Habits and Hustle - Episode 2: Dr. Breus, The Sleep Doctor – The 8-Hour Sleeping Myth, Sleeping With The TV On, and More

Episode Date: March 3, 2019

Today we are joined by Dr. Michael Breus. He’s a sleep expert who often appears on the Dr. Oz Show. This episode will open your eyes about sleeping. He talks about why eight hours is a myth, why it���s okay to fall asleep with the television on, sleeping with pets, how sleep is like diet and exercise, nap hacks, blue light, why men always fall asleep after sex and more. 📺 Youtube Link to This Episode Dr. Breus’ Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Not getting enough sleep can impact every aspect of our health. It's the fuel for our energy, our mood, creativity, and so much more. That's why I was so thrilled to interview Dr. Michael Bruce, otherwise known as the sleep doctor. We covered a lot of ground in this episode. If you want to get a better night's sleep, take notes.

We talked about everything from insomnia, diet, hormones, optimal sleeping conditions, and much, much more. He also talked about why it's okay to fall asleep with a TV on. There's no other doctor who's ever said that. What he had to say was really interesting, and I promise it won't with a TV on. There's no other doctor who's ever said that. What he had to say was really interesting and I promise it won't put you to sleep. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us on Habits and Hustle. I have my friend today who I think is pure genius

when it comes to sleep. He's known to all as the sleep doctor and for good reason. Thank you. You're welcome. He's on the board of the sleep doctor and for good reason. Thank you. You're welcome. He's on the board of Dr. Oz's television show. Television show. He's a constant regular on that show, the today show, and basically,

like, other major media outlet there is. I do a lot of media. It's a good topic. Sleep is one of those things that a lot of people have a real interest in, and so I'm super excited to be here today. Well, thank you for being here. Of course. I love having you.

I don't even know where to begin, where to jump in because there's so much to go through. I feel like sleep has now been, I feel like we're talking this offline. I feel like now, today and today's time, it's becoming much more of an obvious, it's becoming much more relevant to how important it is to have a good life, basically. It's kind of interesting because I've been doing sleep media for almost 20 years now. And it's very, very different. Just looking at the progression of like,

how many interviews I do a year, it has continued to steadily increase. We keep tallies on this last year. I did 260 interviews in the year, regarding sleep. Are you kidding me? I am not kidding you. So that's podcast, online, radio, television, video, the whole thing. So why do you think that is? Do you think people are just more interested in it? Or is it because they're with all the research now being back that it's that's how much how important it is for your overall well-being and health? I think it's three things and I think you hit two of them.

So first of all, I hope that me working so hard for the last 20 years has had some effect somewhere that we're getting more people interested in sleep. That number one, number two, the research is much better now. Literally every month we're seeing something really cool come out about sleep. I wrote a blog this morning all on sleep and hydration, and why is hydration important? And how, when you become sleep deprived, you become dehydrated.

And how does that affect the sleep cycle? We're getting further and further down the path of actually understanding what happens during sleep. And I think that's been a real opening up for people to be able to say, oh, well, things like does intermittent fasting affect sleep. Is keto affect sleep? Does CBD affect sleep? All these different things are things that people are

now starting to ask, and we actually have some real answers. It's not just guesswork any longer. And then finally, I think that you just, the further you get down the path in the definition of wellness, you just can't avoid sleep any longer. You know, historically it was diet and exercise, diet and exercise, and that's great. I'm not saying anything's wrong with either diet or exercise, but I can show you real data that if you don't sleep well, it doesn't matter what you eat. And it doesn't matter how much you exercise.

You will not get well. Oh, I totally agree. I mean, there's all these challenges now for weight loss. And now what they're doing is it's actually becoming one of the components is diet, obviously exercise and sleep, how much of it you're doing. Because I know, I want to talk about this because it's like my background, weight loss and sleep. I mean, you're absolutely correct because your cortisol levels, your hormones go up and

you tend to eat more. Why else? Like give me other reasons why you cannot lose weight when you don't sleep well. So I actually studied this in depth. So my second book was called the Sleep Doctors Diet, Lose Weight Through Better Sleep. And it actually looked at the relationship between sleep deprivation and the metabolic process. And so here's what we learned. There's basically five things that happen.

So when you become sleep deprived, the very first thing that happens is your metabolism slows down. So the first one will be Michael, why? So your body is trying to conserve resources. Your awake and your body doesn't know why, and so it says slow down on chewing up all the fuel, because we don't know why we're awake and we might need this fuel. So metabolism immediately slows down. Your cortisol increases because you're sort of in this fight or flight, oh my gosh, why am

I awake? Which means your appetite increases. So right out of the gates, you have low metabolism and high appetite. So that's already a recipe for disaster, but it gets much worse. So. No, just wait. So then you look at it on a hormonal level,

which you mentioned as well. Two hormones in particular are really critical for this, gharellin and leptin. So gharellin, which is, I always have to spell it, because people never heard of it, it's GH-R-E-L-I-N. I call it the go hormone. So this is the hormone that increases hunger. By the way, in the brain, appetite is in one place.

Hunger is actually in a different place. So those are two different processes. So we have an increasing garylon by almost 20%, which means you have an increase in hunger. The other hormone, which is leptin, is the hormone of satiety, meaning it makes you feel full. So that decreases by 15%. So hold on, let's step back for a second. We've got high cortisol, and you have high appetite.

We have low metabolism. We have high gerellen, which makes you hungry, and we have low leptin, which tells you you're not full. Right? So it's really bad, but oh no, it gets even worse. Ben food choice comes in. Great study looking at food choice. And of course, what do we grab for when we're tired?

The Snickers and the ice cream and the cakes and the cookies and the pies. Empty carbs, I feel, is what you grab. Absolutely. So why do we do that? We actually crave those in particular and here's why. When you've got that elevated level of cortisol, the only thing that can help bring it down is serotonin. The easiest way to get serotonin available in your brain

is to eat it. Meaning, if you eat the cakes and the cookies and the pies and all these high sugar, high fat things, it gives you serotonin, which is the calming hormone, which actually calms down the cortisol. It's not your fault that you're reaching for all of these really terrible empty carbs as you call them, but your brain needs them in order to reduce the cortisol.

Quite frankly, if you just took a nap instead of eight of sneakers, you'd be in better shape. Wow. I mean, but how do you, people, people can't nap, right? Like, they're working all day or they're busy with their kids, whatever. Sure. How do you counteract that? Like, what are some strategies that you can kind of improve upon that? Sure. So there's a couple of ways.

Stress and anxiety and all the other stuff. There's a couple of different ways that you can get more sleep in your life. But first of all, I want to address the idea that you don't have time to nap. So I'm going to be honest with you, everybody has time to nap. I'm not talking about a 90 minute nap here. Right. Okay, I'm talking 20, 25 minutes maximum. Here's one of my favorite hacks that I use for all of my Fortune 100 and 500 CEOs that I work with.

I call it the Napa latte. Right, and so here's what you do is you take a cup of drip black coffee. Reason you use drip is because it's got the highest caffeine content. The reason it's black is you don't want any extra sugar or dairy in there. Throw three ice cubes in it just to cool it down, okay?

