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How to Exercise For Improved Cognitive Function | Dr. Tommy Wood & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Huberman Lab Clips10:04Added Aug 31, 2026

Dr. Tommy Wood and Dr. Andrew Huberman discuss the impact of exercise intensity on brain health, emphasizing how moderate activity provides an immediate cognitive boost while high-intensity interval training supports long-term hippocampal structure and neuroplasticity.

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Exercise & Cognitive Arousal

  2. 00:00Exercise in particular, we know very
  3. 00:02well that some period of exercise, it
  4. 00:04can be resistance training, aerobic
  5. 00:06exercise, very brief sprints, increase
  6. 00:08arousal, improve cognitive function
  7. 00:10across multiple domains, um improve
  8. 00:13learning um and retrieval, right? So, so
  9. 00:16you're definitely augmenting some of
  10. 00:17these processes of neuroplasticity. Some
  11. 00:19of that's going to be related to the
  12. 00:20catakolamines and other things that get
  13. 00:22released as you know as you as arousal
  14. 00:25increases. But we also know that
  15. 00:28different types of exercise have
  16. 00:30different effects on different parts of
  17. 00:31the brain. So yes, I think some of just
  18. 00:34like the general process of moving your
  19. 00:37body um and exerting effort definitely
  20. 00:41increases arousal. Um definitely
  21. 00:42improves cognitive function, improves
  22. 00:44learning as long as it's not truly
  23. 00:47exhaustive exercise. Like anybody who's
  24. 00:50done some terrible CrossFit WAD or you
  25. 00:53know I used to be a rower. We used to do
  26. 00:54a 2k test on the rowing machine, right?
  27. 00:56You do a 2k test on a rowing machine,
  28. 00:58your brain does not work afterwards.
  29. 00:59It's like a sixinute flat out like V2
  30. 01:03max kind of level of exertion.
  31. 01:05Yeah, thanks. I'm going to interrupt
  32. 01:06briefly. Thank you for pointing that out
  33. 01:08because I think that people assume they
  34. 01:10have an infinite amount of energy and
  35. 01:11there's crossover and um I certainly
  36. 01:15have done, you know, extra sets to
  37. 01:18failure in a great morning workout and
  38. 01:20then the in the afternoon I'm dragging.
  39. 01:22If I hold back just a little bit in
  40. 01:24terms of volume,
  41. 01:25I find I get a real boost out of
  42. 01:28training. And I do low low volume high
  43. 01:31intensity, you know, usually two sets
  44. 01:33per exercise to, you know, two or three
  45. 01:36exercises per per muscle, like
  46. 01:38quadriceps being one muscle or something
  47. 01:40like that. If I do three,
  48. 01:42it's a small addition, right? The rest
  49. 01:44of the day, I'm kind of dragging. So,
  50. 01:46leaving something in the tank,
  51. 01:48yeah,
  52. 01:48does seem worthwhile. Not during the
  53. 01:50sets, but leaving something in the tank
  54. 01:52in terms of volume really seems to help,
  55. 01:54especially if you want your like to
  56. 01:56perform hard cognitive work directly
  57. 01:58afterwards. sometimes if you're trying
  58. 02:00to really push
  59. 02:01sure
  60. 02:02performance or adaptation right it's
  61. 02:03worth digging into that hole but it
  62. 02:06really just depends on what you want to
  63. 02:07be able to do directly afterwards
  64. 02:09I think student athletes especially in
  65. 02:11D1 schools they really um come to
  66. 02:13appreciate this I've had a few of them
  67. 02:15in my courses over the years and um they
  68. 02:18really understand when they're pushing
  69. 02:20very very being pushed very hard in
  70. 02:22their sport and um they know that they
  71. 02:26have to sit in the front of the
  72. 02:28classroom, sit upright, do ex take extra
  73. 02:31measures to make sure they're not dozing
  74. 02:33off, attention drifting, especially in
  75. 02:35the age of phones and iPads and and
  76. 02:38things like that. It's very very
  77. 02:39difficult. Um, yeah, thank you for for
  78. 02:42mentioning that because they're just an
  79. 02:43extreme case of the rest of us. You
  80. 02:45know, we're told we're all very busy
  81. 02:46like, "Oh, you need to exercise. It'll
  82. 02:47help your brain." And people like,
  83. 02:48"Well, I exercise and I'm exhausted."
  84. 02:50You know, that's not helping my brain.
  85. 02:52Let's get practical here. So, is there
  86. 02:54any way uh to
  87. 02:57it's got to be really subjective and uh
  88. 02:59depend dayto day. Is is there any way to
  89. 03:01kind of formalize that like should you
  90. 03:04train let's say resistance training or
  91. 03:07running? You know, should you cap it at
  92. 03:09an hour? Should you pull back on the
  93. 03:12intensity if you have harder cognitive
  94. 03:14work to do in the afternoon? We all want
  95. 03:15the maximum effect of exercise, but we
  96. 03:17don't want it to undercut our efforts.
  97. 03:19Yeah. I I think that a lot of it's going
  98. 03:20to be based on what your current
  99. 03:22capacity is, right? As as with

