Huberman's Faith in God

when you're talking about the brain and all the I mean you you mentioned it last night and this this had me thinking it's like when you think how all that works I have to take an aside and say how could that happen in nature is without a Creator yeah so well here's the thing I mean we know that the programs meaning genes so genes DNA C and there's DNA then there's RNA and then there's proteins and proteins are the action end of the game where they say hey like grow over here don't grow over there

you know um become this kind of cell dopamine cell or a serotonin cell we know that those mechanisms are incredibly well conserved from mice to humans now certain things happen in the human brain that you don't see in other species like the elaboration of the parts of the brain that are involved in context and planning especially but the memory systems the ones that control hormones breathing heart rate they're very similar not exactly the same but very similar okay when you start to study and understand brain development as I did or neuroplasticity or dopamine you have

to meaning I don't care if you're an atheist agnostic or believer in Creator you have to step back and just go wow wow now then of course there's this difference among scientists as to who believes in God who doesn't I'll just go on record I'm very comfortable saying I believe in God I do I think there are many things that science can explain there are certain things science can't explain but I'll even go a step further which is that all the elements of science are entirely compatible with the idea of there being a God and

I'm not the first science to say this I mean Einstein believed in God um Carl Yung one of the greatest psychologists ever clearly believed in God there are many atheist scientists there are agnostic scientists who are just kind of like unsure right and you know for me I'm an absolute awe absolute awe of biology mhm it's just incredible they we sitting here having this conversation is just it's language that they little sound waves that you're perceiving and understanding I mean it's just and I think the brain represents the Apex of incredible in terms of biology

like the heart is interesting the immune system is interesting the liver is interesting but the brain is unbelievable I mean think about the number of different ways you can move your body compared to another species MH think about what you did today think about what I was attempting to do today right yeah spectacular think about technology these lights the you know Tesla cars spaceships I mean yeah the internet I mean un believable and yet oh so real yeah so you know I mean we could talk a bit about how I you know well I'll just

say this secretly I've always prayed I grew up in a split religion home my family is like the UN we've got people from Guatemala uh Denmark Argentina New York like all the different political battles are in my family super left super right Libertarians lefties to the you know it's crazy thanksgivings can be difficult yeah but I'll say this you know I absolutely pray I absolutely love that the idea but also what for me is really a deep belief which is that we can't control everything we're not in as much control as we think we are

and that the magnificence of biology and the magnificence of of nature is um it's it's impossible to for me to conceive how that could be come about any other way it just is now yeah I mean I think that you know full stop who do you pray to uh that's an interesting one because I think uh God yeah so I I absolutely do I've actually started reading the Bible recently start to finish I I feel like it's my duty to like learn and in some sense compare Old and New Testament mhm I I'm like really

I'm really interested in the stories but I'm also I'm fascinated by The Story of Us right and and the story of of everything and so but yeah I pray out loud in the morning um sometimes again in the middle of the night if I wake up mhm and um and it's only recently that I've been doing this more often it's giving you peace or my goodness it's given me so much it's giving me peace and you know this is going to sound weird and probably people are going to be like what are you talking about

if you're this it works mhm it works there's a there's a way in which certain things I was grappling with you know um I just couldn't resolve I couldn't do it and it was all internal and I just couldn't do it what what how were you trying to resolve these things like have an answer yeah discipline myself I mean it wasn't like I was super you know undisciplined I mean obviously I have a lot of self-discipline but you know like I I always pray you know I want to remove my defects of character I want

to um you know I certainly pray for other people um I I most mostly you know these days I pray for the ability to really harness as much care and love for other people and for myself something I haven't been that good at in my lifetime um in order to be able to put the best possible work into the world to really serve like I really see myself as serving higher power MH like I'm a conduit right um and the better I can do that the the better I'm serving the better I'm serving the more

I'm feel connected to humanity do you think that with this with this I don't know if you've always felt like this it sounds like it's more of a a newer newer feeling but somewhat although secretly yeah like in Santa Barbara I'll just say there's this place Sand's Beach down at the end of the beach if anyone's ever been there and I used to run down there once a week I always did a long run long for me run on Sunday minus a 72lb rock right and I would pray and I just pray for you know

be honest with myself be honest with others and that was years ago I was 18 oh okay 19 20 so um and then you know I've seen some hardship along the way I mean I would just mention that I've had three amazing scientific advisers you know Harry shot himself two weeks after I told him we publish a paper in science he said come on down to Santa Barbara it'd be great to take you out for pizza and celebrate mhm two weeks later ate a bullet in the bathtub Barbara Di died of cancer when she was