Slug it, drink the whole thing as quick as you can and then immediately close your eyes and take a 25 minute nap. Here's why it works, is when you're getting sleepy during the day, there's a buildup of something called adenosine, right, which is a neurochemical that builds up to make you feel sleepy. If you look at the molecular structure of adenosine and the molecular structure of caffeine, they're off by one molecule, one. Really? Right, so here's what's interesting is, if you, when you take a nap, you'll burn through that adenosine,

but you've already infused the caffeine. And the caffeine is waiting right there. It actually locking keys perfectly into the adenosine receptor site, blocking the sleepy hormone. You're good for four hours, guaranteed. Are you kidding? It's where it got it, works like a charm. That's a great hack, actually.

Thank you. That's a great one. Because you know what they're doing now is the new kind of studios is these pods, these sleeping pods, where they're charging you like 20, 25 bucks or even more sometimes to go into this little pod and building and sleep for like 15, 20 minutes. Right. And so I thought there was like a gimmick. Oh no.

Well, first of all, nap pods have been around for probably close to 10 years. And they've been doing them in New York. There's a great place in New York called Metro Naps in the Empire State Building of all places. You can go in there, you can take 20 minute NAP. There's one called Yellow in the city as well. But they never really got super popular. I have started to see them in airports now,

which is kind of- Right, I heard that too. Which would kind of make sense. Right. You got a long layover, whatever. The seats aren't too comfortable for 25 minutes, 25 bucks, whatever it is. Go in. But adding the caffeine before is really the kicker. Now people have to be careful. You can't do a napalata every day. Okay. But why not? Well, at that point, you're trying to replace your sleep. So this is really more used for somebody who's, they only got four hours last night or five hours last night and it turns out that they just can't function, right? Or they've got a big presentation, they've got a lot of anxiety. This is a good way to

sort of give them that energy back that they're looking for. But generally speaking, how do we keep more sleep in our day? The more consistent you are with your sleep schedule, the less sleep you need. Let me repeat that. The more consistent you are with your sleep schedule the less sleep you need. Let me repeat that. The more consistent you are with your sleep schedule the less sleep you need. I go to bed every night somewhere between 11, 30 and 12 o'clock. Okay. I'm a night person. I get up at around 6, 17 every single day naturally just what my body does. Because my my body is so consistent in the timing of my sleep, it will naturally wake up, and I only need about six hours and fifteen minutes of sleep.

I'm the sleep doctor for God's sake, right? And I'm sitting here telling you eight hours is a myth, and it is. Well, that was going to say two things. I've got two questions. Just by doing this, that. Okay, number one, some people, do you feel, do you think that some people aren't as good at taking naps because I, if I just walk into a sleep pod or take that drip, that, the drip coffee, there's no chance that I think that I'll be able to just fall asleep. Like some people can fall asleep super quickly and some people can't. That's question one. Okay, can I answer them one at a time?

Yes. Because I'll forget the first one. Fine, okay. I know that's true, okay. So you don't have to get full on sleep for the Napolote to be effective. It's really just about timing out, right? So you put yourself in an environment, number one has to be safe, but number two, just where there's not as much light, not as much noise. And by the way, if you're tired, you're going to fall asleep.

I can almost guarantee it. Okay. Now, there are some people who are pretty anxious, who are like, I could never fall asleep in public. Okay, I get it. Go to your car, tell somebody where you're going. I've got one client that they have a napping buddy. And what she does is she goes,

another good hack. Right, is she talks to one of her girlfriends and she says, I'm gonna go take a nap. Her girlfriend takes a break too. And then they go to her car, and she lies down one seat. The girlfriend has a book that she sits there, and she just watches over her friend,

make sure she say for friend takes the nap, does the coffee before, womb boom, they're in great shape. So it's not an impossibility. You can get pretty creative with doing this. Also, tell your boss, like this isn't a big secret, right? Right, right, exactly.

So you're more productive. Exactly, say to your boss, I this isn't a big secret, right? Right, right, exactly. So you're more productive. Exactly, say to your boss, I'm gonna try this hack, you know, I learned it here on habits and hustle. And I'm gonna give it a shot and let your boss know about it. Trust me, if they try it once or twice, they're gonna be just as hooked as you are. And also, I think I like what you said and I am a big believer of this consistency, right?

Like you absolutely. If the more consisting or with any habit, the more successful you're going to be with anything, exercise, diet, it's becoming a ritual or routine. Exactly. Okay, the other thing is the amount of sleep, right? Because there are people I know who are like great with four hours of sleep, and there are people- So it's rare. It's very rare.

So it's great with four hours, but I'll tell you about it. Okay, and then, or set up a little nine hours. Yeah, so there's a range, right? And so when you talk to the National Sleep Foundation, they do a poll every year called the sleepiness in America poll, what they've discovered is seven and nine hours seems to be the range for most people, okay?

Look, let's be honest, if everybody out there could get seven hours a night, it would be a miracle, all right? Because many, many people don't even get close to that. And then you've got the other people who are on the extreme end, like you're talking about, who get four. So first of all, let's talk about those people. So believe it or not, you can actually tell

from your genetics if you're one of those people. So there are people out there called short sleepers. They make up roughly 1% of the population, okay? That's it. Right. Well, it's it's a small number But it's a big number we have 400 million people in the United States. That's roughly four million people They can get away with sleeping not a lot. So you who knows you might you might know one right? That's possible. It's unlikely, but it's possible if that's your case you hit the genetic lottery great for you You can survive on less sleep

But 99% of us can't do that right so how do we curtail our sleep? Well, this is something that isn't new by the way and it's been going on since almost the dawn of time Have you ever spent any time in Latin America? Mexico yeah, that whole area. But not, besides Mexico, not really. Right, but what do they do down there between one and three? They take maps. Yeah, they take maps.

Right, they take maps. Exactly, right. There's an entire culture that's been doing this. So more than just Latin America, by the way. Of course, of course. I'm just using them as an example. But when you think about it, look, there's this whole idea that the sleep within a 24-hour period, maybe it doesn't all have to happen at one bout.

Maybe you take the nap like a siesta, you have a smaller, you have maybe six hours if your core sleep and a 20-minute siesta, and you're good to go, right? So thinking through some of those ideas, it certainly isn't going to be harmful, but the more naps you take during the day, the smaller you can actually make that core sleep at night become. There's something called polyphasic sleep. Now, this is not something that I recommend for the average individual, but this is how it works.

Is people come to me and they say, Michael, how do I get eight in five? Meaning, how do I get eight hours worth of sleep, but I've only got five hours to do it? This is how you do it. Is you take the CSD model and you really move it out and instead of one nap, you have two or three naps during the day, very specific times with a core four hours at night and I can get you to five hours. Now, the real question you really should be asking me next is, is that a good idea? No, it's not. All right. Now, there are people out there who do polyphasic sleep, but here's the thing. Number one, very

specific times. You cannot deviate on your time's period. You have to go to bed at a certain time. And by the way, this should all be done under a doctor's care. Primarily a sleep specialist care. And quite frankly, I don't know a whole lot of sleep specialists who know how to do this. Right. Right. Like, I've worked in the performance world for long enough where I had to figure out how to do this for clients and so that's what I do sometimes. But number two is it's lonely. Like how much internet surfing are you gonna do?

