Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Reduce speaking anxiety and achieve your communication goals.

“There’s no difference between the physiological response to something that you’re excited about and something that you’re nervous about or dreading,” says Andrew Huberman, associate professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University.

In this Think Fast Talk Smart Rethinks episode, we revisit one of our most popular interviews. In it, Huberman, from the wildly popular Huberman Lab Podcast, shares his research on the autonomic continuum, a spectrum between states of high alertness or fear all the way down to deep sleep, and shares how to use the system to your advantage. “If people can conceptualize that the anxiety or stress response is the same as the excitement response, they feel different,” Huberman says.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (03:35) - Stress & the Autonomic Continuum
  • (05:43) - Controlling Alertness & Calmness
  • (09:32) - Movement & Audience Perception
  • (11:57) - Eye Movements for Anxiety Reduction
  • (14:17) - Two Approaches to Managing Stress
  • (19:01) - Preparing for Stress in Advance
  • (21:03) - Effective Virtual Communication
  • (23:05) - The Final Three Questions
  • (29:52) - Conclusion

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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
Andrew Huberman
Professor and Neuroscientist at Stanford University and Host of the Huberman Lab podcast

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.

Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our eNewsletter at fastersmarter.io.

Matt Abrahams: We can be more
confident communicators when we

sync our biology and psychology.

I'm Matt Abrahams and I teach
strategic communication at Stanford

Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Rethinks episode of
Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

Recently I had the privilege to be
a guest on the Huberman Lab podcast.

Andrew is a colleague and I'm a
big fan of his impactful show.

Back before his show launched, Andrew
was a guest on Think Fast Talk Smart.

I wanted to give all of you a chance
to listen to our conversation about

how to leverage neuroscience to help us
be more confident, calm communicators,

and to gain insight into Andrew's best
practices for clear accessible messaging.

Take a listen as we open up the
vault to this Rethinks episode.

I am really looking forward to speaking
with Andrew Huberman, who is a professor

in the neurobiology department at
Stanford University's School of Medicine.

Andrew's research focuses on understanding
the brain mechanisms controlling anxiety,

cognition, and performance under stress.

Additionally, Andrew works diligently
to bring neuroscience research to the

public through his teaching, his videos,
and his Huberman Lab podcast, which

needs to be in everyone's playlist.

Thanks for being here,
Andrew, shall we get started?

Andrew Huberman: Delighted to be here.

Matt Abrahams: Like me, I know you're
fascinated by fear and its impact.

As we all know, communicating
in front of others in high stake

situations can certainly involve fear.

From a neurologic point
of view what's going on?

What happens to our voice, our speech, and
our hand movements when we get nervous?

Andrew Huberman: So when we get
nervous, we are entering a state which

is perfectly natural, but reflects one
station along what's called the autonomic

continuum, and really the autonomic
continuum can be conceptualized as a

continuum between states of very high
alertness, think maximum excitement or

fear, all the way down to deep sleep.

So the, our states of mind and
body are not discreet entities.

They are along this continuum,
this autonomic continuum.

So when we are excited or we are nervous,
we have a number of physiological

responses that are purely autonomic,
meaning they're purely automatic.

The most important thing to realize is
that it is a continuum and that there's

no difference between the physiological
response to something that you're

excited about and something that you're
nervous about, or that you're dreading.

And so there's an additional component
there that we need to consider.

But the most important thing above all,
and I guess if people are gonna take away

anything from our conversation today,
it's that despite these responses being

automatic, there are direct control
points through which we can control the

autonomic nervous system, meaning that
we can dial down the level of alertness

or increase the level of calmness.

Those actually turn out to
be two different things.

So while it's called the autonomic nervous
system and the autonomic continuum, it's

a bit of a misnomer because there are
two specific levers, or entry, points

that we all have from birth that require
essentially no learning, you have to know

what they are, but that will allow people
to control voice level of alertness,

level of shaking in their hands.