  100. Optimal Workouts for Immediate Focus

  101. 03:24everything. So if you're you you want to
  102. 03:27do some you got some you know learning
  103. 03:30to do you got an exam you want to do
  104. 03:31some hard cognitive work at you know
  105. 03:33whatever it is writing a presentation
  106. 03:35analyzing data you uh reading you
  107. 03:37reading papers writing your book then
  108. 03:39[snorts]
  109. 03:40doing some kind of workout that's that's
  110. 03:42probably below
  111. 03:44your kind of typical or below what what
  112. 03:47you would do when you're really sort of
  113. 03:49pushing pushing the envelope. I think
  114. 03:51that when you look at meta analyses of
  115. 03:54exercise and then cognitive function
  116. 03:56immediately afterwards, the the protocol
  117. 04:00that has like the best evidence for it
  118. 04:02is like a 20 to 30 minute jog, right? So
  119. 04:05like that's the kind of um level of
  120. 04:08activity that that really seems to sort
  121. 04:10of like support all those general
  122. 04:11processes of plasticity and learning.
  123. 04:13What do you think is going on? Because
  124. 04:14it can't be that much arousal. I mean
  125. 04:16that the amount of catakolamines
  126. 04:17released from again catakolamines folks
  127. 04:20being the you know adrenaline
  128. 04:21norepinephrine and uh dopamine um
  129. 04:24generally increased levels arousal
  130. 04:26alertness uh propensity to move you just
  131. 04:29that's that I feel better people often
  132. 04:31think about the runner's high and
  133. 04:32endorphins the endorphins come from
  134. 04:34pretty long intense duration effort
  135. 04:36they're more of a
  136. 04:37you're floating kind of like you know I
  137. 04:39think the catakolamines are really the
  138. 04:41the cocktail of like all right I got a
  139. 04:43great workout in this morning showered
  140. 04:45got dressed I'm off to work. Let's go.
  141. 04:47That's the
  142. 04:48So 20 or 30 minute jog,
  143. 04:51I don't expect you'd get that much
  144. 04:52catakolamine release.
  145. 04:54I mean, you'll definitely get some,
  146. 04:55right? And like cortisol, too, right?
  147. 04:57Which obviously increases alertness and
  148. 04:59arousal and can can in the short term
  149. 05:01make you feel good.
  150. 05:01It's a good thing.
  151. 05:02Um, you you see similar effects of, you
  152. 05:05know, short resistance training
  153. 05:06workouts. Um,
  154. 05:07I think of it, it's it's probably a
  155. 05:10little bit of like an area under the
  156. 05:11curve thing because you see some similar
  157. 05:13effects of like you go out and you do
  158. 05:15six-second really hard sprints like max
  159. 05:18effort sprints. You do that a few times
  160. 05:20with a long break in between, right?
  161. 05:21That seems to have a similar effect, but
  162. 05:23you're only working for very short
  163. 05:24periods with very long rest periods. So,
  164. 05:27it's some it's something in that in that
  165. 05:30sphere. And I think it that's probably
  166. 05:32just it. It's just enough to you just
  167. 05:35kind of boost catamines a little bit, a
  168. 05:37little bit of cortisol. That's enough to
  169. 05:39kind of move you up the arousal curve to
  170. 05:41the point where you're then able to
  171. 05:42focus and engage a little bit better. I
  172. 05:44think yeah you don't need a huge dump of
  173. 05:47that um in order to achieve that
  174. 05:48increase in arousal particularly as it
  175. 05:50pertains to like learning and then you
  176. 05:52know cognitive performance in like
  177. 05:54formal cognitive tests when which is
  178. 05:56where this is usually done. If you're
  179. 05:58then thinking about the type of exercise
  180. 06:00that changes cognitive function or brain
  181. 06:03structure long term, effort uh and
  182. 06:07intensity do seem to matter a lot more.
  183. 06:10But those studies have looked less of
  184. 06:11well how did that how do they feel
  185. 06:13directly afterwards? Right now you're