Right. Like if this is, because you got to do this for three, four, six months at a time for it to really work. So number one, there's just not a whole lot for you to do. So people get very lonely. Number one. And number two, if you have any proclivity for depression,

it pops within three weeks. So if you have depression in your genetic profile, or you've ever suffered from depression, this is a bad idea. And generally speaking, when you curtail the amount of sleep, now we're moving away from polyphasic sleep from just general sleep, like I'm only get five hours type of thing, it's just not a good idea. Sleep affects every organ system and every disease state. Every single thing you do, you do better with a good night's sleep. Everything.

There's nothing that you will do either mentally, emotionally, physically that will ever get better with less sleep. No, absolutely. You know, it's 100% true. Right. And I think that, like, the succana go back, I thought that that with like, you know, there's RAM, you know, sleep. Oh, right. Sleep. Yeah. So like, how does that, how do you accumulate that if you take a four hour nap, I'm sorry, a four hour, if you sleep four, four hours, then take a nap,

because don't you have to be in REM sleep to get that quality or. So there's different, so there's different stages of sleep. There's stages one, two, three, and four, and then there's REM. Each stage does something different. The most important ones turn out to be stage three, four, which is your physically restorative sleep, and REM, which is your mentally restorative sleep. And you're 100% correct in identifying REM is the thing that you lose when you become sleep deprived, because Mother Nature decided to front load stage three, four, and the first third of the night to put REM in the last third of the night

So as an example, let's say your body needs seven hours, but you only get five the last two hours that you decided to knock off of your Need for sleep is where the bulk of your REM sleep would occur Yeah, right? And so then the question is one Michael Does it really matter if I don't get enough REM sleep? Well it matters if you care about your memory Right, so we now know that moving information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory occurs during REM sleep. So if you can't find your car keys, if you walk into a room, you don't know why you're there, if you're making lists at the grocery store and you can't remember shit. That was like me.

Guess what? Yeah. You don't have enough REM sleep, right? I can almost guarantee it. So extending sleep actually could be very important. Very good for you to do. Okay, so I was going to ask you this later on, but I'm going to ask you now since you're talking about it. So let's, let's stay with this. So I know in your last book, The Power of When, which I loved, there's, you welcome. It's actually a great book. I'm not just saying that because you're sitting here, although I would say

that anyway, but no, um, is you, no, you really liked it. No, I really did. Because I loved, and this is why I wanted to ask you about this, you have a quiz in there and it breaks down different chronotypes of who people can be to figure out where they are in the sleep, in their sleep journey, I guess you would call it, right? Sorry. And we'll keep you to talk about it because there's four different types. Sure. Okay, go ahead, you're on. Thanks. So there's a quiz that you can take. So first of all, people out there may not know what a chronotype is. They might have heard the word before, but actually they do. If you've ever been heard somebody being called an early bird or a night owl, those

are chronotypes, right? Right. So it turns out that there aren't two, there's actually four. So in the medical literature, and this has been going on since the 70s, I did not discover this. People discovered that there were people who genetically woke up early, and there were genetically people who like to stay up late, right? So you like to wake up early, right? We were discussing this before the show. I, however, like to stay up late, right?

So we would be fairly incompatible on our chronotypes, right? Because you wanna do stuff early in the morning, and I hate mornings. I always say the only thing I hate worse than mornings are morning people, right? Because they're just so damn chipper in the mornings, right? Because you want to do stuff early in the morning and I hate mornings. I always say the only thing I hate worse than mornings are morning people. Right? Because they're just so damn chipper in the mornings, right? But once you start to understand what your chronotype is, it gets really interesting really quickly. So I developed a quiz. If people want to check it out, you can go to the power of when quiz.com

and that'll be in the show notes that people can click on and all that kind of good stuff. And when you take the quiz, you fall into one of four buckets. So there's early bird, but I rename them all, because I'm not a bird, I'm a mammal, and I decided to use mammals that I could identify with. And so early bird becomes a lion. Now these animals, by the way, actually follow the chronotype.

Lions actually get up before dawn. Their first kill is usually before dawn. They're early hunters. Okay. Bear, and they make up roughly 15% of the population. 15, 15, 15, 15. Bears are the middle group, and they used to be called hummingbirds, believe it or not, I call them bears, and they make up 55% of the population.

So one and two people falls into the bear category. However, bears can be split. There can be early bears, and there can be late bears. So don't worry, if you come out of bear, but you like to get up at six o'clock in the morning, you might be an early bear versus a late bear. Then we've got wolves. Wolves are the night owls, if you will.

I'm a wolf, right? And wolves make up another 15% of the population. And then we've got what I call dolphins. So dolphins is where what I added to the literature. So these three categories that I mentioned before, the lion, the bear, and the wolf, they're actually genetic. So if I looked at your 23 and me data, I could actually tell you exactly which one you are.

So this isn't some focus, on Michaels made up something cool. This is hardcore genetic research, right? So when you start to look at genetics of people within somnia, what you discover is they don't fall into any one of those three categories. They have their own category. And so, and it all has to do with this chronotype or this sleep schedule.

But people also don't understand it's just because you get up early, like let's take you and I, for example, you want to get up, what's your normal wake up time? Like, 6.45. OK, so let's say... Seven. Okay, so then you might not be a lion, then you might actually be a bear. My normal lions, their wake up time is 4.30.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. Those are the people I was telling you about earlier who are those super, super high achievers who only sleep four hours. Right, so first of all, I want to challenge you on one thing here is hi there can be high achievers in any chronotype. I've got high achievers who don't wake up until noon all day long, but they've stayed up. Right, right, right, until two o'clock in the morning, right, or three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning. So I because there's a whole theme out there of people, everybody has to wake up at 430 to start their day to be a productive person, and that's bullshit. Yeah, at 430 is ridiculous to me their day to be a productive person and that's bullshit.

Yeah, at 4.30 it's ridiculous to me. It's insane. That's where you're supposed to be sleeping. Right, but there are people that naturally do that. So how is that person different than Michael who goes to bed at midnight? Here's what's interesting. Let's say you're a morning person, you wake up at 4.30. I know it's not you, but let's just use you as an example.

So if you do that and wake up at 4.30, your melatonin cuts off, your cortisol goes up, and your hormone schedule for a 24 hour cycle starts. Well, if I don't wake up until 730, my hormone schedule changes, and it doesn't start until three hours later, then yours. Same hormone schedule, but it's delayed because I'm delayed because I'm a night owl. So the question then becomes how do two people live together that are in completely different time zones? Because that's really what's happening. It's like one person is living in New York and the other person is living in LA.

But they happen to live in the same house. Exactly. Right. And so it becomes very difficult. So the book, The Power of When, first of all, helps you identify what your chronotype is, which is actually quite simple. It takes two minutes online. But it's fun anyway.

