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How to Prepare for & Recover From Surgery | Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips08:13Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Andrew Huberman discusses how to optimize preparation for and recovery from major surgery, focusing on pre-surgical fitness, light exposure to support ci...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Kidney Donation Recovery Question

  2. 00:00Hello, my name's Kelly and I had a
  3. 00:02question about recovering from a kidney
  4. 00:05donation surgery
  5. 00:07and what you can do following the
  6. 00:10surgery to retain as much muscle mass as
  7. 00:14possible during that recovery time. Um,
  8. 00:17also if there's anything you would do
  9. 00:19beforehand to increase the odds of
  10. 00:24less loss
  11. 00:26in that post-surgical time period. Thank
  12. 00:29you very much.
  13. 00:31Well, thank you for your question,
  14. 00:33Kelly, and really thank you for uh the
  15. 00:37incredible um act that you're uh that
  16. 00:41you're asking about a kidney donation. I
  17. 00:44mean, these things save lives. Gosh,
  18. 00:46there aren't even words for it. I mean,
  19. 00:47to give a kidney to save somebody's
  20. 00:48life, what a wonderful and remarkable
  21. 00:51thing. So, thank you so much for that.
  22. 00:53What a beautiful example of uh humans
  23. 00:56helping humans.
  24. 00:58how to best go into and recover from any
  25. 01:01surgery and in particular this one. The

  26. Pre-Surgery Fitness Preparation

  27. 01:05short answer is go into it as fit and
  28. 01:09rested as you possibly can. Now, life
  29. 01:12constraints will determine what that
  30. 01:13means for you, but it's very clear and
  31. 01:16in particular if you're thinking about
  32. 01:19maintaining muscle and maintaining
  33. 01:21general fitness and speed of recovery,
  34. 01:24that having your strength and your
  35. 01:26cardiovascular health as good as it can
  36. 01:28be heading into the procedure. And that
  37. 01:31also means not exhausting yourself or
  38. 01:32injuring yourself by overtraining is
  39. 01:36going to be immensely beneficial. And I
  40. 01:38can say this because I have several
  41. 01:39friends who are surgeons that will say
  42. 01:41to me always, you know, that the
  43. 01:43athletes that come in, even if they're
  44. 01:45dealing with major surgeries, even if
  45. 01:47they're not proathletes, they're just
  46. 01:48sort of, you know, recreational athletes
  47. 01:51always recover faster. Why? Well, their
  48. 01:53metabolic health is better, their
  49. 01:55circulation is better, and yes, they
  50. 01:57probably also are used to pushing into
  51. 01:59challenge and coming out of surgery um
  52. 02:01can be challenging. I've had surgeries
  53. 02:03before and I can tell you that it's
  54. 02:04always striking to me how absolutely
  55. 02:08dreadful I would feel coming out of it.
  56. 02:11You know, 2 3 days I was like, "Oh my
  57. 02:14god, I don't know how I'm ever." And
  58. 02:16then 5 days later like, "Wow, I can't
  59. 02:18believe how quickly I've healed." And I
  60. 02:20don't consider myself a, you know, any
  61. 02:22kind of serious athlete. I mean, I'm
  62. 02:24athletic. I exercise and so forth. Um,
  63. 02:26those surgeries were when I was younger
  64. 02:28from broken bones and things like that.
  65. 02:30So, they weren't nearly as intense and
  66. 02:32invasive as as what you're asking about
  67. 02:34here. But have your cardiovascular
  68. 02:36fitness um in place if you have time
  69. 02:39before this surgery. So great time to do
  70. 02:41and I imagine you might be doing any
  71. 02:43number of things that I'm about to
  72. 02:44describe but perhaps more as well but as
  73. 02:47we talked about earlier at least one
  74. 02:49long slow distance you know of about 45
  75. 02:51minutes to an hour zone two three-ish
  76. 02:54cardio per week um some highintensity
  77. 02:56interval training at least once per week
  78. 02:58maybe maybe twice and something more
  79. 03:00moderate in the middle kind of moderate
  80. 03:02intensity of about 30 minutes or so and
  81. 03:05some strength training for both the
  82. 03:06lower body and the upper body pro most
  83. 03:09probably on days other than the
  84. 03:11cardiovascular training, two to three
  85. 03:13days per week. And again, not
  86. 03:15overtraining, right? Not pushing
  87. 03:17yourself to try and get so fit that
  88. 03:19you're exhausted because you don't want
  89. 03:20to go into a surgery exhausted.
  90. 03:23But you do want to go in getting
  91. 03:25adequate sleep. It's normal the night
  92. 03:27before a big surgery to perhaps not get
  93. 03:29as great sleep as you normally do.
  94. 03:31That's normal. I think most surgeons
  95. 03:33will attest to the fact that while not
  96. 03:35ideal, that doesn't uh, you know,
  97. 03:37prohibit a really great recovery either.
  98. 03:40It's just normal kind of pre-surgery
  99. 03:42anxiety is is is common. But in the days
  100. 03:46and weeks before the surgery, being as
  101. 03:47rested as possible, and here's the big
  102. 03:49one, both going into and out of surgery.
  103. 03:51And I know some of you are going to go,
  104. 03:52"Ah, here he is again with the sunlight
  105. 03:54thing." I will tell you based on a lot
  106. 03:56of experience visiting people in the
  107. 03:58hospital which was just adjacent to my
  108. 03:59lab at Stanford. These are people who
  109. 04:01are dealing with everything from cancer
  110. 04:03to surgery
  111. 04:04patients of different ages. I actually

