- If right now, someone pulled a firealarm in this building, or if we had a fire in this building, my attention would drift.

 It would not be on recording this podcast, it would be on something else.

 But would I say that the firealarm mediates attention? I mean, fire alarms are notreally involved in attention.

 No, rather they modulate my attention.

 The noise in the roommodulates my attention.

 That's quite a bit different than a tool that I'll provide later, and I'll just give youa little hint of now, in fact, I'll give it to you now, which is that 40 Hz binauralbeats have been shown in a number of peer-reviewed studies to increase focus and concentration.

 And if you'd like toaccess 40 Hz binaural beats in order to improve yourfocus and concentration, you can do that.

 You can actually get it at zero cost.

 You can go into the app store, for instance, the Apple App Store.

 This is also available for Android phone.

 There's an app called,BrainWave, and you can go there, you can dial in 40 Hz, and it'll play these binaural beats.

 It's been shown in multiplequality peer-reviewed studies that playing a pattern ofsound waves to one ear, do, do, do, do do, and the other ear, which is slightly offset in frequency, meaning not quite the same frequencies, so more like do, do, do, do, that that combination of frequencies played to the different ears, actually get integratedwithin deep brain centers and can increase focus andconcentration, in part, by increasing levels ofthe neurochemical dopamine and acetylcholine, which we talked about a little bit earlier in this Arrow Model of Focus.

 So we'll provide a link to that app.

 I don't have any relationship to that app, I should mention, butit's an excellent one.

 It's one that I've used for many years.

 There are also additionalfunctions within the app such as for sleep and for other things.

 But the 40 Hz, 4-0-H-Zis the way it reads out, 40 Hz stimulation has been shown to improve focus and concentration.

 Here is my recommendationin the way that I use it.

 I would not use 40 Hz binaural beats every time I'm doing a about of work.

 What I tend to do is use itfor about five minutes prior to that work and then turnit off and then do the work.

 And I'll talk about othertools to use during that work, whether or not it's reading or math, or even just emailing orsomething where I require a bunch of focus for a while.

 However, there are times inwhich I'm in an area or I'm in a state of mind where I'mfeeling very distractable and then I'll keep the40 Hz binaural beats on the entire time I'm doingthat about of cognitive work.

 I'll also sometimes use the40 Hz binaural beats prior to a workout, inparticular weight workouts, where I really want to be able to focus on and contract specific muscles.

 So it's a very useful tool.

 Again, supported by qualitypeer-reviewed science.

 Zero cost available out there, not just in the BrainWaveapp, but in multiple apps.

 I think many of you will benefit from it.

 Some of you might notexperience it immediately as a total dropping into a tunnel of focus in the same way that you might with say, the sorts of neurochemicalsthat we'll talk about later, like alpha-GPC and someof these other things that change neurochemicals directly.

 But nonetheless 40 Hz binaural beats are a very powerful tool.

 Again, zero costnon-pharmacologic tool that tap into your own endogenous, meaning within you or exists within you, physiology in order toincrease acetylcholine and some other neurochemicals.

 And they have been shownto work quite well.

 Okay, so assuming thatyou are sleeping well, 80% of the nights of yourlife are at least working on the various protocolsand tools to sleep well and sufficiently long, 80%of the nights of your life.

 And you are interested in additional tools that are sound-based in order to improve your abilityto concentrate and focus.

 There are quality peer-reviewedstudies supporting the idea that white noise or pinknoise and, believe it or not, there is something called pink noise.

 It has to do with the specific frequencies of sound that are in the noise.

 Well, white noise andpink noise have been shown to not improve concentration per se, but to improve people'sability to transition into concentrated states.

 So I don't tend to usewhite noise and pink noise while I work, but I know anumber of people that do.

 I know people that also usewhat's called brown noise.

 The folks I know from the engineering and computer science side, get really into thesedetails of white noise, pink noise, brown noise.

 You can find white noise,pink noise, or brown noise, and listen to it throughheadphones or in the room.

