Optimizing Workspace for Productivity, Focus & Creativity | Huberman Lab Essentials
This video explores how to set up your workspace for maximum productivity by focusing on key environmental factors like lighting, screen placement, ceiling height, and sound. Dr. Huberman provides science-backed tools that can be applied whether you work from home, in an office, or on the go, helping you enhance both analytical thinking and creativity.
1. Introduction: The Secret Behind Productive Workspaces 🧠
Dr. Andrew Huberman kicks off this Huberman Lab Essentials episode by sharing a fascinating observation from his academic career. His undergraduate, graduate, and postdoc advisers all had something peculiar in common beyond being brilliant scientists and kind mentors:
"Their offices were a complete disaster. They had mountains of books, mountains of papers, mountains of all sorts of stuff, and yet all of them were extremely productive and could remain extremely focused in that incredibly cluttered environment."
This puzzled Huberman because he personally struggles to focus in messy spaces. There's tremendous variation among people when it comes to clutter tolerance, and there's no right or wrong approach. But the key question is: why were these messy professors so productive?
The answer lies in the fact that they all captured one single and fundamental variable of workspace optimization. Throughout this episode, Huberman breaks down all the variables that matter, including vision, light, noise, music, and even whether to use noise-canceling headphones.
Importantly, the goal isn't to create a perfect workspace that becomes a prison:
"The last thing I would ever want to do is to create a situation where you find the optimal workspace and then you are a slave to that optimal workspace."
Instead, he aims to give you a short checklist of things to consider whenever you sit down to work, understanding the underlying variables that help your brain and body enter optimal states for learning and productivity.
2. Vision and Light: The Foundation of Alertness 💡
Morning Bright Light (0-9 Hours After Waking)
The first critical variable is vision and light. From the moment you wake up until about 6-9 hours later, your brain exists in a unique neurochemical state with high levels of dopamine, epinephrine, and cortisol. During this early phase, being in a brightly lit environment can enhance your work performance not just during that period, but throughout the entire day.
Huberman's personal approach:
"When I wake up in the morning, I do go get my sunlight. If the sun isn't out, I turn on as many bright artificial lights as I can manage or tolerate."
For his workspace, he ensures all overhead lights are on, plus lights in front of him. This stimulates the release of those alertness-promoting neuromodulators. You don't need expensive equipment—a desk lamp and overhead lights work well. Ring lights are cost-effective and provide the bright blue light that optimally stimulates the melanopsin ganglion cells in your eyes.
Huberman uses a light pad from Amazon placed on his desk during this phase one period. For those who can position their desk near a window, that's even better—and opening the window is ideal because:
"Sunlight through a window is 50 times less effective than if that window were to be open. Mostly because those windows filter out a lot of the wavelengths of blue light that are essential for stimulating the eyes and this wakeup signal."
Afternoon and Evening: Dimming Down (9-16 Hours After Waking)
In what Huberman calls phase two of your circadian cycle (9-16 hours after waking), you want to start dimming the lights. Having lights in front of you is fine, but overhead lights aren't optimal during this time.
"The states that I'm referring to are a shift from the dopamine and norepinephrine that's highest early in the day to increases in things like serotonin and other neuromodulators that put your brain into a state that's better for creative endeavors or for more abstract thinking."
Around 4 or 5 PM, Huberman turns off his light pad and transitions to more yellow and red lighting.
Late Night Work (17-24 Hours After Waking)
For those who work in the middle of the night, this phase three requires extra caution:
"If you get light in your eyes that's any brighter than that, you're going to severely deplete your melatonin levels. You're going to severely shift your circadian clock, and it's effectively like traveling to another time zone."
Staying up from 2-4 AM working with bright lights is like flying 6 hours into a different time zone, which can throw off your sleep and metabolism. However, if you absolutely need to stay awake, turning on all the lights can help—you just need to weigh the tradeoff between shifting your clock and getting the work done.
