I fully appreciate how busy you all are and I apologise for this long question. But I hope you will lend me a couple of minutes to read this. Hello my name is Rich Peacock and I am an artist in London, UK. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1997. I learnt hypnosis to deal with it (which is how I found Dr Huberman's videos a couple of weeks. ago). I qualified as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, many years ago, to deal with the pain and fear of MS. However rather than run a full-time hypnotherapy practice I continued to focus on my art practice — whilst using hypnotherapy for myself and close friends. I later began to study and practice meditation, I have lived in Asia (in part as a Patron for a children’s HIV charity) and around five years ago began using light and sound to help me enter meditative states to continue the pain relief. I am also trying to recreate the experience of the experience of being on a beach or up a mountain where I live in India, Lao and China. I am working on a larger installation — which uses hypnosis and guided mediation together with light and sound, to help my community — both with MS and other spiritual wounds. I came across Dr Huberman whilst searching for guidance and I am have become a Premium Member. As you know, Dr Huberman has a unique mix of high level medical, safe, ethical and peer researched skills, experience, and evidence combined with his other high personal skills. I hope that my skills as an artist, producer and hypnotherapist can bring a new method of offering help and support to the community — who suffer greatly but often don’t know how the pain etc can be relieved. As such I’m applying for a research grant for from the “Churchill Foundation” and they ask that projects must “gain information and insights which can only be learned from other countries so that findings from this global research are used by to develop new solutions for today’s key challenges”. Naturally I thought of what I am learning from Dr Huberman I would like to add my membership the Huberman Lab to my application – as an international learning resource. I wonder how you may feel about this and so I thought I better ask you. Naturally that would involve some more discussion before you know what I am proposing. I would like to email you a more detailed description of who I am, what I hope to do, and also ask what kind of dialogue with The Huberman Lab (as a Premium member or potentially a Lifetime Member) would be suitable to you. Whilst I have a Masters in Art and a number of hypnotherapy qualifications I did not study medicine or psychology (in academia) however I truly believe the insights I have gained from Dr Huberman (for example in relation to focus, attentional blinks, open monitoring and NSDR) can guide my thoughts as an artist and as a creative director. I see a great potential to create real world experiences through art, to assist people who are untrained in mediation and self-hypnosis — which can help them with physical and psychic pain. Throughout human history places of worship often provide such spiritual relief and refreshment and can be truly beautiful examples of the creation of spaces which unlock and guide us through possibilities of unconscious healing. I try each day to connect with my higher power and the universal oneness — to guide and help me – and naturally I find it easier in spaces created to do just this. I have done this in Asia in many temples, be they Buddhist or Hindu and in a great many Churches and Cathedrals of varying denominations. Music, in whatever form, provides an artistic sanctuary and guidance to many, if not all people (in some way). I often wonder why airports provide great opportunity to increase exhaustion and stress but almost none to refresh travellers. Is it not possible to design a place which aids passengers, and lessons damaging things such as jet lag and exhaustion? I always take a mediation device when travelling long haul and use it in a lounge, but is it not possible to create these spaces which could be accessed for a similar small fee as is spent on activities which damage the traveller? I therefore feel it is possible to combine modern insights into our minds and bodies — such as those which Dr Huberman reveals and teaches — into a creative experience, using light & sound — where change, insight, relief and healing can take place, be that on a high street; in an office block; an airport terminal or at home. Indeed I have has this feeling for many years but as I get older (I am 56) and have lived with Multiple Sclerosis for twenty-five years I am more convinced than ever about the power of art to open us up the potential for renewal and restoration through trance states and guidance. I hope that we can speak soon, whatever your decision and thoughts may be. I hope that I didn't take up too much if your time and that you are able to see the value in my thoughts. Thank you. Rich Peacock. London, UK.
Hello Dr. Huberman, I have found unquantifiable benefit from your episodes on deliberate heat and cold exposure. I have begun implementing the techniques every week. I have a question: I do fasted cardio along with 2-3 minutes in the cold plunge first thing in the morning to be in line with my circadian rhythms. I have started taking a new supplement which contains some caffeine, acetyl l-carnitine, l-tyrosine, and yohimbine HCL and is designed to induce thermogenesis and increase fat loss over time. Would you think the effects of this supplement work in contradiction to or synergistically with the effects of the cold plunge?