Yeah, it's fun. You learn what it is. You learn a little bit about this type of person, but what's really cool is I took 50 different activities and I mapped it out for when is the best time of day based on your genetic chronotype to do something. I can tell you the best time of day to have sex, eat a cheeseburger, ask your boss for a raise, run a mile, like you name it, it's in. Based on the chronotype.

Based on your chronotype. Okay, so let's use, let's do bear, right? Because most people you said fall into the bear category. Yeah, 55%. 55%. So then when for a bear, when's the best time to have sex? When's the best time to have a cheeseburger? Go ahead, do it.

So bears are the easiest one because they're the largest group. So there's very little variation in them because the world was built on a bears schedule. So if you go back in caveman times, we had hunters and they woke up in the morning and guess what? They were our lions. We had our villagers who would maintain the village, they were our bears. We had our centuries, our security force would stay up late and guard them and they were our bulls. So this is something that isn't new, adding the insomnia part is new. Let's talk about sex for a second because it's the first question that everybody always asks.

Oh really? I'm not unique in that way. Well, maybe you're just curious in that way. So here's where it gets interesting. If you look at somebody's hormone profile to have sex, you need five hormones to be elevated. You need estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol, and adrenaline, all to have sex. You need five hormones to be elevated. You need estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisol, and adrenaline all to be high. You need melatonin to be low. If you look at the survey data, 73% of people have sex between 10, 30 and 11, 30 at night. What

do you think their hormone profile looks like? All the things you just said. The opposite. Oh, right. Right. Because their melatonin is high. All the melatonin, yeah, right. And all of those other hormones are low. Yes, yes. Okay. So number one is your hormone profile is not ready to have sex between 10, 13, 11, 30 at night. That's number one. Number two, look at men. What a men, what a men wake up with? Unerection. Right? If that's not mother nature, if that's not mother nature telling you when you're supposed to use that thing, I don't know what is. So in the morning, basically. So morning time makes a lot more sense to have sex from a libido standpoint,

from an arousal standpoint, from a performance standpoint. Like, if you just look at it from a biomechanics standpoint, you're gonna perform better having sex in the morning than you do it. How about a girl, though? Same thing. It's actually better for women in the morning than it is for men because there's some data to now show that after a woman has an orgasm, she has energy. Whereas a lot of men, after they have an orgasm, become tired. Right, and they fall asleep.

Right. So the other question people always ask me is why do men always fall asleep after sex? Nobody knows the real answer, but my guess is that one of the hormones that's produced is oxytocin, which is the love hormone, right? I would bet you that if you mix testosterone with oxytocin, it causes a sedative effect, but if you mix it with estrogen, it causes an alerting effect. That would be my guess. And that's part of the reason why women get so active and are ready after sex to go do

something, whereas men are exhausted and fall asleep. And the opposite, yeah. Right. And so again, another good reason to have sex in the morning is, number one, it's a great way to start your day. But number two, for guys, especially guys who are more on the anxious side, it'll absolutely kind of zen them out and allow them to kind of get a peacefulness as they start their day. Vitamin water just dropped a new zero sugar flavor called with love. Get the taste of raspberry

and dark chocolate for the all warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. Wow, okay. How about having a cheeseburger or give me the other ones? So when we look at eating, the timing of your eating turns out to be incredibly important. Great study looking at rodents. And what they did was they gave, there were three groups of identical rodents. So these are genetically modified animals that are identical. One group had access to food 24 hours a day, same amount of food

and same type of food. Access 24 hours a day. One group could only access their food for 12 hours, the other group could only access their food for 8 hours. The group that it was free running, meaning they could have access to food any time of day, gained weight. Same food, same amount, same nutrients. The group that only had access for 12 hours maintained their weight. The group that had access for only eight hours lost weight and they ate the same stuff that every other rodent group ate. So it had to do with the timing of when they ate. So the not kind of that kind of is a dub tails into this intermittent fasting. Exactly. So, you know, and I'm, and I'm always back and forth with it,

with all these different diet hacks, or diet trends and fats, I should call it. So then that would prove that intermittent fasting is. Makes sense. Yeah, it does. It really does make sense in a lot of ways. When you really start to look at the literature on fasting in general,

look, we are a society that eats too much. Yeah. Period. Look, we are a society that eats too much. Yeah. Period. Absolutely. Just portion size alone is ridiculous when you look, especially in the United States. And go over to Europe, they seem to have a portion size.

Especially the people, people where there's more of a Mediterranean kind of feel for the diet. This portion sizes are smaller. You've got much cleaner food, much better food. Absolutely, that's processed food. Yeah, it's so much better to eat over there. But when you just look at the diet habits of Americans, we eat too much. There's no question about it.

But let's talk about intermittent fasting in particular and how does it affect sleep. So one of the big things that people have to be aware of, and this goes against some conventional wisdom here, is eating in the mornings is probably not the best idea. Okay. Now people are always feeling like, Michael, come on. Breakfast is the most important probably not the best idea. Okay? Now people are always feeling, Michael, come on. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You're supposed to eat breakfast like a king and lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

Like, you know, you hear these things all the time, right? That's right, right, right. So here's the deal, is if you know your chronotype, that's probably not true. Lions, absolutely, breakfast is going to be their most important meal of the day. All right? So it depends on the chronotype you are really. Lions, absolutely. Breakfast is going to be their most important meal of the day. All right. So it depends on the chronotype you are really. Absolutely it does. But also, but also there's a catch where what we know is it's hard to

go to bed hungry. Yes. Right. And so. And I love to, I think my favorite thing to do at night is eat that's where I get in trouble all the time. Yes. Is that a, are you a night snacker? I am. I'm a huge. Oh, I've got a great, I've got something great for you for night snacking. So I'm just started working with this company. It's called Night Food. And they actually have created Sleep Friendly Snacks,

250 calories or less. They have an ice cream that just came out, which is ridiculous. It's so good. And it's not processed. It's not like a bunch of sugar. Like it's not terrible for you type of thing, but it's actually sleep friendly. That one's about 360 calories for the pint.

Okay, wow, but hold on a second, what's in it number one? Number two, first of all, what's in it then? If it's not sugar, if it's not... I'm not saying that there isn't sugar in it. There is some sugar in it, but they use natural sources of sugar. We go through the whole ingredient profile

and I don't have it in front of me, so I don't know it off the top of my head. But it's definitely something worth checking out. But getting back to intermittent fasting because I want to finish that thought. Yeah, go ahead. For a lot of people, I have them choose to eat in the later part of the day because you can't go to bed hungry because when you're thinking about food and you can't stop, you know, and you've got those hunger pains, it's almost impossible to fall asleep.

And there's data to show that Carbo loading before bed is actually very helpful for sleep. So carbs are not bad. Like I can't stand it, and everybody's out there like, oh, carbs are terrible. No, you have to have carbohydrates to live. Right, and for energy, I mean,

the reality is, I mean. Exactly, but you need to be careful about the carbs that you're eating. Right, absolutely. And if you can move your timing around of your meal, like let's say that you're gonna intermittent fast and you're only gonna eat for eight hours out of the 24 hours of the day, right?

