Brian Johnson’s podcast episode (#1) covers: updates on his Mastery series and related materials; a personal sleep experiment where he increased time-in-bed to 9h12m and recorded ~7h53m sleep (86% efficiency), resting heart rate dropped to as low as 39 bpm and unusually high HRV readings (avg ~92, max reported 254); and a discussion of the psychological 'audience effect' (presence/observation increases performance), citing a 2011 Newcastle University study and Matt Fitzgerald's 'How Bad Do You Want It?'. He connects this to accountability in his Optimize Coach community and promotes joining.
Questions this episode answers
1 hour, 11 minutes, ~30 seconds (one take).
Sleep: 7h53m (86% efficiency); resting heart rate average ~42 bpm, nadir reported 39 bpm; HRV average ~92 with a reported max of 254.
A 2011 study by psychologists at Newcastle University published in Evolution and Human Behavior showing college students cleaned up more when posters of human eyes were displayed.
Chapters
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hey guys, what's up? This is Bry. We have a late edition of our number one. I'm calling these number ones the number one thing I'm thinking about today. The number one thing I was thinking about today was finishing our Mastery series. We uploaded a walkthrough I did of it that was 1 hour, 11 minutes, 30 something seconds, 1 take. Thought it'd be like a half an hour. Then I kind of got on a roll. My life's work in an hour and 11 minutes. I shared that with you today. You'll see that. And then I hit the barn studio out there that we converted into a studio, filmed it for module zero. You can check that out, watch it for free at Optimize Me coach. Get a bunch of other free stuff. Now the printer's blowing up. Messy office. I've got these cards that I'm FedExing to our film. Genius. This is like precious gems right here. Going out this afternoon. I'm printing out the workbook for our coaches. It's like 159 pages. Every single session here has its own worksheet, right? So this is the mastery series, seven modules, module zero. And then every single one of our worksheets exercises has a worksheet. And then our head coach, Michael walks you through them in his practice videos. They're super cool. Anyway, I'll talk more about that tomorrow. Today. 1, 2, 3. Okay, so yesterday I ran an experiment, right? And I gave myself a little bit less sleep and it told me, you need a little more sleep. I was in bed for eight hours and I got seven hours of sleep. And I told you I felt a little tired, I needed more sleep. So today I ran the experiment and I stayed in bed for 9 hours. I was tempted to stay in bed for 10 just to see what that would do, but I decided that today would be nine hours. And my temperature was up a little bit for some reason, otherwise it just would have been epic. So I stayed in bed for nine hours and I got nearly eight hours of sleep. But this is just crazy. So my resting heart rate came down to 39, which I hit. I think I've hit 38 before, but usually I'm like 40. See, 41, 41, 42, 40. The heart rate variability number is insane. That's the second highest number I've ever gotten. 100 is the highest I've ever gotten. Frankly, I think that they, I think something must have gone wrong in their system. Because check this out. Heart rate variability. If you know anything about heart rate variability as measured by aura, you know, this is crazy. 92 average, right? But I maxed out at 254. I look at that, I'm like, no, I broke there. There's no way that's right. Anyway, I laughed. I've gotten 150 or something, which I believe. I'm not sure what I think about 254. Resting heart rate average was 42, which is really good for me. 39, etc. Anyway, the real experiment was sleep. So I was in bed for 9 hours and 12 minutes. I got 7 hours and 53 minutes of sleep. 86% efficiency and I feel way better. That hour totally changes my overall energy, which I used and put to work today on this good stuff. So that's the primary lesson for today. Nice to see the experiment come through. But then, you know, I was thinking this morning about this study that's been done. It's called the audience effect. So I searched my Mac. Here we have 600 plus philosopher's notes. I'm like, where was that study? And I literally searched eyeballs. I knew I talked about eyeballs, right? And I found this. I printed it out. I'll be doing a PNTV on this. I don't think I've done one on this yet. How bad do you want it? Great book. So I'm just going to share this with you today. And the point here is that my performance is going up because now I know I'm accountable to you. I'm going to share my data with you every day. What, what I did, what I didn't do. You talk about like humbling. You better be showing up. You know, you really being a professional philosopher over here, Bri, get to work. So there's actually research on this. I'm just going to share with you right now the audience effect. Philosopher's note on how bad do you want it? Great book. Matt Fitzgerald. Well done. Here we go. Psychologists have a name for this phenomenon, the audience effect. The online psychology dictionary defines it as the influence of the presence of other people on an individual's behavior. Psychologists believe that the audience effect is mediated by a so called sociometer, a mechanism involving multiple regions of the brain, including the anterior insula and the inferior gyrus. Gyrus. Through this mechanism, people notice and interpret the attention of those around them and use this input to adjust their behavior in ways that are likely to earn more positive attention. Hmm. Your eyeballs are on my aura Score might Be adjusting my behavior even more. I'm just even that much more committed. I already was, but now it's gone up a level. And the point here is, how can you do something like this? In essence, the audience effect coaxes people into holding themselves to higher standards. Always a good thing. If you want to play the game of life. Well, consider. A 2011 study conducted by psychologists at Newcastle University published An Evolution in Human Behavior which found that college students were more likely to clean up after themselves in a cafeteria when posters depicting human eyes were conspicuously displayed on the walls. What a great. Who came up with that? The audience effect elevates people's standards not only for moral behavior, but also for any kind of task performance that might be judged. We humans want to be seen as being good at whatever we do in the presence of others. End quote. Thousand second timer. Thank you, Timex. Isn't that fascinating? There we go. And, oh, by the way, here we go. Angela Duckworth. Grit. The bottom line on culture and grit is this. If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you're a leader and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture. Now, I didn't intend to make this another opportunity to promote optimized coach, but you want to join a gritty community, come join us. Optimize Coach. Class three starts in less than two weeks. You will be paired up with an optimized buddy, a swim buddy who will hold you. We are all going to hold ourselves to high standards. And it's crazy how much people love our community. Let me see if I can find something here. Air graduation. There it is. Okay, I don't know if that's gonna come through, but check it out. My Internet is painfully slow here in the country. I love it. And a satellite dish right out there that got a bird's nest in it. It's pretty epic. Anyway, we had 500 optimizers come together for graduation in LA. Coach class one. And it was just so epic. We did a Spartan race together. We meditated together. Oh, I'm getting tears when I was just looking at these pictures. Families came together. We have a lot of couples that came. Me and our head coach, Michael. Yeah. Alexandra. Eleanor. Hanging out with some coaches. Yeah, we do. We got the puppy families. This is our first optimized baby Noah, appropriately named. That's so good. Our French contingency. Yeah. Optimized coach. There's my physical therapist who got my arm back in order. So fast. Love you, Dr. J. Anyway, community, we are all about it. Maxine. Oh, and Julia, you guys are awesome. Maxine lost a crazy amount of weight. Just crushed the spartan race, dance party. Big hugs. Everybody got a hug when they got their certificate. There it is. Leo. Love you, man. All right, there you go, Community. Eyeballs. Crazy heart rate variabilities. 1, 2, 3. Let's get a little better today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me. Hi, this is Brian. Hope you enjoyed that number. One quick note. If you want to go deeper into Optimize, check us out at Optimize Me. The team has set up a free two week trial where you can get instant access to all 600 plus philosopher's notes, all the PDFs, the MP3s, get it on the app, et cetera, and 50 optimal living 101 classes on a range of subjects and of course the thousand plus optimized plus ones. And then if you want to go all in, check out Optimize Coach Optimize Me for the free trial for the core wisdom Optimize Me Coach. If you want to go all in and master yourself, serve heroically and empower others to do the same. Have a great day. See you tomorrow.
