The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This book by Jean-Dominique Bauby was genuinely recommended once in the episodes we index, on Andrew Huberman. The people who vouched for it on air: guest. It comes up in conversations about brain health, meditation & mindfulness, supplements. Every quote below is verbatim, attributed, and linked to the exact second it was said. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor in chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a forty-three-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brain stem. After twenty days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body that had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired.

• “There's a great book called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" about a young man who this happens to”

  Why it counts as a recommendation: “the book I highly recommend this to anyone to read”
  guest · Huberman Lab · Jan 202201:13:45

  Said during "Breathing for Mental & Physical Health & Performance | Dr. Jack Feldman". The episode features Dr. Jack Feldman: A distinguished professor of neurobiology at UCLA and a pioneer of the neuroscience of breathing. He discovered the pre-Botzinger complex and the second brainstem oscillator that generate the patterns of breathing. The neuroscientist who founded the field of breathing science explains how breath rhythms control your emotions, focus, fear, and brain health.