5050 I'm friends with her daughter I you know saw her she did have those two kids one's a neuroscientist oh man um that Migel and um she was like a mom to me MH she died I was speaking at her Memorial and then my postto adviser died he was pretty impressive guy in his own right and so at one point I'm thinking like what's going on you know I'm the common denominator how am I picking these people but they were amazing and you know I had some friends commit suicide you know this kind of thing

and and you know you live long enough that's going to happen people are going to go that's just the reality MH but there were times I'm like you know it's dark it was you know like where am I why why me and at those moments too just accepting that there's a plan and it's happening for a reason and I don't know what it is and just putting my trust in that allowed me to to grieve those things properly and to really try and you know I got the message I got the download to take the

lessons from them and just not waste a single day and to do things that I really felt mattered so to me it's all always been linked right to you know sort of forces greater than me certainly does it feel like you know when I hearing all this does it feel like once you've taken like this a more I don't know intentional turn for being grateful and praying you're not drinking since 2019 it seems like that's been in tandem with your success uh absolutely um you know I always wanted to have a deeper relationship to to

God I always wanted that and I kind of was like why don't I have that well duh that's like saying I want to be fit why I'm not I'm not fit well because you're not running you're not lifting you're not doing the things it was like and it was a um a couple of different people that kept showing up in my life and and and they were doing it and it was like we pray mhm and you know I've learned and I certainly try and do this a lot of prayer is about listening and a

lot of prayer is about you you ask for things or listen for things and then an hour later two days later you go wait M like it doesn't happen in the moment necessarily just like Fitness I don't want to compare Fitness I don't want to trivialize Prayer by by comparing to Fitness but there's some parallels that are relevant yeah it's consistent work yeah it's consistent where and then all of a sudden like things come up and you're like oh my goodness I can't believe it that makes so much sense now I think that the success

of the podcast first of all I'm incredibly grateful for it incredibly grateful but in many ways I'm doing exactly what I was doing when I was that six seven eight nine year old kid I'm learning and sharing so it was always in me and it always felt like this energy this thing like it's like how how did I end up like this how come all the other kids like don't have this mhm and how come sometimes it feels like a little bit of a not a curse but kind of a burden like what do I

do with this and the Deep satisfaction for me comes from acknowledging this is me I've always been this way it's not going to change and that I it's not coming from me it's coming through me right and I just want to do right by it and I think we talked a little bit it's a gift and you're honoring your gift that's right essentially yes yes well and I feel like if we're honoring our gifts we're we're rewarded absolutely and and I think I think one of the biggest rewards recently comes from we talked a little

bit about this on the mountain today it's like for me The Sweet Spot that I finally get steady glimpses of is being loving but also realistic mhm like like you can be so loving that you lose touch with the reality too much trust isn't good either but you don't want to be unloving to yourself and others because then you look at the world through cynical lens and then you're not going to be doing your best work so for me it's all about being loving but realistic mhm and I think prayer helps me arrive there it

does many many other things I also just feel like our time here is limited and I've been so blessed by people that have come along I mean those academic mentors meant everything to me but so did the academic mentors that I didn't work for directly that helped me along so did the high school football coach that taught me out of lift so did Lex fredman you Joe Rogan right Rich Ro people who gave me the opportunity to talk on their podcast about science and and then eventually you know we started our own podcast so to

me it's this like beautiful ecosystem and I never ever think of myself as like okay like I'm here professing to people I just I just love being a part of it I also just like when I was a kid I'm crewed up with a bunch of great people M you know and it's not all guys Ronda Patrick too who by the way folks people always say who was first man in on public facing science and health education uh not first man first woman it was Ronda she was the first then came Matt Walker me some

others right MH so I think the community of podcasters also I feel like wow like this is as great as when I discovered neuroscience and I actually feel more resonance with podcasters because it's really like of the love you can't have a podcast that is worth anything in terms of its success or its content unless the person doing it loves that thing right like you can't it's not journalism it's not media I mean and there's a media component M cuz it's public facing but it's like you love bow hunting yeah you love Fitness you love

hammering away every day right right and so you're you're basically talking about the things that you would be doing anyway and so and so is Joe and so is Lex and so is Rich you know so is Rhonda yeah and we're getting paid for this right exactly I do this for free exactly so if anyone out there wants to do a podcast or social media what I would say is make sure that what you talk about is something that you really truly care about