So it's a quite remarkable system in
that it has this asymmetry, autonomic

on the one hand, but with very powerful
entry points for control on the other.

Matt Abrahams: I wanna get back
to the notion that you brought

up about how we experience the
physiological arousal that we get.

You said it, it, in some cases,
it's due to anxiety and fear.

In other cases, it's due to excitement.

Part of that, I think has to do with
how we label what we're experiencing.

And I know that there's some research
from my academic field that says

one way to help manage anxiety is
just to work on how you perceive the

physiological symptoms that you're having.

So if you say, hey, even though my heart
rate's going up, I'm getting a little

sweaty and shaky, it's 'cause I'm excited
to share the information I'm sharing.

Versus, oh my goodness, everybody's
looking at me and I'm feeling nervous.

So part of it I think, has to do
with how we frame the situation.

Does that ring true?

Andrew Huberman: Absolutely.

When we are in a state of alertness,
whether because of excitement or fear,

the sympathetic division of the autonomic
nervous system, let's just call it the

alertness system, deploys a hormone from
our adrenal glands, adrenaline, and it

deploys the equivalent chemical in the
brain, where it's called epinephrine.

The same chemically identical structure,
but called two different things 'cause

neuroscientists and physiologists
like to make things complicated.

The role of adrenaline slash epinephrine
is to create agitation in the body

and to create focus in the mind.

And this is a, an important concept
because that agitation makes it harder

to be still, which is sort of a duh.

That's the definition of agitation.

But it was designed to move us,
to physically move us so that we

would be biased toward ambulation
or biased toward shifting what,

from one position to a new one.

And so one of the toughest things
for many people is to tolerate that

level of adrenaline or alertness
when they have to be still.

The simplest example I can give of
this that I think most people will be

familiar with is if in the days where
we congregated in person, there's this

traditional practice of going around
the room and introducing yourself and

saying something about what you do.

And most people actually find
that to be very stressful.

Especially if they sit
toward the end of the line.

Now, why would that be, right?

Most people know their name
and can say their name.

Most people know what
they do and can say that.

It's anything but a high
stress circumstance.

And occasionally there's some
social pressure where if someone's

very funny before us or they say
something in a particularly nice way

than we feel like some additional
pressure to do that as well.

But it really has more to do with the
fact that when we're in a room listening

to somebody, we can, we're comfortable
with the fact that we're not gonna

speak or walk or do much, and we could
just sit there and write or listen or

text or whatever it is we have to do.

As we are called on to say something,
the reason that it's easier to do

early in the line is because we are
holding on to a reverberatory circuit.

There are circuits in our brain that
anticipate action and prepare us for

action, and the longer we keep that in
check, the more challenging it becomes.

When we are trying to withhold action,
but we're preparing for action there's

a lot of reverberatory activity in our
nervous system, and it feels like stress.

Getting ready to go up
to the podium is tough.

When we get up to the podium, many
people, including myself, find that

if we rock back and forth a little
bit or we can engage some movement in

our body suddenly we start to relax.

And that's because adrenaline slash
epinephrine was designed to move us,

and it wasn't designed to move us in
response to incoming large predators, it

was, but that's not its primary function.

Its primary function was to move us
from whatever position we're in to a

new position, sometimes towards things,
sometimes away from things, depending

on whether or not we want the experience
or we want to avoid the experience.

But the actual inner experience, what
we call interoception, our perception

of our internal landscape is identical
for something that we want to approach

versus we want to move away from.

Absolutely identical, from
the neck down that is.

Matt Abrahams: Really interesting.

So if you can reframe the physiological
response, you can see it very differently.

And I find fascinating that when
we see somebody who is nervous

moving one way versus the other
way, as an audience member, we

have very different perceptions.

So if somebody steps up on a stage and
then takes a step back as they're starting

to speak it looks like they're retreating
and therefore maybe nervous or shy.

