Huberman Tip of the Day!

Foods That Can Enhance Your Focus & Concentration

Here's a list of supplements and food tips to improve focus. These are exact quotes with some edits for clarity. Dosages are in bold. Let's start.

1. Leverage Caffeine

There is an immense amount of data supporting the idea that caffeine, has improvements in focus and concentration. The caffeine in Yerba maté and coffee is known to increase the density and efficacy, that is the number and the function of dopamine receptors, and this has been shown in humans several times. The range is basically from 100 milligrams to 400 milligrams.

Make sure you delay caffeine 90 minutes after waking and stop drinking it at least eight to ten hours before bedtime.

2. Avoid sugar

There's a whole industry and a ton of interest for obvious reasons in what sorts of things kids and adults should and shouldn't eat in order to reduce symptoms of ADHD. I think that the sum total of those data point to the fact that reducing simple sugar intake and certainly highly processed foods, so ice cream, candy, chips, et cetera, those sorts of things, really does seem to improve symptoms of ADHD in both children and adults.

3. Try Fasting

When you ingest food, there's a shift in your nervous system towards the so-called parasympathetic mode, which is the more relaxed mode that can indeed make us feel very sleepy.

So a lot of people really like fasting and the state of being fasted for focus because it gives mental clarity and they don't have as much of that parasympathetic activation.

Note that it's also good to have glucose circulating in your system. So you might want to experiment to see if you prefer being in a fed or fasted state. Both have their uses.

4. Get Enough L-tyrosine

So if one wants to increase the amount of dopamine transmission in the brain and body for the sake of increasing concentration and focus, one of the most efficient ways to do that is by ingestion of the amino acid L-tyrosine. Again, L-tyrosine can be derived from food sources. Parmesan cheese, certain meats, certain nuts, you can look up which foods contain high amounts of tyrosine. There are also some fruits and vegetables that include high amounts of tyrosine. But in my case, I use L-tyrosine in capsule form. I will take 500 milligrams of L-tyrosine.

5. Don't eat too much before focusing

to be quite direct, it doesn't matter whether you're ingesting foods that are rich in the precursor amino acids to dopamine, acetylcholine, et cetera, if you are consuming large amounts of those foods if I were to ingest say two large steaks, that's a lot of meat and it will direct a lot of blood to my gut. The key is to eat enough that you're nourished for the certain activities, mental and physical that you need to perform, but if you're eating large meals, you are going to diminish your concentration and focus.

6. Helpful Supplements

Omega 3s

I've talked about the omega-3 essential fatty acids in a variety of contexts, in particular depression, but also ADHD, there are interesting data on that, and it's really clear that getting somewhere between one and three grams of EPA, that is one to three grams of EPA essential fatty acids per day can improve mood and can improve cognitive function.

Creatine Monohydrate

In my case, creatine really isn't geared towards muscle growth or strength or performance as much as it's geared toward tapping into the creatine phosphate system within the brain and specifically the benefits of creatine for prefrontal cortical networks, again, modulating, not directly mediating, but modulating and generally supporting the brain networks that are going to allow me to generate focus and concentration. So my read of the literature has led to a practice in which I ingest five grams per day of creatine monohydrate. This is generally available as a powder

Alpha-GPC

if acetylcholine transmission is increased even transiently within the brain, there's a greater opportunity for neuroplasticity to take place. There are supplements for this. The most effective one I've found is Alpha-GPC. Alpha-GPC is consumed at dosages of 300 milligrams to 600 milligrams. I would use Alpha-GPC by taking it about 10 to 20 minutes prior to any time I want to focus or concentrate very deeply.

Caution against drug use

There are a lot of people using drugs designed for ADHD and narcolepsy because those drugs will effectively increase focus and concentration, but I strongly discourage the use of powerful prescription drugs that have not been prescribed to you. First of all, it's illegal. Second of all, it's quite dangerous to hit the accelerator of those neural circuits with such vigor because it can increase dependency and they can have other side effects outside the context of clinically diagnosed and prescribed ADHD medication.

How to approach this?

I always believe that behavioral tools should come first, behavioral tools should come first. Then focus on nutrition. In fact, I would say behavioral and nutrition tools, and of course, get excellent sleep. Then focus on supplementation and then, and only if those are failing to bring your brain and body to the state you need to be in to perform well in school and work and life, et cetera do I recommend that people lean on prescription drugs.

TL;DR caffeine, omega 3, L-tyrosine, fasting, creatine, alpha gpc, and no sugar.

And that's all you need to know about food for concentration!

How will you change your diet after reading this?

Have a great day Reader! Let me know if you like this format.

Your 90-minute block

Day 1: Time sessions to 90 minutes ✅
Day 2: Start with a short warm-up ✅
Day 3: Narrow eyes to a visual target ✅
Day 4: Strengthen the lights ✅
Day 5: Push to work on harder things ✅
Day 6: Eliminate your phone ✅
Day 7: To refocus, do exteroception ✅
Day 8: Leverage food/supplements ✅

You're on the right track. Great job!
Goal: 90 minutes of deep work.

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