Blog
GABA Supplements: What Huberman and Ferriss Take
GABA is the brain's main calming signal, and a whole shelf of supplements claims to nudge it: inositol, saffron, 5-HTP, L-theanine, magnesium, even low-dose lithium. Over hundreds of podcast hours, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss and their guests have said on the record which of these they actually take, which they dropped, and why. This post collects those moments and links the exact clips so you can weigh the source yourself.
None of this is medical advice. Every claim below is something a named host or guest said on their own show, not a recommendation from us. Supplements interact with medications and conditions in ways a podcast cannot account for, so talk to your doctor before adding anything, especially if you already take antidepressants or sedatives.
Note: Sourced expert opinion from public episodes, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing supplements or treatment.
In his Huberman Lab Essentials episode on erasing fear and trauma, Andrew Huberman points to two supplements with real study support for anxiety: saffron at about 30 mg and inositol at roughly 18 grams a day. He goes further on inositol, saying a month at that dose produced anxiety reduction on par with many prescription antidepressants, a result he says held up in double-blind work.
The catch is the dose. Huberman notes that most of those studies used very high amounts, 12 to 18 grams, which commonly caused gastric distress, so he takes far less himself. His personal dose is about 900 mg of myo-inositol, and he uses it less for anxiety than for sleep.
That sleep use comes up repeatedly. Huberman describes rotating 900 mg of myo-inositol every other night or every third night, and on Tim Ferriss's show he lists it as a recent addition to his magnesium threonate, theanine and apigenin stack that helps him fall back asleep after waking in the night.
Hear it:
If inositol is the supplement Huberman keeps, 5-HTP is the one he threw out. On his brain chemistry podcast he describes trying 5-HTP for sleep and getting deep sleep for one to three hours, then waking and being unable to fall back asleep, so he abandoned it.
He is even blunter elsewhere. In an early talk on optimizing sleep and metabolism he says tryptophan and 5-HTP gave him dreadful sleep, knocking him out and then leaving him unable to sleep for almost 48 hours. In his daily-tools essentials he adds that serotonin precursors like 5-HTP disrupt his sleep architecture for days.
The lesson he draws is not that 5-HTP is useless for everyone, but that pushing serotonin directly is unpredictable, and for him the downside on sleep clearly outweighed any benefit.
Hear it:
Where inositol and 5-HTP act on other systems, a second group of supplements works closer to GABA itself. Huberman cites eight studies showing L-theanine has a minor effect on anxiety and a notable effect on stress, and that it works in part by increasing GABA.
Magnesium threonate shows up in nearly every sleep stack he describes, and he explains that part of its benefit is increasing GABA. Apigenin, the chamomile derivative he pairs with it, promotes sleep the same way, by increasing GABA activity through chloride channels.
Magnesium threonate is the form Huberman singles out for crossing the blood-brain barrier, and it is the one most often stacked with theanine and apigenin for sleep. If you want the underlying science on why these sleep-focused tools matter at all, the book he credits most across his shows is Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep.
Hear it:
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Not every GABA lever is a capsule. On Tim Ferriss's show, Dr. Dom D'Agostino explained that his lab found exogenous ketones produce an anxiolytic effect in animals comparable to a benzodiazepine, by raising the GABA-to-glutamate ratio in the brain.
Huberman echoes the diet side of that idea. He points to decent evidence that a ketogenic diet helps treatment-refractory depression, and explains the likely mechanism is increased GABA transmission in the brain. It is the one thread in this list that does not involve buying a supplement at all.
Hear it:
Tim Ferriss adds one more that rarely makes supplement lists. In a listener Q&A he disclosed taking 5 mg of low-dose lithium orotate, bought on Amazon, before bed, with another 5 mg in the morning if he feels himself slipping, alongside exercise, sunlight, limiting caffeine, cutting alcohol and cold exposure.
Lithium at prescription doses is a serious psychiatric medication, and Ferriss is describing a personal low-dose experiment, not a protocol. It is the clearest example in this whole list of why the clip matters more than any summary: hear him say it in full context before you would consider anything like it.
Hear it:
GABA is the brain's main inhibitory, or calming, neurotransmitter. Several tools Huberman discusses work by raising it: he says L-theanine, magnesium threonate and apigenin all increase GABA activity, which is why they turn up in stress and sleep stacks.
It did not for Huberman. He says 5-HTP gave him deep sleep for one to three hours and then left him unable to fall back asleep, and in one case knocked out his sleep for nearly 48 hours, so he stopped taking it. Results vary by person.
About 900 mg of myo-inositol, mostly for sleep. He notes the anxiety studies used far higher amounts, roughly 12 to 18 grams a day, which often caused gastric distress, so he does not use those doses himself.
Huberman lists saffron at about 30 mg among the few supplements with study support for reducing anxiety, grouped with inositol. He frames it as worth knowing about, not as a cure or a replacement for treatment.
None of these supplements is a decision you should make from a blog post, including this one. What the clips give you is the raw material: exactly what Huberman, Ferriss and D'Agostino said, at what dose, and how it went for them personally. Read the studies they mention, then talk to your doctor. The value here is the sourcing, not a verdict.