But if somebody actually steps
forward, we have a perception that

they're confident and stepping
into the challenging situation.

So it's not only what we perceive, it's
how the audience perceives it as well.

Andrew Huberman: It might be useful
for people to think about the fact

that there's only three responses
we can have to any circumstance.

One is to stay still, one is to move
forward, or one is to move back.

Back in 2018, a graduate student in
the neurosciences program did her

thesis with me, Lindsey Salay and I
published a paper in the journal Nature.

Lindsey discovered a brain circuit that
controls the movement toward threat.

Now, this isn't the kind of
movement that will get you killed.

This is the kind of movement toward, in
an intelligent way, in an adaptive way,

towards something that, in this case,
an animal or a person wants to do, but

feels a tremendous amount of autonomic
arousal of stress and nervousness about.

The take home message is the following.

Forward movement under conditions of
anxiety or high levels of alertness,

AKA stress, triggers the activation
of a circuit deep in the brain that

releases the neurochemical dopamine.

Dopamine, of course, is a molecule that is
most commonly associated with a sensation

of reward, and it is released when we
achieve something that we want to achieve.

But the other very interesting
function of dopamine is to increase the

probability that we will move toward
similar types of goals in the future.

So dopamine is not just the
molecule reward, it's the

molecule of motivation and drive.

And so Lindsey's results have a number
of different implications, but I think

if people can just conceptualize that
the anxiety or stress response is

the same as the excitement response
they feel different because of some

top-down perception or verbiage that
we introduced to it, but they're

actually identical physiologically,
and that forward movement, provided its

adaptive, toward a goal, triggers the
activation of chemicals in the brain

and body that will make the subsequent
pursuit of those same or similar goals

more likely and more pleasurable.

Matt Abrahams: That's really cool.

So learning to take the stage
and step forward, leaning in

when you're virtual can help.

And I believe in some of the work
of yours that I read, you don't

actually have to even physically move.

If you simulate movement with your
eyes, you can have a similar effect,

and I'd like for you to talk about that.

Andrew Huberman: Back in the early
eighties, someone actually in Palo

Alto, a woman by the name of Francine
Shapiro is a psychologist, developed

a technique for, it was actually
developed for trauma treatment.

She was a psychologist, did some work at
Stanford, but also at a nearby clinic.

And essentially, she had found
that taking walks was helpful

for her anxiety and stress.

Something that everyone now
I think says, okay, duh.

But we always thought that it was
because of movement of the body, but

she wanted to import some of that
self-induced relaxation to her clinic.

And she was clever enough to
create this thing that they call

EMDR, eye movement desensitization
reprocessing, which simply involves

moving the eyes from side to side.

It looks a little goofy if you see
someone do it, but moving the eyes

from side to side, not up or down,
but side to side eye movement actually

triggers, we now know, suppression of the
amygdala, this fear center in the brain.

For years, people would ask me about
EMDR, 'cause I'm a vision scientist

and I work on stress and I thought
it was totally kooky and crazy

and I didn't believe any of it.

My response was, in my mind anyway,
was sort of like, okay, take your

EMDR and your magic carpet and head
down to Big Sur and, and let's talk

later if you want to talk science.

I was really quite wrong because a
couple years ago there were no fewer

than five papers published in very high
quality journals, including Nature,

in mice, non-human primates, and
humans showing that these lateralized

eye movements lead to suppression
of this fear center in the brain.

So.

It's a quite long lasting effect.

I should just mention if people
are gonna use it to deal with

actual trauma, that should be
done with a real trauma therapist.

It works best for specific
circumstances like public speaking.

It's not great for sort of reducing your
stress about your entire childhood, or

your entire divorce, or your entire 2020.

It's, that's gearing toward specific
circumstances, but here's how it works.

You move your eyes from side to
side for about thirty seconds,

which is actually quite a long time.

You don't do this during the event.