  186. Driving Long-Term Brain Growth

  187. 06:15thinking about what's the kind of
  188. 06:16stimulus that drives change over time
  189. 06:20and then intensity matters a lot as
  190. 06:22well. So um the the best example um is
  191. 06:26with aerobic exercise on the kind of uh
  192. 06:29zone 2 up to kind of zone 4 five sprint
  193. 06:33spectrum. So most people who listen to
  194. 06:36your show have probably familiar with a
  195. 06:38study where in older adults they had
  196. 06:40them do uh brisk walking three times a
  197. 06:43week 40 minutes. Um, and when you kind
  198. 06:46of read the study and and the heart rate
  199. 06:48uh levels they were trying to attain, it
  200. 06:50was basically zone 2 work. 40 minutes
  201. 06:52brisk walking three times a week for a
  202. 06:53year. And they saw significant increases
  203. 06:56in the volume of the hippocampus uh
  204. 06:58increases in V2 max fitness, increases
  205. 07:01in circulating BDNF levels, though
  206. 07:04circulating BDNF doesn't actually get
  207. 07:06into the brain, but it's kind of telling
  208. 07:08you something about probably BDNF that's
  209. 07:10being produced in the brain. um and
  210. 07:13improvements in memory. With all of
  211. 07:15that,
  212. 07:17however, there's a much more recent
  213. 07:19study that took again older adults and
  214. 07:23randomized them across three different
  215. 07:24groups. One was like a low inensity
  216. 07:26group. Another group basically did kind
  217. 07:28of zone 2 type work on a treadmill three
  218. 07:30times a week, very sim similar to that
  219. 07:32previous study that I mentioned. And the

  220. Norwegian 4x4 Protocol

  221. 07:34third group did um a high-intensity
  222. 07:36interval training intervention, which is
  223. 07:38the Norwegian 4x4 protocol. So 4 minutes
  224. 07:41at 85 to 95% of maximum heart rate, they
  225. 07:44had a 3minut rest in their protocol.
  226. 07:45They did that four times over.
  227. 07:48That's really hard. Anybody who's done
  228. 07:50the Norwegian 4x4, if I then say, well,
  229. 07:53hey, do that three times a week for 6
  230. 07:54months. Like that's
  231. 07:56that's three times a week.
  232. 07:57Three times a week for 6 months. That's
  233. 07:58that's pretty intense. But what they
  234. 08:01showed was that that high-intensity
  235. 08:03interval training group, they improved
  236. 08:05their fitness just as well as the zone 2
  237. 08:07group, interestingly, but they had much
  238. 08:09better improvements in hypocample
  239. 08:11function and maintenance of hypocample
  240. 08:13structural and MRI scan. And they
  241. 08:16maintained that benefit for 5 years
  242. 08:19after the six-month intervention. So
  243. 08:22they worked really hard um for 6 months,
  244. 08:25but that that benefit was maintained for
  245. 08:28for a really long period of time. And in
  246. 08:30several analyses within that study, they
  247. 08:31basically show that the harder people
  248. 08:33worked um and the more cortisol they
  249. 08:36released, the better the benefit. And so
  250. 08:39this is important because nowadays
  251. 08:41there's or you know there's several
  252. 08:42people out there saying, "Oh, don't do
  253. 08:43high intensity exercise. It releases
  254. 08:44cortisol. That's stressful. Your body
  255. 08:46can't handle it." Right? This study
  256. 08:48directly shows that working really hard,
  257. 08:50releasing a lot of cortisol in
  258. 08:51high-intensity interval training
  259. 08:53actually improves hippocample structure
  260. 08:55and function um over over time. So yes,
  261. 08:58I imagine after they did their workouts,
  262. 09:01their brain wasn't maybe working at its
  263. 09:02best cuz that's a hard workout. But over
  264. 09:04time, this was this really strong
  265. 09:07stimulus that then resulted in
  266. 09:08significant improvements.
  267. 09:10Forgive me if you said it and I missed
  268. 09:12it. Uh what was the form of exercise?
  269. 09:14Was it rowing or biking or
  270. 09:16It was on a treadmill.
  271. 09:17Treadmill.
  272. 09:17Yeah.
  273. 09:18Uh really interesting. Um and you said
  274. 09:20it about 85% of max heart rate.
  275. 09:22Yeah. So that's that's a typical
  276. 09:24Norwegian 4x4 protocol, but I don't
  277. 09:27think that's the protocol you have to

  278. How Lactate Supports Neuroplasticity

  279. 09:28do. I think it's just this process of
  280. 09:30highintensity exercise that you releases
  281. 09:34a whole bunch of myines and lactate in
  282. 09:36particular. We know that lactate very
  283. 09:38easily gets into the brain, generate,
  284. 09:40you know, stimulates BDNF production as
  285. 09:42as kind of part of that support of
  286. 09:44neuroplasticity or augmenting recent
  287. 09:47neuroplastic processes. I think there's
  288. 09:50something about that just that high
  289. 09:51intensity work that drives some of those
  290. 09:53factors that then support structure and
  291. 09:56function.
  292. 10:03[music]