How to Grow From Doing Hard Things | Michael Easter

The lines in the background are really distracting, stressful to the eye and made it difficult for me to watch the video.

what they talk about in sitting with boredom is the practice of mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this. People are afraid to face the suffering inside them so they keep themselves distracted with their phones

Love this topic, definitely believe in being in the 2%. TBI survivor, taught early in my recovery to…. “Do what your doing, when your doing it, say what your saying when your saying it… be present.

Hello Dr. Huberman. Insightful conversation indeed. Intelligent stuff👏
How Mr. Easter survives so many days in woods without cooking? Its weird.
He said that no other organism carries their stuff/ food. But, ants do. They are even capable of carrying stuff way heavier than their equivalent body weight. The time when he wakes up is called " Brahmamuhurt" in vedic tradition. Its considered best for learning purposes but, not easy to wake up at that time for everyone.
Having a fixed sleep schedule is a boon for body and brain as its when the repair mechanisms get activated and healing happens. This makes having meals relatively earlier way more apt as the body needs to be freed from digestion process. The sooner the better. Walking is the best exercise😀hands down if losing weight is the target goal. Keep bringing quality content and kudos to spreading joy and knowledge 🎉.

Aloha Andrew!
I’m really looking forward to this episode—thank you for all the work you do.

I wanted to ask if you might consider covering a topic that’s very close to my heart: retinitis pigmentosa (RP).
Both of my brothers were born with RP and are now legally blind. It’s a rare, degenerative eye disease that runs in our family—the women are carriers and the men are affected. Watching my brothers slowly lose their vision has been deeply heartbreaking.
We’ve spent decades researching and hoping for a cure, but there hasn’t been much progress. I’d love to hear your insights on the condition, any promising research you’re aware of, or even your thoughts on how neuroscience may intersect with treatments for degenerative eye diseases.

I truly admire your ability to make complex science understandable and meaningful. Thank you for sharing your mind and your mission with all of us. ❣️

What's a dopamine reserve? I don't have one. I crave boredom, at times; I easily get overstimulated.

In all the risky, physically and mentally difficult things I've done, whenever someone asked, "Why did you/want to do it?" I'd say "Because it's a hard thing to do", without completely understanding why I chose to do hard things. Your incredibly informative discussion gave me so many ah ha moments!! Thank you 🙏🏻🌞😃

Based on your comment about the vagus nerve causing activation rather than promoting calm, how does vagus nerve stimulation help in chronic pain and inflammation management? Does it activate pain modulating or inflammation lowering pathways, thus promoting calm indirectly? It would be great if you could discuss the Vagus Nerve stimulation in its own podcast.

Please please bring out an more information about the Vegas nerve. I’m having serious problems and I can’t find any information or person that can help me. I’m getting spasms back in the throat. I can’t talk, swallow or move without making it crazy worse. Have to tilt head back, put hot water bottle on throat, meditate, pray and wait.

Heres a story: A few years ago I adopted a 2 mile section of road to clean, by my house here in the mountains of Colorado. I have been putting it off for some weeks now as it just was something I was not relishing doing. Today I decided to tackle half of it. And as I was walking down the hill from home to start picking up trash I decided to listen to this weeks podcast. It hit the nail on the head for me today, so relevant to what I was doing. Turns out, I did the entire section and listened for almost 2 hours. I so appreciate the conversation between the two of you and how I understand doing the hard things is often the best thing. Thanks for another great episode!

Thank you!

Can’t wait to finish and re watch this tomorrow. Only one thing. I WISH I COULD WALK / HIKE MORE, BUT IM SCARED OF CRIME. As a girl there is a higher level of complexity that really deters me from sports alone… must find a group of casual walkers or so.. safety in numbers…. Is very annoying to not feel safe. And I live in the Netherlands, “safe” , but too many incidents of mostly men hurting women :( 💔❤️‍🩹 and this is the “first world”.

Maybe could come an episode in science of aggression / anger management / assaults and why they happen so often by mostly guys to girls? 😮

Pd: Happy belated Father’s Day Andrew you’re a father to many 🥲👀❤🥰

I😮😢9😅9

4 hour walk?!?! Life is too easy if you have time for a 4 hour walk every weekend.

If you move things happen.

sending you a note. I love cold water. I find ZERO difficulty getting in the river in Montana in march-april. its in the 30s . Ive swam in it at 40 degrees for 30 minutes neck deep on a warmer day in april. send whomever to study me. haha I also have multiple other things that need study. get me a way to get in contact with you as nobody has figured out what I have going on yet!

First, my 16 year old daughter leaves her strawberry hulls everywhere!!
Second, as a private chef I love cooking in silence. No phones. My work really brings me into presence and is truly meditative. I pore my soul into my food and I think it is better for it!

Iain McGilchrist.