But that creates a state of reduced
alertness, AKA stress, not so much you

fall asleep, in your system, and then
you're able to better approach things

with more ease and with less alertness.

Matt Abrahams: I've heard you mention
on your podcast that there are two

approaches to addressing stress.

Can you share those with us?

Andrew Huberman: The two
approaches are you can either

reduce your stress in real time.

Things like these eye movements right
before you go into a stressful event,

like up on stage or hard conversation, or
even if you're just experiencing anxiety.

There's a breathing tool I'll share
with you in a moment that's grounded

deeply in physiology as well.

Or you can raise your stress threshold.

So things like ice baths, running up
steep mountains, exposure therapy, those

are actually designed to increase your
tolerance, your cognitive tolerance for

high levels of agitation in your body,
increasing the probability that you'll

stay still, not say the wrong thing,
not strike anyone, not lose your cool.

So it's learning to be calm in storm,
or what is sometimes referred to as

being comfortable being uncomfortable.

That is a distinctly different set
of practices then things like the eye

movements I described, or the second
thing, which is a real time tool for

calming oneself that my laboratory
is working closely on with David

Spiegel's laboratory in the Department
of Psychiatry, which is we ask the

question, what breathing approach is
the best to calm oneself in real time?

Because meditation is wonderful, TM
is wonderful, if you're of drinking

age and you can tolerate it without
going into excess, a nice glass of

wine is also another way to activate
the, the parasympathetic system.

So is a massage, so is a, a
dip in the hot tub or a sauna.

Matt Abrahams: Sounds like
you're describing a nice date.

Andrew Huberman: Exactly.

Or remember it's called the rest
and digest system for a reason.

One of the most powerful ways to shift
your autonomic nervous system to one of

more calm, is to fill your gut, food.

Then the distension of your gut sends
signals through the vagus nerve to

a little set of neurons right behind
your ear called the nodose ganglia,

which projects into your brain, gives
you a little bit of a dopamine hit,

this is well established, as well as
activating areas of the brain that

are involved in calming you down.

And there are a lot of ways to
control the autonomic nervous

system slowly and indirectly.

Massage, hot tub, big meal, et cetera.

We're talking about
real time control fast.

So the best way that we know, and this
is work that's still in progress, is to

use what are called physiological sighs.

So these were discovered
back in the thirties.

Turns out that when you are stressed,
you are breathing less deeply.

The most common advice
is to take a deep breath.

Turns out that's exactly the wrong advice.

The exhale emphasized breathing leads
to much more rapid activation of the

calming arm of the nervous system.

And it turns out you
don't just want to exhale.

You want to do a double inhale.

So inhale twice through the nose,
so inhale through the nose, and then

before you exhale, sneak in a little
bit more air and then do a long exhale.

You do this just one to three times,
so it's inhale again, even if you

just sneak the tiniest bit of air.

Ideally, the inhales are done through the
nose and then exhale through the mouth.

Now, why does this work?

Turns out that your lungs are
not just two big bags of air.

They are billions of little tiny
stacks called the alveoli of the lungs.

Those little sacs are contiguous,
more or less, with the

vasculature, with the blood supply.

So when you exhale, you offload
carbon dioxide and a lot of the

stress response is due to elevated
carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.

If you've ever been to a kid's party and
you're asked to blow up a balloon and

you blow on the balloon, sometimes it
inflates right away, but if it doesn't,

you give two hard pushes with air.

One, two, and the same thing happens
with the alveoli of the lungs.

As we get stressed, they start to
collapse, they flatten out, and to

reinflate them, the double inhale brings
maximal air into the alveoli of your

lungs, and then you offload the maximum
amount of carbon dioxide when you exhale.

So this is very simple, very fast.

You can actually do it
during exercise as well.

So if you ever find that your
heart is pounding and you want to

calm down, first thing is exhale,
then maybe try the double inhale.

And then exhale to follow.