Obviously, you're still doing water, you're still supplementing, you're still making sure you're getting your vitamins, your minerals, all the things that your body needs. Depending upon your chronotype, you may choose those eight hours very differently. Right. Absolutely. So then, this is so interesting. I can go, I can ask you a million questions off of every question that you said, right? But I want to get into a couple different things.

Number one, you create this thing called the Exhausted Executive, which I think is super helpful for a lot of people, right? Yep. Do you want me to just tell me and everyone else? Yeah. All three people, listen. Absolutely. So the Exhausted Executive is a new program that I had to develop

primarily because I kept getting so many people who were coming to me saying, look, I'm 45, I'm a CEO where I've got a high-level management position, I travel, I'm exhausted constantly. I can't seem to get my sleep straight. I exercise every once in a while, but it's really not, I'm really not catching on my diet sucks. Like, I need help and I know that sleep is a major factor because again, if you don't sleep, you start to eat the junk food. If you don't sleep, you don't want to exercise. So people are finally starting to realize,

hey, sleep is the core thing. So here's what I do for my exhausted executives. So number one, I have a lecture that I give now and that's actually become quite popular, but it's all surrounding these protocols. So I only take between 10 and 12 patients at a time. So I have an exclusive concierge type of practice, and the very first thing I do is I do genetic testing

on everybody. So I can actually take your 23 and me data or your ancestry.com data, bring it to another group that looks at 74 different sleep markers in your genetics, and I get a roadmap of your sleep. I can tell you exactly how much sleep you need when you should be sleeping. I can tell you if you've got any chance of getting things like narcolepsy or sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome.

I get really creates a roadmap for me. And then from there, I create pre-sleep protocols and post-sleep protocols. So what should be your routine before bed? What should be your bed times? When should you wake up? What should you do when you wake up? And if I can get people to follow these guidelines over the course of 30 to 60 days, it's life-changing. Wow, so it's very customized, it sounds like.

It's 100%. Nobody gets the same program. Wow. So basically all these other things, like you know, I was going to say I said to you earlier, we can go over like the basics in terms of like how to be how to sleep better. Right. You know, the five things you should do. Sure. But you're saying really that as much as those things are popular and people talk about them, you can Google it. Right it. Really it's not a one-size-fits-all type of problem. Exactly. It's exactly like diet and it's exactly like exercising that way.

I'm a runner. I like to run. I was telling you before, I did great on my 5K today, but there are lots of people that cannot stand running and they get their cardio through spinning or through kickboxing or through a class or whatever, right? And so sleep is the same way, right? People need to stop thinking that everybody goes into that room in the back of the house, they turn off the light and hopefully come out eight hours later feeling better.

There are definitely ways that you can hack or tweak that to be better for you. Right. So like the things like the basic is the basic, I guess, hacks would be sleeping a cooler, darker room. So here's how I look at it. The five senses, right? So we all know what the five senses are, right? Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. So I, so what I say is look at the five senses in your bedroom, right, and see how they affect you. So the number one sense is light. So what kind of light exposure are you getting in the evenings approximately 90 minutes before bed?

So let's talk about blue light because that's a biggie, right? So when we're playing with our phones and watching Game of Thrones and getting our high score on Candy Crush and checking Facebook and all that kind of good stuff, it's not helpful for sleep. And there's two reasons why. Number one is the light that's coming from your device.

There's a category inside of the light spectrum called blue light. That blue light affects a very particular type of cell in your eye called the melanopsin cell. It turns off the melatonin faucet in your brain. We don't want the melatonin faucet being turned off at night. We want it turned on at night. We want it off in the morning, which is why every morning you should get direct sunlight

for about 15 minutes, but at night, you don't want any blue light. Now let's be very honest here. Who is gonna go on an electronic curfew, 90 minutes before bed? Nobody. Yeah. There isn't anybody out there

that is going to do that, right? So what's the hack or what's the fix? Blue light blocking glasses. So I have actually developed my own line because I didn't like the ones that were out there. People want to go to sleepdoctorglasses.com. We can give them a discount code. We can put it in the show notes so they can get 25% off the glasses. But these are an amber colored lens and it's not just any amber colored lens. Like I really went into it.

Like, these are the best glasses you're going to find for this type of thing. And they're awesome. I have both of my kids wear them and have been for the last two years wearing blue light blocking glasses. And so here's the best part is I don't have to try to kick my kids off the internet at nine o'clock at night anymore. Like, that's not fun. Like, in our house, like, you turn off the internet at nine o'clock,

it's like a revolt happened. Like in our house, like you turn off the internet at nine o'clock, it's like a revolt happen. Like everybody completely freaks out. I don't know what, right? And so I just say, look, put on your blue light blocking glasses or your sleep doctor glasses and they throw them on. And my kids, you know, it sounds so wonky, but it does. It does.

It sounds ridiculous. Number one, it works, but number two, they think it's hilarious. So they're taking pictures on Instagram and they're like, look what my goofy sleep doctor father is making you do. And my son requests them now. Like, we see you see lower eye strain. Like, think about it, these kids are in front of computers all day long.

So we, right, our eyes hurt after the day. This is a way to lower eye strain, lower blue light contamination. They're just like there lower eye strain, lower blue light, contamination. Just like there's junk food, there's junk light. And we need to be aware of that and start to think about that. So light is the first thing. The second one is sound. So it turns out that the more quiet it is, the more acute your hearing becomes. So you don't want to completely silent place. I'm the only sleep doctor in the universe that says, it's okay to fall asleep with the television on. Oh, what really? Yes.

You've never heard somebody say that at you. No, not at all. In fact, I thought you're gonna say, make sure you don't watch TV. That did did did. I fall asleep with the TV on every night. So do I. I would be able to fall asleep with that TV.

Exactly. And that's why I say it's okay. Look, my wife falls asleep at the television on every single night. And she has for our entire relationship, we've been married for 20 years. Well, yeah. And so here's what I discovered, because I studied her. So here's what I discovered is she's not watching it. She's listening to it. Right. Right. Right. Eyes are closed. I call it listening out of the corner of her ear. Because your eyes are closed and she's just listening. And it's just enough to distract her

from her brain that's going a thousand miles an hour. Right. Right. There's nothing. Look, every single television that's been built in the last ten years has software with a timer in it. Okay. Yeah. Figure it out. This isn't rocket science. Absolutely. No. Yeah. Set it for 60 minutes. You'll fall asleep. The TV turns off. Everybody's fine. So you're saying for the first, I've never heard you, I have ever anyone say that. So I know. So you're saying, for the first, I've never heard you, I have ever, I never say that, so I can't, so you can actually still watch TV. Yes, absolutely. And it won't affect you falling asleep.

Correct. I think the problem most people have, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, is the more you don't sleep, the more anxious you get, and it becomes like a self-fulfilling, you know? Because what happens, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not falling asleep, so then I turn the pillow over and it gets hot, and then I turn it over again and it gets hot again.

