Doctor only”: prescriptions, and doses set by blood tests. We show these as their choice, not as advice.

You can mix

Prefer someone else’s eating or sleep advice? Pick one expert per area and set your own strength-cardio balance.

Build my plan in Huberman’s styleCompare with other experts

The research behind it

Natural light resets the body clock

A week of camping with only natural light moved people's body clocks about two hours earlier, lining up their sleep hormone with sunset and sunrise (small study of 8 people).

Wright et al., Current Biology, 2013

Breathing practice and mood

In a month-long remote study of 108 adults, 5 minutes a day of cyclic sighing lifted mood and slowed breathing more than mindfulness meditation. The authors call the results exploratory.

Balban et al., Cell Reports Medicine, 2023

Cold water and dopamine

In a small study, young men sitting in 14 °C water for one hour had noradrenaline rise about 530% and dopamine about 250%.

Šrámek et al., European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2000

Honest about weak spots

  • Supplements: Jonathan Jarry of McGill University's Office for Science and Society (2023) argued that he promotes supplements most people do not need. He said herbal products such as tongkat ali, Fadogia agrestis and shilajit are poorly studied, and that the evidence for some claims, such as myo-inositol for sleep and anxiety, is weaker than presented.
  • Sponsorships: the podcast is funded by sponsors that include supplement, testing and wellness companies. He became AG1's paid scientific advisor in 2022, and past sponsors named by critics include InsideTracker, Thorne and Momentous. Critics say this creates a financial incentive. Neuroscientist David Berson has praised the podcast but said some researchers disapprove of certain sponsorships and supplement promotion.
  • Certainty and extrapolation: scientists including cancer biologist Joseph Zundell and immunologist Andrea Love (Slate, 2024) say he sometimes applies animal or small human studies to everyday advice and speaks outside his field. New York Magazine (2024) said he presents certainty where the science is unclear. For example, the widely quoted dopamine rise from cold comes from a small 2000 study of an hour in 14 °C water, far longer than the short dips he suggests.
  • Public-health remarks: his comments on sunscreen ingredients drew criticism. He later said they were taken out of context and that he supports sunscreen. He has also voiced doubts about water fluoridation.

Where experts disagree

  • Caffeine cutoff: Huberman stops caffeine 8–10 hours before bed. He notes that sleep scientist Matthew Walker might advise 12–14 hours.
  • Eating window: Huberman has described not eating until late morning. Attia is sceptical of time-restricted eating as a general tool.
  • Supplements: Huberman discusses many targeted supplements. Attia's reported routine sticks mostly to basics such as fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium and B vitamins.

Sources

Last reviewed October 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us at hello@lifelongmethod.com and we’ll correct it.

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