  112. Hospital Recovery & Sleep

  113. 04:06was uh I sat in on I didn't participate
  114. 04:10of course I'm not a surgeon uh on a
  115. 04:12brain surgery recently up at UCSF and
  116. 04:14I'll tell you in talking with the brain
  117. 04:16surgeons that when patients get and stay
  118. 04:21on a as normal as possible circadian
  119. 04:24rhythm coming out of surgery it helps
  120. 04:26immensely. There are even data showing
  121. 04:27that recovery from surgery and other
  122. 04:29illness in the hospital is significantly
  123. 04:32improved if the patient is next to a
  124. 04:33window where they get some natural
  125. 04:35light. If you can't do that, really
  126. 04:37think about eye mask at night so that
  127. 04:39you can get it as dark as possible. It's
  128. 04:41really hard in some hospitals to get it
  129. 04:43really dark because there's and quiet
  130. 04:45because there's a lot of noise from the
  131. 04:47equipment and people are coming in for
  132. 04:48the checks all night and you know you
  133. 04:50have the night staff. Great eye mask for
  134. 04:53sleeping at night. Great earplugs to
  135. 04:56keep it as quiet as possible so you can
  136. 04:58sleep on as normal as is possible for
  137. 05:01you schedule. If you can be positioned
  138. 05:03next to a window. I think if you're
  139. 05:04giving a kidney, they should put you
  140. 05:06next to a window and they should put you
  141. 05:07next to an east facing window. I don't
  142. 05:09know what hospital you're at. This
  143. 05:10person is giving a kidney. They deserve
  144. 05:12to be near a east facing window. Uh darn
  145. 05:15it, uh for their recovery and that will
  146. 05:18allow you to get on and stay on a normal
  147. 05:21circadian schedule or even west facing
  148. 05:23as we talked about earlier, get some
  149. 05:24ambient light in the early part of the
  150. 05:26day and get that outdoor time, some
  151. 05:28fresh air. This is going to massively
  152. 05:32help your overall state. It's going to
  153. 05:35tremendously help your sleep, which is
  154. 05:37going to tremendously help reduce the
  155. 05:39inflammation postsurgically. It's going
  156. 05:41to accelerate your healing and on and
  157. 05:43on. This circadian rhythm stuff, folks,
  158. 05:45is real. It is absolutely real and it is
  159. 05:48foundational to our health. Then in
  160. 05:51terms of what you can do to just get
  161. 05:54back the muscle that you had or maintain
  162. 05:57it through this period, if you have been

  163. Regaining Muscle & Memory

  164. 05:59exercising and doing strength training
  165. 06:01and perhaps hypertrophy and strength
  166. 06:03training for some period of time going
  167. 06:04into this, you will be amazed at how
  168. 06:07quickly an atrophied limb or an overall
  169. 06:10reduction in muscle and strength comes
  170. 06:12back. A lot of the quote unquote muscle
  171. 06:14memory that we talk about is skill-based
  172. 06:16muscle memory. I haven't write ridden a
  173. 06:17bike in years, but I can still do it.
  174. 06:19Muscle memory. But there's the other
  175. 06:21kind of muscle memory, which is the
  176. 06:22nerve to muscle, the motor neuron to
  177. 06:25muscle, which controls muscular
  178. 06:27contractions, quote unquote memory,
  179. 06:29which is the reestablishment of
  180. 06:33strength, the reestablishment of
  181. 06:36hypertrophy when you had it prior. So,
  182. 06:39regaining strength and and muscle size
  183. 06:42is far easier than gaining it for the
  184. 06:44first time. with the one exception being
  185. 06:46that when you're young, if like you're
  186. 06:48in your late teens, early 20s, it's
  187. 06:51pretty easy to gain muscle fast when you
  188. 06:53first start uh exercising, but that
  189. 06:55tapers off pretty quickly after about a
  190. 06:57year or so. And then you have to fight
  191. 06:58for every bit of it. And as you get
  192. 06:59older, it's harder to to get stronger
  193. 07:01and to build muscle, but you can do it.
  194. 07:03Now, that's the conventional stuff. And
  195. 07:05even that doesn't sound that
  196. 07:07conventional. I'm guessing that a lot of
  197. 07:09doctors probably are not talking about
  198. 07:11this, but that's not because they don't
  199. 07:12talk about it. It's just it's hard to
  200. 07:14prescribe to a lot of patients. And in
  201. 07:16particular, and here I'm calling out the
  202. 07:18hospitals, not Stanford Hospital, but
  203. 07:19other hospitals. They treat people, they
  204. 07:24want them to heal, they want to free up
  205. 07:26beds, they want to send them home, but
  206. 07:28the environment in the hospital is not
  207. 07:30circadian friendly to the patients or
  208. 07:33the staff. It's just not. It's not the
  209. 07:34nature of how hospitals work. And I'm
  210. 07:36not just talking about the emergency
  211. 07:37rooms. It's just not. you know, the
  212. 07:40bright lights, the noises in the middle
  213. 07:41of the night and the lack of, you know,
  214. 07:44uh, natural daylight coming through and
  215. 07:46it has a negative impact. It really
  216. 07:48does, uh, at multiple levels. So, you
  217. 07:50have to kind of push back on on the
  218. 07:52system in order to try and, uh, get the
  219. 07:54best possible circadian environment, if
  220. 07:57you will. Once again, Kelly, thank you
  221. 07:59ever so much. You're a godsend for
  222. 08:01somebody out there, and we need more
  223. 08:04people like you. [music]
  224. 08:10[music]