 There is indeed somedata to support the fact that white noise and tosome extent pink noise and brown noise can support the release of particular neurochemicals, but more data showingthat they can amplify the activity of neurons in theso-called prefrontal cortex, this front area, sort of thebumper behind your forehead, that is directly relatedto your ability to direct your own focus and remainfocused on certain things.

 So you have the option ofeither using binaural beats before, but not during your work.

 That is 40 Hz binaural beats or 40 Hz binaural beatsthroughout your attempt to focus.

 You also have the optionof not using binaural beats but using white noise,pink noise or brown noise.

 Again, there are a lot of zero cost apps.

 You can find also white noise, pink noise and brown noise on YouTube.

 Again, these are toolsthat really have been shown over and over in humansto allow people to focus with more depth and todecrease the transition time into focus.

 This is a really key point.

 A lot of people are challenged with getting into a mode of focus.

 None of us, however, should be expected to justsit down and drop directly into a state of focus.

 I think that's completely anunfair request of ourselves.

 I mean, for instance, you wouldn't expect yourselfto go out on the track or go out for a run and not warm up.

 You might jog for a fewminutes or even walk before you would jog and thenjog before you would run, right? I would hope you would do that.

 And if you're doing resistance training, I doubt that you go over andload up the bar or the machine with the maximum amount ofweight that you can move and then just drop right into that.

 You always do a warmup.

 And I think it's very importantto understand mental work, focus and concentrationas requiring that warmup.

 What is that warmup? Well, you know what that warmup is, that warmup is the ramping up or the increase ofepinephrine, adrenaline, acetylcholine and dopamine, right? The way that neurochemicalswork is we don't just get to flip switches in our brain because we decide to.

 That's a fantasy, that's sort of the theLimitless movie or, you know, movies and ideas that suddenly, you know, you're going to flip a switch on your arm and all of a sudden you'regoing to be in a laser focus.

 That is just not the way thatyour nervous system works.

 There's a gradual dropping into any state, whether or not that state is sleep, right? You go from shallow sleep to deep sleep and then out eventually.

 Focus too, you go from shallow focusto increasingly deep focus.

 That is in our metaphor of the arrow.

 It's very broad, it's pointed at a lot of things.

 And over time, as we drop into focus, that arrow is narrowing andnarrowing and narrowing.

 In fact, probably betterto think about it narrowing and then sometimes oscillatingand getting wider again.

 You know, we might hearsomething down the hallway or more typically our phonewill buzz or we'll think, "oh, I wonder what so and so is doing," or, "I had to contactthem about something.

" Your focus is dynamic.

 It is not what we call a step function.

 It's not like you gofrom unfocused to focus and then you drop into your maximum focus.

 By understanding that it's dynamic, by understanding that you aregoing to be continually going in and out of progressively, but varying levels of focus, you will greatly releasethe pressure on yourself to feel focused all thetime when you want to be.

 This is very key, people who are very good at focusing understand this and understand that they can't expect themselvesto just immediately focus and then snap into or out of focus.

 Okay, so be patient withyourself and also understand that focus is an ability, that you can improve your ability to focus by engaging the neuralcircuits responsible for focus repeatedly overtime through so-called neuroplasticity, the ability of your nervoussystem to change in response to experience.

 And that has a coupleof different components but put very simply, what we repeat gets etchedinto our nervous system and becomes easier over time.

 And the more emotionallyimportant or vital something feels to us, the more likely it isto trigger neuroplasticity.

 We're going to talk a little bit more about how to increase neuralcircuits for focus later.

 But right now what you have in hand is the key importance of sleep.

 And I again, will directyou to hubermanlab.

com and the Neural NetworkNewsletter to really work on optimizing your sleep.

 We've also got twoauditory sound-based tools for improving focus.

 There's 40 Hz binaural beats used before or during bouts offocus and concentration.

 And if you don't likethose, or even if you do, you might alternate them with or occasionally usewhite noise, pink noise, or brown noise also readilyavailable at zero cost.

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