Usually, at least what we find in our
studies, is that within just one to three

of those cycles, meaning within about
five seconds, autonomic nervous system

starts to shift more towards calmness.

And then if you like, you can
start using your eye movements

or whatever cognitive reframing.

But one of the things that I think
will resonate with people, and I

hope it does, is that it is very hard
to control the mind with the mind.

When you're stepping up to the podium and
you are nervous, you can say, oh yeah,

that nervousness is actually excitement.

And I think, you know, and this
is, I must be really agitated

'cause I really want to do this.

And, but in that moment of stress, it's
very hard to control what's going on.

So under conditions where your
mind is not where you want it,

use the body to control the mind.

Matt Abrahams: So you've just shared
techniques for what we can do when

we're directly experiencing anxiety.

What can we do to prepare
for anxiety in advance?

Andrew Huberman: The other thing to
do is the stuff that you do away from

the podium, away from the big event,
or the hard conversation, and that

involves deliberately taking yourself
into states of heightened alertness.

As my colleague David Spiegel likes
to say, it's not just about the

state you find yourself in, it's
how you got there and whether or

not you had anything to do with it.

And what he's really saying is that when
you drive your nervous system into a state

of high alertness and you learn to be
calm there, you achieve a certain kind of

superpower such that when real life puts
you into those states without any warning

and very fast, it's like driving in fog.

The first time you do
it it's scary as heck.

The fifth time you do it it's still
scary, but you've been there before.

And so you're now a good driver.

So the way you do this can be of
different, you know, practices, but

one of the best ones is a very cold
shower and trying to stay calm for one

to three minutes in a very cold shower.

Not something that I like.

And there you use a protocol of
breathing that involves taking twenty

to thirty deep inhales for reasons
that now should be obvious, increase

your heart rate, and then big exhale.

Matt Abrahams: Hyperventilating like.

Andrew Huberman: You're hyperventilating
and by the twenty-fifth one,

you will be very stressed.

Now, I want to say that if people
have, are panic attack prone or

anxiety attack prone, this is
getting, I do not recommend this.

Very uncomfortable.

But then what you do at the end of that
twenty-five breaths is you offload all

your air, you empty your lungs, and
then you sit for about fifteen to, some

people can go longer, sixty seconds
or so, of lung's empty, and you try

and feel peaceful with that heightened
level of adrenaline in your body.

Now, never do this near water.

I wanna be really clear because there is
this thing called shallow water, but don't

even do it in a puddle because I, I don't
want anyone injuring themselves or worse.

But if you repeat that for two
or three cycles, what you will

find, it's pretty remarkable.

There's some nuance to these
practices, but they all kind of start

and end with vision or breathing.

Matt Abrahams: And I love how you
make them simple for us to understand.

So they're the things we can do
in the moment or right before

the moment of the anxiety.

And then there are things we can do to, in
essence, desensitize ourselves in advance.

Now we are all communicating in
this virtual world these days.

Is there anything from your
experience of how eyes work that

would indicate what we should do?

For example, people often say
you need to look at the camera,

so it looks like you're looking
at the person on the other end.

Any insight you have about this
virtual communication we all do?

Andrew Huberman: First of all, it's a very
unnatural time because we are not used

to seeing a little picture of ourselves
moving while we look at other people.

Everyone's carrying a little
mirror around on their shoulder

for us now in the Zoom world.

So turn that off or get it outta
the way because it will interfere

with your presence to the
conversation and other people's

perception of how present you are.

The other thing that's really important
is that there's a lot of research on gaze

and eye contact and frequency of blinking.

The most powerful way to connect
with somebody through Zoom or just

in person is actually not to stare
directly at them the whole time,

is a combination of direct gaze,
averting gaze, and closing one's eyes.

A real conversation involves moments
where you're looking away trying to,

I, like I'm doing right now, I'm trying
to, you know, grab a concept and say

it, uh, in a way that makes sense.

