Huberman Podcast Critique

[The Renaissance Man]

After studying from his podcast for a while, and cross-referencing self-improvement advice from multiple sources, I stopped watching his videos entirely.

Some critiqued the studies he cites, and how those aren't really reliable. But I'm not competent enough to give an opinion on that, just know that cherry picking studies is a real thing. I also don't want to criticize his morals. He seems a real nice guy that wants to do good in the world.

What I want to criticize is his advice. From my understanding, one of the big reasons he's gotten so popular is that he presented a bunch of quick fixes as the new secret solution to life's problems. The supplement, the shower, the routine, the nutrition timing, the measuring this and that.
If you pay attention, you see how the vast majority of his advice can literally be applied in 10 minutes. And you're done. How convenient.

The problem is that obviously (if you watched Leo you should know), this is far from the root of the problem. And the problem with that is that people, looking at a 2 hour episode, think that that's the full picture. And it obviously fails, as the mind and body not only is very complex, but discomfort and long hours of work is something that can pretty much never be escaped.

While what he says may be true scientifically, he fails in making the priorities clear, if you really want to solve a problem. It's like a nutritionist talking 10 minutes about calorie balance (or omitting it completely) and 50 minutes about supplements. The supplements may be proven to be useful but they influence like 4% of the actual dieting results!

For example, for sleep I feel like he doesn't give enough credit to how much psychology plays a role in insomnia. You can take all the sunlight you want, wear all of the blue light blockers, take all the magnesium and theanine, but if you're stressed as fuck, good luck sleeping. And guess what, there's no quick fix to not being stressed as fuck.

 

I understand how the "quick fixes" will be much more marketable, but I want to warn you, Huberman shows you FAR from the big picture.
I don't judge him nor blame him. Conflicts of interest happen all the time when delivering value. I just stopped watching him and I'm curious about your experience.

Before defending him, ask yourself: Have you really fixed the problem thanks to his advice? I'm talking fixed not slightly improved. What fixed your shitty sleep really? What made you strong and resistant really? What made you a master in your craft really? It's likely a shit ton of discomfort and consistency, something that Huberman never mentions, or if he does, he doesn't stress it enough, even though that's the catalyst for 95% of the progress you will make.

[undeather]

I recently had a quite hefty dispute with Huberman on Twitter - it was on his episode about hormones, especially DHT, hairloss and the indications/risks of DHT-conversion-blocking agents like Finasteride. It became increasingly clear to me that Huberman, besides being the head of a neurosceince-department in Stanford, often operates on a pretty low level of scientific epistemiology. I have seen him completely misunderstanding simple implications of the research he is citing, referencing dogshit studies with underpowered design and no explanatory power and even get basic things about medicine/physiology completeöy wrong. 

This does not mean that the information he presents on his podcast is necessarily wrong or bad - in fact, I would even argue that in the great scheme of health infleuncers, he is one of the more sane and trustful voices (the bar is extremely low to begin with). I have made the same observations with Dr. Sincalir and his research about longevity - he became quite the laughing stock on med-twitter because of his opinions about Reservatol recently. He also was terribly wrong about Metformin as longevity agent.

Here is a pretty decent episode about Huberman's failures: 
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/andrew-huberman-forest-bathing-in-negative-ions

[Jacob Morres]

I think because most content is actually optimized for like clicks, engagement

It's not fully geared for how can I have the best impact for the viewer 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Jacob Morres