And then it's like the anxiety of that. Yes. And the more you don't, if you're not able to sleep, the more that kind of help that it happens. So what I tell people all the time is sleep is a lot like love. The less you look for it, the more it shows up. Right? I love that.

And that's how it works. The less you perseverate on sleep, the less you think about it. But how do you talk? Okay, the doctor, how do you stop thinking about it? Sure. So we're still on sound. So one of the ways that we do, it's okay, jump away. So the way we're talking, when we're talking about sound, you can use a sound machine.

Sound machines are very effective for people. And most people don't even know about them. They're like, sound, you can use a sound machine, right? Sound machines are very effective for people. And most people don't even know about them. They're like, oh, sound machines. Isn't that something from the 80s? No, you can go to bedbath and beyond. You can find anything you want as far as sound machines are concerned. I personally, I use one from a company called IHOME. They do a great job.

They've got meditations. They've got breathing techniques. They've got relaxation. They've got all kinds of stuff built into these things now. So utilize it. We're not talking about tremendous dollars here. We're talking 50 to 100 bucks, and you can get a class A1 sound machine

that can do all kinds of cool stuff. But it's a distraction, right? So, and to your question is, how do you stop thinking about it? You got to distract yourself. And many people are so attention deficit that they have no choice but to do something. So there's a lot of different ways. So here's one of my favorite ones. This is going to sound

crazy, but I swear to God it works. Okay. Count backwards from 300 by 3s. Oh wow, that's a great one. Another one. You're giving me some good nuggets. You asked for the nuggets. I'm giving you the nuggets. You are. And I love it. So by, why by three, who came up with that? It's mathematically so complicated. You can't think of anything else. And it's so damn boring. You're out like a light. Works like a charm.

I use it myself. These are great hacks, by the way. Thank you. The drip coffee. Yep, the napalate. The napalate. The counting backwards, by by three from the hundred.

Learning your chronotype is also kind of a hack. Learning your chronotype, knowing where you fall, for sure, was the other hack that you gave? Well, I haven't told everybody how to figure out their bedtime yet. That's an easy hack that I'll show you as well. Oh, good, please. Okay, but I'm still going with cell and distraction.

Okay. So you want to distract yourself, right? Because here's the thing, think about it like this when you get in bed at night and you, you know, said goodnight to your partner, whatever, you're lying there in the dark, what happens? Every single thought that could possibly come to your head comes flooding in because it's the only time nobody's talking to you. Right. At mom, do this, honey, what is this boss? What's that, you know, like you've got it all, right? So also, all these thoughts come flooding in. So what do you do? You got to distract yourself. Now, three or four hours before bed, one of the techniques I use for people is called a worry journal.

So just piece of paper, draw a line down the middle. Every one of the things that you think about, give yourself 20 minutes, just sit there and think and let the thoughts come flooding in. Write them all down on one side. Then on the other side write one solution. It doesn't have to fix it. It could be I'm gonna call Johnny's teacher because he's messing up at school. It could be I'm gonna go make an appointment to go do this. It doesn't have to solve the problem right then and there, but if it is a step to solve the problem, it lowers your anxiety. That's amazing. Because that's all we're talking about here is anxiety before that. That's really what's fueling 90% of the insomnia out there.

Other than things like caffeine abuse, stimulants, medications that have got stimulants in them, that kind of stuff is one of those other things that kind of keeps your mind really warning and churning. But finding ways to distract yourself is really good idea, and it's really very helpful. Then we move into touch, which has to do with temperature. You've mentioned temperature a couple of times. It is always better to sleep in the cool. Here's why.

Your core body temperature raises, raises, raises until about 10-30 at night. It hits a peak and it falls. When it hits that peak and falls, that's a signal to the brain to release melatonin. That's the key that starts the engine for sleep. You can't reach the peak and start to go down if your room's too hot. Yeah. Right. So keeping a cool room can be really good. But oddly enough, oddly enough, some people sleep better if they wear socks. Really?

Yes. Because if their feet are warm, it helps them fall asleep. However, the majority of people, they tell me if they get too hot, what's the one thing that you do? They take them off. They take their socks off, right? Or they stick their foot out from under the covers. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Because that's the other thing they do. Right. So I had to figure this question out. So why does that work? Turns out you have no hair on the bottom of your foot, and the skin on the bottom of your foot is very different and you actually veys or dilate better and you actually release more heat from your feet. So if your bed partner's got to be cozy with

comfortors and covers and blankets to the high heavens and you don't, just have one layer and then have your feet stick out and you'll be fine. That's a great, this is another great one. First of all, that worry journal is brilliant. It works well. That's a great thing because I'm a big believer in journaling for accountability, purposes,

and everything else. And I work with habits now, so they have 100 journals that are all about personal help and self-help. I never heard of a worry journal. That's amazing. It works great. And then the last technique that I have for people. Break that down.

And then the last technique that I have for people that I think really puts things more on the positive side of things And I know you're like a super positive person So is doing a gratitude list before bed. So when you're lying there in the dark Just think about four to five things that you're grateful for some days It's gonna not gonna be easy some days. They'll be an abundance of things that you're grateful for some days It'll just be I just made it to bed, you know But most of the time you might be grateful

for a person in your life, for having a roof over your head, or friendships, or whatever it is, but reminding yourself of what's good in your life before bed. Believe it or not, there's actually a study. Is there a study to correlate that to? That looked at that and what they discovered is that when you do things that are positive

before bed, not only do you fall asleep faster and get into deeper sleep quicker, but your dreams are more positive. Really? Which is kind of cool. Like you can almost pre-program your brain during dreaming if you're thinking about positive things before bed. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is this. Let's go, let's go!

Show up on day one. Work out with us for 30 minutes. Feel good right away. Yow! Repeat five days a week for three weeks. Three weeks? Five workouts a week. We're a body, and we call that a body block.

You pick the block, and you're going to love the experience. On week four, this part is really important. Take the week off. Seriously, we meet it. Rest. Go on vacation. Take the week off. Seriously, we made it. Rest. Go on vacation. Or try something new. Maybe some yoga.

Notice you're not holding on to any tension here. Or a dance class. Get sexy, we're the daddy. You do you. And then start again. Be committed to this process. Choose a new body block each month. Get a new challenge each month.

Have fun every day. Avoid burnout. You're not going to quit on yourself today. Have fun every day. Avoid burnout. You're not going to quit on yourself today. This is how you reach your goals. You win. There is nothing that we can't do if we work together. Sign up for your first body block today. Visit body.com for a free trial. That's B-O-D-I- dot com. Are you ready to get started? This is amazing. I mean this is I feel like this is all very interesting information. And also people can actually use these things.

That's the goal. What I like about you, seriously, what I really love about you is that you give people true, not just research-backed information that is actually helpful that they can integrate into their own lives. It's all practical. Action-oriented suggestions. It is. It's all, it Action oriented suggestion. It is all it's action as people can take away and they can try these hacks. Yeah, absolutely.