3. Screen Placement and Eye Position: Looking Up for Alertness 👀
There's an underappreciated and incredible aspect of our neurology connecting where we look to our alertness levels.
Our brain stem contains clusters of neurons that control our eyelid muscles and eye movements. Here's the key insight:
"When we are looking down toward the ground or anywhere below basically the central region of our face, the neurons that control that eye movement are intimately related to areas of the brain stem that release certain types of neuromodulators and neurotransmitters, and they activate areas of the brain that are associated with calm and indeed even with sleepiness."
The opposite is equally true—looking upward activates brain circuits associated with alertness.
The practical implication is significant:
"Contrary to what most people do, which is to look down at their laptop, tablet, or phone, if you want to be alert and you want to maintain the maximum amount of focus... you want that screen or whatever it is that you're looking at to at least be at eye level and ideally slightly above it."
4. Vergence Eye Movements and Visual Breaks 🔄
Our visual system has two major channels:
- Parvocellular channel: Looking at specific points in high resolution/detail
- Magnocellular channel: Looking at broad swaths of visual space at lower resolution
Maximum alertness and focus come from being in the parvocellular mode—when you bring your eyes to a common point through what's called a vergence eye movement. This creates a narrower visual window and heightened focus.
However, there's a catch. This process requires energy and causes eye fatigue through a process called accommodation, where your eye's shape literally changes to focus at a specific location.
Here's the science-backed principle:
"For every 45 minutes in which you are focusing on something like a phone or a tablet or a book page or your computer, you want to get into magnocellular panoramic vision for at least five minutes."
The best way to do this is taking a walk outside, looking off into the distance. A horizon view automatically triggers this relaxing panoramic gaze.
Critical warning:
"The one thing you absolutely do not want to do is to go outside and check your phone. Because if you're outside checking your phone or you're taking a break and checking your phone, you're still in that vergence eye movement."
5. The Cathedral Effect: Ceiling Height and Thinking Style 🏛️
This fascinating concept can bias whether your brain is better suited for detailed analytical work or abstract creative work.
"People who were in high ceiling environments, hence the phrase cathedral, would shift their thinking and their ideas to more abstract and creative lofty type thinking. Literally higher ceiling, loftier thinking, higher aspirations."
Conversely, people in lower ceiling environments used more restricted language and focused on detailed, analytical work about things in their immediate space.
Practical applications:
- For creative work during phase 2 (9-16 hours after waking): Work in a high ceiling room or outdoors where the sky is your ceiling
- For analytical work with correct answers: Work in a lower ceiling environment
"Really what abstract reasoning is, is it's taking existing elements and maneuvering them or arranging them into novel ways."
Think of it like music: learning scales is analytical (there's a correct answer), while writing new music involves taking existing elements and arranging them creatively.
Even if you can't change rooms, you can use a brimmed hat or hoodie to simulate a lower ceiling for analytical work, or remove them for creative brainstorming.
6. Background Noise to Avoid ⚠️
Before discussing helpful sounds, Huberman addresses what to avoid. Research by Jordan Love and Alexander Francis examined:
"Workplace and environmental noise, mostly the humming of air conditioners that's very loud or the humming of heaters that's very loud and ongoing, just incessant, doesn't let up, can really increase mental fatigue and can vastly decrease cognitive performance."
We've all felt that relief when an annoying background hum suddenly stops!
Regarding white noise, pink noise, and brown noise (different combinations of auditory frequencies), there's some evidence they can facilitate cognition mainly through increased overall alertness from autonomic arousal. However:
"There's really no reason to suspect that those particular patterns of noise are going to optimize particular mental functions."
7. Sound Patterns That Actually Improve Concentration 🎧
When searching for sounds that improve thinking, you'll typically find three types:
- Isochronic tones: Tones of a common frequency with pauses between them
- Monaural beats: Repetitive percussive beats delivered to just one ear
- Binaural beats: Different patterns delivered to each ear
Binaural beats are the most interesting. Because of how the auditory system converges in the brain stem, the difference between the two patterns creates something called interaural time differences. This triggers a third pattern that the brain entrains to, generating specific types of brain waves (alpha, theta, gamma, etc.).