But then also where we reengage,
and so a conversation is actually

a process of looking directly at
the other person and then breaking

gaze and then coming back again.

The other thing that works quite well,
if people are experiencing eye fatigue

from looking at screens up close, and
there's a whole other conversation,

is one thing that works well is to
see someone's face at the beginning.

Say hello, because faces are a
powerful, you know, they collects

a lot of context for the brain.

Saying hello, but then going into
pure audio and then going back

to visual before you part ways.

That may actually be a more effective
form of Zoom communication than pretending

we're all in the same room and trying to
stare at one another the entire time and

sometimes see that reflection of ourself.

Matt Abrahams: Right.

That's advice that others on this
podcast have given that, that you don't

have to show your video the whole time.

So before we end, Andrew, I'd like to
ask you the same three questions I ask

everybody who joins me on this podcast.

Are you up for that?

Andrew Huberman: Definitely.

Matt Abrahams: If you were to
capture the best communication

advice you've ever received as a
five to seven word presentation

slide title, what would that be?

Andrew Huberman: Speak to
inform and teach, not impress.

Matt Abrahams: Ooh, I like that.

So it's about getting the information
across and you are certainly a master

at that, and I encourage everybody to
search out some of the work you've done.

Your podcast is fantastic because you do
such a nice job of something we talked

about on an earlier podcast, how to
make complex information accessible.

You do a great job of that.

You certainly don't dumb it
down, but you make it accessible

as you've done for us today.

Let me ask question number two.

Who is a communication
that you admire and why?

Andrew Huberman: There are two
forms of communication that really

appeal to me and the they will
seem at odds with one another.

I love poetry because really
great poetry doesn't really

make sense at a cognitive level.

It gets to a kind of what probably is
some sort of deeper universal meaning.

It probably is tapping into brain circuits
that are more on a emotional level or

that reside in the brain body connection.

I really believe that.

So that speaks to some sort
of quote unquote truth.

So I love poetry, and I'm
a big Wendell Berry fan.

I'm also a big Joe Strummer fan,
you know, most famous for being the

singer of the Clash, for the things
he said, not while he was on stage.

Was brilliant in terms
of his offstage speech.

I've referred people to check out
some of the things that Joe said later

in his life were really remarkable
insights into human beings and humanity.

There's some real core truth there.

And in the world of science, Claude
Desplan is a biology professor at NYU

who studies insect vision, and the only
word that I can use to describe what

it is to hear one of Claude's lectures,
whether or not you're familiar with

biology or not, is pure enchantment.

He transports you into a world where,
frankly, I don't really care about

dragonfly vision on a regular basis.

But when I listen to Claude
speak, I think about human vision.

I think about love.

He talks about the love spots of the
dragonfly eyes, that for pursuing mates

and food, and it is just remarkable.

Anyone that can do that is incredible.

But Claude is the world heavyweight
champion of making biology

fascinating and delightful.

Matt Abrahams: I'm gonna check
his lectures out for sure.

Last question for you.

What are the first three ingredients that
go into a successful communication recipe?

Andrew Huberman: Passion.

The speaker has to love the topic.

And organizational logic, there has
to be a structure to the information.

It just can't be bullet points and
beginning, middle end kind of thing.

And clarity.

If people walk away understanding
more than they did at the

beginning, then you won.

It's back to the most important
thing to do is to teach

your audience, educate them.

Matt Abrahams: Passion,
structure and clarity.

PSC, we're gonna add that as
another acronym to your list of many

acronyms I've heard you talk about.

Andrew, it was fantastic to have you here.

I'm taking a deep breath to calm
myself down from all the exciting

information that you shared.

Thank you so much.

It is my true hope that all of us
listening in can apply some of these tools

and hacks to optimize our communication.

Thank you.

Andrew Huberman: Thanks
so much for having me.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining
us for a special Rethinks episode of

Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

Our music is from Floyd Wonder.

With special thanks to
Podium Podcast Company.

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