And there's a million of them. There's a bunch like and the book really goes into detail about another one. Two other areas we want to get to is we talked about touch. Touch also doesn't just think compass temperature, but it's mattress pillow sheets. The whole gig, right? So that makes a difference look sleep is a performance activity okay so if you're gonna work out right you can work out in flip flops with torn cut-offs and a torn t-shirt right with a boom box on your own but you work out it's not gonna be very good absolutely right but if you've got the right equipment right you got your your you know workout shoes

on you got your spandex on, you got your nutrition going, you work out better. Same holds true with sleep, right? What sleep equipment? It's pillows, it's sheets, it's comfortors, it's mattress. Don't skimp. My grandfather used to always say, there's three things that you spend money on. Eye glasses, shoes, and mattresses, and he's right. Really, I never heard the mattress in there. I know shoes for sure, right? And I know, well, eye glasses I never heard that one either. My grandfather lived till 103 in 10 months. So I think he was a pretty knowledgeable guy. Yeah, I think that's I, yeah, I'm going to think your grandfather. So what are the, what kind of mattresses? What kind of what kind of blankets? What kind of pillow? So this is a very big area of

interest and controversy because there's no one right answer. Just like there's no one sleep schedule, there's no one bed that's going to fix everybody. Okay, but there's some things that people can start to think about. First of all, if you've had a bed for longer than about seven or eight years, you really should consider getting a new mattress. It's kind of funny. I used to want to create a turkey timer. Like, you know, when you Thanksgiving, when you stick that thing in the bird and it pops, you know, it's done. I kind of wanted one of those for mattresses. Yeah. Like, wouldn't that be turkey timer. Like, you know, when Thanksgiving, when you stick that thing in the burden, it pops, you know, it's done. I kind of wanted one of those for mattresses. Like, wouldn't that be great?

I will, you know, yeah, I guess I'm gonna, I would be, cause you never know. Wouldn't a turkey timer be the equivalent of, you see the mat dipping in like in the middle? So, yes and no. So here's what's interesting, is your body changes faster than the mattress

starts to decline from its structural integrity. So when you wake up more than two to three days a week and you're sore, and it's not because you had a super hard workout the day before or you know you did a Spartan race or something crazy like that, it's time to start thinking about a new bed. Really? Absolutely. Absolutely. Things can happen to your body that will absolutely change what the support characteristics are that you need in a mattress, the comfort characteristics that

you need in a mattress. And oh by the way there might be somebody sleeping next to you that has very different ones. Right, so what do you do about that? There's different, there's different solutions. So like as an example there are some beds where you can actually change the firmness settings from one side to the other. Like a select comfort bed, the air beds, you can actually change the air baffle inside of those quite easily. You know, increased decrease, they have a pump blah blah blah. There's foam beds. I'm not a tremendous fan of memory foam beds in general for two reasons. Number one is you get stuck in them, right? So memory foam is a viscoelastic foam. As your body heats up, the foam pulls away and causes those divots, which you then fall into.

The problem is, is you're stuck. If you've ever slept in a memory foam bed, you really have to throw your shoulder over to move around to get unstuck and then wait for your body heat to sink you in. So I'm not a big fan of that kind of foam. I'm the other one is some of them sleep hot. I give off a tremendous amount of heat when I sleep.

It's just my body type, it's just what happens. And so it can make it difficult. So then, so the next question people always say, well Michael, what kind of mattress do you sleep on? So yeah, I actually have to sleep on a memory foam mattress. Now hold on, you just told me things aren't so great about memory foam. My wife has four torn discs. We want her, she can actually throw out her back in her sleep. We want her she can actually throw out her back in her sleep So we want her stuck in one spot She doesn't give off a lot of heat and so it's actually worked out quite well for a while for us to be able to do that What we do have is an adjustable base so think back in the day hospital beds and craftmatic and all this I take notes

This seems very complicated. It's extremely complicated to figure out a mattress I'm actually working on an algorithm where you can go online answer 10 questions and it'll pick a bed for you which this seems very complicated. And a lot of info. Extremely complicated to figure out a mattress. I'm actually working on an algorithm where you can go online, answer 10 questions, and it'll pick a bed for you just to make your life easier. And have a pillow, because the pillow, you know, your head sinks into it gets hot.

And I hate it. So pillows should actually be changed about every 18 months. Wow, my pillows are like literally 10 years old. That's disgusting. Yeah. Sorry, but it's the truth. So I was on Kelly Live with Kelly Rippa and Michael Strayhand when he was on the show.

And when she told me that her pillow was 12 years old on live television, I told her how gross that was. Okay. Michael Strayhand laughed so hard he almost fell out of the bed. It was a great clip. We ran it on Facebook forever. It was hilarious. But you really should be changing your pillow because here's the thing is the structural integrity of a pillow Is only going to last for so long now if you've got a memory foam pillow. It's probably three years

Okay, so then where do I so what if you get it? So here's what I like I like synthetic down So what does that mean? So synthetic down is actually made of not real down so it doesn't take the feathers of the down from animals. It actually creates a synthetic. Why do I like it? You don't have any allergies. Lots of people have allergies to the dander inside the down. My daughter's got terrible feather allergies. So we keep no feathers in the house. So ever if we if we can possibly avoid it. So finding this alternative down, it's on the pillow, it just says right on the pillow. Okay, but how about the duvet? That's the other one. Most of them are too hot or they're not hot enough. So you should have a summer duvet and a winter duvet and you should switch those out.

You definitely want obviously a lighter material for the spring and summer, heavier for the fall and winter. Sheets turn out to be a big factor. The biggest factor for all of this is breathability, right? So what you don't want is polyester sheets because you can't get any air through them, right? And so you want something that's got more air flow to allow for that cool temperature to kind of come through. So is it complicated? It is complicated. It is. Beyond, I mean, literally I could do a whole hour on this on what kind of bedding to get. Trust me, people. Maybe we'll come back and do that.

People have actually, one person wanted to do a podcast from inside a mattress store where we went around and we did the whole thing. It would be super cold. It was actually super, I'm telling you, you know what, let's do that next time. Okay, we can do that. I'm taking that, I'm stealing that idea because I think, because there's like, I can go on and on about this just from, because my question and I went another one I wanted to ask you was a big trend.

And I'm sure you've heard this too, is now married couples aren't sleeping together anymore. There's now separate bedrooms, because how people sleep, why can't I get it? So the question I have is, do you sleep better when you're alone? Should people, I got three. And then I'll break it down later,

and you can't remember. Should people, I know, I know. Should people see what they're pets? I'm asking that for my friend, is that, I mean. And well, let's start with that. And then what? The first one is pets, but the first one is. The first one is your husband or wife.

So do people some beat sleep better with somebody or alone? So there's actually data on this. So it turns out that men sleep better when there's somebody in the bed with them and women sleep better when there's somebody in the bed with them and women's sleep better when there is nobody in the bed with them. I agree with that. One million percent. Because I want to sleep below and my husband is like, no, we have to sleep together. And then a lot of my friends now have like separate rooms now. Yes. And because the girls are like, they like. Right.

So there's two reasons why usually people are sleeping in separate bedrooms. One is one of the one of the partner's snores. Oh right. And. One is one of the partners snores. Oh, right. And the other is it's usually a temperature issue. So somebody wants to be holding onto them, touching them. It's not a temperature issue. Temperature, what have you, right?