Thank you gentlemen... excellent discussion! I always learn so much from your content. Appreciate you both! Pre-ordered your book Andrew and looking forward to reading Protocols. And Michael I have read both of your excellent books and look forward to the next....❤

Really appreciating

I’ve been watching all your videos ! Very informative and so transformational.

Please do a podcast on stroke recovery

Going through hard things growing up Wii make you or break you .....

Love the concept of embracing discomfort. Great episode

I know all about doing hard things. I have to say that you are wrong on social media. There are no benefits, it only seems like there are benefits. In the long run, and this will be revealed as more studies come out, it is harmful to a civilized society.

Please invite a guest Dr Daniel G Amen. He is brain disorders specialist and psychiatrist.

Great listen man

Amateur radio (ham radio) is my '2 percenter' hard way of electronic communications and recreation. It all takes more effort, but I find it very fulfilling and have a group of friends locally, regionally, and a broader community worldwide! Local friends i see in person quite often, regional crowd few times a year. Sometimes you never know who you talk to and it's great to have those serendipitous conversations.

The effort starts with a license exam, followed by setting up a station, but you can put whatever effort you want into it. I built a simple transmitter and receiver, and I get on the air and chat with my friend before bed, no screen or Internet temptation.

Maybe it's not for everyone, but it works for me and I don't need a algorithm or 'platform' to mediate the communication.

“looking at friction points as opportunities “ - thank you Dr Huberman! I can’t wait to read your book.

Please do a podcast on MOLD ILLNESS AND CIRS

I love this episode. God bless you Andrew!

sorry to sound like a foreigner because I am in the context of most of these discussions, but a lot of language or way of wording has always a level of uncomfortable to me. The need to make it palpable on the minute level, the extreme comfort level.
I get trying to do it in an advertising or argumentative way but a lot of it is too "sorry for challenging you, I'll make it easier" which is especially ironic given today's discussion. This is probably why I don't understand some comedy or offense seems to hit on others more.

I disagree that the hard things shouldn't be shared. Like what you are teaching, these things should be shared. People are inspired by others. Life is about relationships.

exactly! Battle For LA!

I'mma tell you that ruckingy school bag full of school text books in Jr high and high school felt like it was stunting my growth 😒

Briliant episode! Thank you so much!!

As someone who has constantly had to adapt from a young age to different kinds of illnesses it has been more of a blessing than a curse. I’ve always acknowledged that the path these systems we humans are so prone to fall into, encouraging us to fall in to certain almost pre defined paths, can be very detrimental for our natural physical and mental evolving capabilities. There were parts of my life where I subconsciously started to have these almost intentionally forms of sabotage I added to my life, because I always felt so alive being forced to make these dramatic, self disciplined choices to survive. But after each time I successfully was able to stabilize my health to a comfortable state, I was always prone to fall into weak patterns again, that eventually made my health decline, in repeat. Always feeling out of place with the automatic ways people tend to always search for comfort and mask it with all these external forms of validation, and just settling with what is “normal” , but that normal is weak, just hard to see it clearly when your constantly being drowned in it. Not saying you should intentionally make your self sick, but this is just what my journey led me to, because I was very weak minded before, and when I got a taste of the adaptive capabilities of what us humans are able to do it always became the fuel stuck in the back of my soul telling myself, it’s possible to feel more alive then ever, even at points when I was very down. So this podcast really hit hard. Our adaptive neurobiological plastic abilities are there to be stretched beyond the norm, and in my case they feel like they have been unlocked in a chronic type of state, due to the strain and stress over these past 12 years.

I wish you invited Dr Daniel Amen. You guys have lots of things to talk about. That is my dream to see you guys have a interview and a nice conversation!

Everyone who reads this, we don’t know each other and probably never will, but I wish you all the best in life and all the luck in the world. If you’re struggling right now, trust me—I know exactly how that feels. I spent years working hard but never really getting ahead. I thought success was all about effort, but I was missing something bigger. That changed the moment I read Manifest and Receive by Eva Hartley. I don’t know how to explain it, but my income doubled in just a few months, and for the first time, I feel like I truly understand how wealth works. If you’re reading this, maybe you were meant to. Wishing you all abundance and success. 💰✨

Spending 33 days in the Arctic (or desert, rainforest, mountains...) is tough. But after 33 days we get to fly back to Vegas. What about the billions of people who don't get to fly back? It's billions, by the way.

Maybe half of the planet's population are effectively already David Goggins. The difference is, they don't choose to be. And they don't make an online career out of it.

This is good stuff! I’ve learned that the more I do hard things, the more reward I get, and the easier it becomes to start those difficult tasks, and now has reached a point where I do all these difficult things out of habit and I don’t even need to think about it now. I actually find joy and excitement in doing these difficult things now!

Absolute banger of an episode

Awesome interview. Thank you both for this. Keep up the great content

How ancient..?
Thanks for being delicate with design.

Good title. 🙌🏽🎉
Sick spectacles, Huberman 🧔🏻‍♂️
‘An’ ex-girlfriend..