The Magic Frequency: 40 Hz
"The frequency of binaural beats that appears to bring about improved cognitive functioning at the level of memory, improved reaction times, and improved verbal recall seems to be 40 hertz."
Huberman suggests listening to 40 Hz binaural beats for about 30 minutes, perhaps while doing something else, then taking a break before starting focused work. The brain doesn't immediately switch into the new pattern—it takes time.
The mechanism involves striatal dopamine release:
"Dopamine is actually the substrate by which epinephrine is made... They work together like close cousins, dopamine and epinephrine, in order to put us on a path of movement or if we are doing work of mental movement toward a goal."
Many free apps and YouTube channels offer 40 Hz binaural beats.
8. Managing Interruptions Like a Pro 🚫
Huberman shares a clever technique he learned from his graduate adviser:
"If I came by and asked a question or if anyone came by and asked a question, she would acknowledge their presence but would not shift her body toward them."
Her computer faced the wall, not the door (which Huberman calls "deadly to focus"). She would say "Yes" to acknowledge someone but never orient her body toward them, signaling the conversation would be brief.
Another more extreme approach from some colleagues:
"Simply say no to everything that somebody requests or comes by. So if someone would knock on the door, they would just shout no through the door... They would just continue doing this until the person went away. That was actually very effective. These were some of the most productive people I know. Not always the kindest people, but some of them were very kind."
9. Sit or Stand? The Answer Is Both 🧍♂️🪑
Research on sit-stand desks reveals clear findings:
"Just sitting is terrible for us... People who sit for five or six or seven hours a day doing work have all sorts of issues related to sleep, neck pain, cognition suffers, cardiovascular effects, even digestion."
Standing is better, but the combination of sitting and standing throughout the day is best.
The research shows that people who decreased their sitting time by about half each day experienced:
- Significantly reduced neck and shoulder pain
- Increased subjective health and vitality
- Improved cognitive conditioning
- Better ability to embrace new tasks
From Huberman's personal experience after 10 years with a sit-stand desk:
"I find I can't sit for too long before I want to stand. And my standing balance can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, although two hours would be a little bit long."
The key is to stand without leaning on the desk (some leaning during typing is inevitable).
10. Key Takeaways and Flexibility 🎯
Huberman wraps up with a comprehensive summary, acknowledging that you won't always work in the same place:
Phase 1 (0-9 hours after waking):
- Keep lights bright, especially overhead
- Position your focus point at nose level or above
- Avoid reclining
- Stand for at least half your workday (work up to this goal)
Sound guidelines:
- Avoid white, pink, or brown noise for more than an hour (potentially damaging and creates background stress)
- Consider 40 Hz binaural beats during work or for 30 minutes before (don't rely on them daily to avoid losing potency)
Cathedral effect applications:
- Low ceiling or brimmed hat/hoodie for analytical work with correct answers
- High ceiling or no ceiling for brainstorming and creative work
"I do want to acknowledge again the fact that I realize people are showing up to this challenge of workspace optimization with different budgets, with different constraints. Some people have kids at home. There are a lot of interruptions."
One final important point:
"There's nothing to say that you have to always work in the same location all the time. You can move from house to cafe if that works for you. You can move from office to home. You can also move from different locations within your home."
Conclusion
Optimizing your workspace doesn't require expensive equipment or a complete renovation. By understanding how light, screen position, ceiling height, and specific sounds affect your neurochemistry, you can create conditions that enhance both focused analytical work and creative thinking. The key is flexibility—use these science-backed tools as a checklist rather than rigid rules, adapting them to your unique situation whether you're at home with kids, in a corporate office, or working from a café. Small adjustments like raising your screen, switching between sitting and standing, or stepping outside to relax your eyes can make a significant difference in your productivity and cognitive performance. 🚀
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