This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, behavior, psychology, and politics - as well as random curious stuff. (Try the Dynamic Views at top of right column.)
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The Huberman Lab Cornucopia
A friend mentioned enjoying a podcast on meditation from hubermanlab.com, so I listened to it, and decided to look a bit further into who Andrew Huberman is and what he does. Regarding his "How and Why to Meditate" podcast, I think his pedagogy is good. He does some very effective chunking of just a few core ideas and repeats them over and over again. Starting about a year ago he began to generate - completely separate from his lab research as an associate professor in the Standford University Medical School Neurobiology department - podcasts, interviews, and writing (see The Neural Network Newsletter). at an amazing rate, a veritable orgy of self-optimization nuggets ideally suited for his age cohort of 40- to 50-somethings. He has a rapid, logorrheic and rambling speaking style that, at least to me, detracts from the effectiveness of his presentations. I think MindBlog readers might enjoy clicking some of the above links and grazing through his material. Before his social media with thousands of followers persona burst on the scene, his publication list shows him puttering along the conventional academic research route, with his laboratory generating 1-4 papers a year on brain plasticity and repair, split roughly equally between laboratory research and commentary/review articles.
He seems like another one of the countless talking heads, they say a lot of truths but over emphasize the benefits of random things, or just give very generalized information because we really don’t have detailed enough studies to understand how much of a “benefit” a particular behavior or supplement has.
ReplyDeleteTo me, him and others, such as David Sinclair are really just selling themselves. People think they’re learning things and somehow improving themselves, but I bet not a one can prove it. It just feels good to listen to. As if you found a secret code to superior focus and discipline, yet you still lack focus and discipline.