And so there's lots of solutions here where you can actually still stay in the bed with your mate if you want to. There's believe it or not, there's a device out there. I've used one before called a chili pad. So think electric blanket, but reverse, or actually does both. It can send cool water through it to cool you down. And then on the other side,

it could actually send warm water through it. You get to pad. That's a great idea. It's super awesome. Where do I get one of those? They're online. You can go on my website. I sell them.

I actually put a discount on them so you can get them on my website through a discount. Go to my products page. Okay, so like literally like this, and this is not just me like just like pro, I mean, the sleep doctor has like a shit ton of these things that people can use for better sleep. Okay.

And they're all well researched. They all have data behind them. I don't, I don't endorse any products that I don't, I don't actually use that I haven't used with my patients. All right, so how about sleepin' with your pets? Do you think that's good or bad? So, let me tell you what happens in my bed. Okay, let me go for it. So, I don't know that doesn't sound too good, right? So let me tell you what happens in my bed. Okay, let me go for it.

So I don't know that doesn't sound too good, right? So it's me. I'm really curious. Right, my French bulldog, my chihuahua, my wife, and a cat. And long ago when we had young kids, a child might end up in there. And even if it is Michael's arc. Exactly. I always tell people, you know, when you come to my house,

you need a zebra stripe Jeep, because it's like a line country safari, right? It's ridiculous. arc, exact. I always tell people, you know, when you come to my house, you need a zebra stripe Jeep, which is like a line country safari, right? It's ridiculous. Oh my god. But that's how we sleep, right? And here's what I can tell you is when we go... Your dictates may be Dr. Doolittle. It probably should be.

When we go on vacation or we go out of town, my wife has a tremendously difficult time sleeping without the animals in the board. So it depends. If you've always slept with animals in your bed, continue to sleep with animals in your bed. But be aware that they have odd sleeping habits as well. Cats are very nocturnal.

They may decide to do that weird thing where they're pushing, I call it making muffins, like they're just moving their claws up and down on the pillow next to your head. That's what they do. If you've got a cat, you know that's what they do. Give them their own pillow to do it on, so it doesn't disrupt you. For dogs, you can easily train dogs that here is your dog bed or your blanket.

This is where you are. And dogs are actually pretty good about that in terms of staying on that area. Obviously sleeping with them. But husband's, keep it on his own little pillow. Is that possible? You ask me about pets. Well, depends upon. I think I'm like synonymous at some point. At some point they probably are. Oh, God. But sleeping with pets isn't a bad thing. Number

one, number two, if you've already been sleeping with your pet, it's almost impossible to get them out of the bed because they're used to it. They like it. Almost every animal has a pack mentality and they'd much rather be with other, because they think of themselves as, you know, the same creature. But it's about building habits and rituals that kind of help you overall, right? So if that becomes your habit, we have the animal always with you.

Can't you just build out a new habit? A more, a more pot by starting. You can try, but it's not about your habit, it's about the animals habit, right? So I have a French bulldog, and he snores. That's fun for you. It's great about your habit, it's about the animals habit. Right, right. So I have a French bulldog and he snores. That's fun for you. It's great. Yeah.

And his head is very, very heavy. And so his favorite thing to do is to put his head either on my thigh and snore or on my pillow and snore directly into my ear. Oh, it's good. The seat doctor. I know. So what do I do? I wake up and, you know, sound is a matter wave. So if you just

pointed in a different direction it automatically gets lower in volume. So I just pick him up. I point him in a different direction. He's still asleep. He doesn't move. He's a bulldog. I mean, right. Right. Right. And he's fine. It's all about adapting and kind of figuring it out. Now, will I get to a point in my life where the dog is bugging me and I'm pissed off and I'm tired of him being in my bed, probably. Right. So then I've got to figure out a way to get him out of there. So what's the best way to do that?

In truth, probably getting another dog that sleeps on the floor and having him sleep with that other dog. Right. Oh god, you're going to buy a whole new dog. You got to not, like go to the kennel and get a whole new dog. We love dogs, so it's probably not the worst. That's true. Our dog to do a little.

We are. So I need to ask you something. Fire away. This is basically what this whole podcast is about, right? Like, how habits hustle, your hustle, how, I'm a hustler. Yeah, you're a hustler. I know you are.

I mean, you're like, you basically, I should just call this podcast habits and Michael Bruce. I'm a sleep doctor. What, how did you become the sleep doctor? Did you have really poor sleep habits? What was your breakthrough moment where you're like, you know what? What I'm going to do for the rest of my life, I'm going to basically focus on sleep.

I know exactly when it happened. Okay, go tell us. I was finishing my PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Georgia and I was super interested in sports psych. That was where I wanted to be. I wanted to work with the athletes and beyond the teams and do all the cool shit. Oh, it's gonna be amazing, right?

Right. And I went to a top 20 program, but I didn't go to a top 10 program. And the best residencies in the country were given to the Harvards in the year. I went to the University of Georgia. Great school, again, top 20 program, but I didn't go to Harvard.

Right. There was one program. You lost my podcast, that's it., top 20 program, but I didn't get Harvard. Right. There was one program. Get off my podcast, that's it. There was one program that I really wanted to go to. It was fascinating. It was for eating disorders in athletes. So it really combined a lot of interesting areas for me. And so I said, that's the one I want to go to.

Well, of course, they only took the Harvards and the Yale's into that part of the program, but they had a sleep lab on the side, and nobody wanted to do that residency or rotation. I worked my way through graduate school in the electrophysiology department, so I was one of those guys that had to work their way through graduate school, but I can take apart almost any machine and put it back together. If it creates, if it records a signal that comes out of your body, I'm pretty good with that kind of stuff.

And the sleep machines, that's all they are. Right. So I said, okay, I'll do the sleep rotation, and here's what I really thought I was going to do. I said, I'm going to do the sleep rotation, and then I'm going to transfer as soon as I get there into this eating disorders program, and they can't stop me from transferring.

So I got there. I started my sleep rotation on the third day. I absolutely fell in love with clinical sleep medicine. I knew this was exactly where I wanted to be, and I'll tell sleep rotation. On the third day, I absolutely fell in love with clinical sleep medicine. I knew this was exactly where I wanted to be, and I'll tell you why. I help people that fast. It's unbelievable.

Like I change people's lives in 48 hours all the time. It's nuts. Like most clinical psychologists, you're looking at weeks, months, even years for treatment gains, literally 42 to 72 hours. But I can identify sleep apnea in somebody and get them a treatment like a CPAP machine

or an oral device or something like that, it changes their lives. Amazing. Wow, I didn't know that. It's crazy. That's because, right, because you're super cool. And you can see the results quickly.

Versus, I guess that's 100% true. Everything else, like when you go see somebody in therapy, it can take literally months, years, like, lifetime. Yeah. And the same old tree with supplementation, right? So I just started my own line of sleep supplements. But one of the things with historic supplements is, is they tell you to take them for 30, 60, 90 days.

My supplements can't take that long to work. How long do they take? My supplements need to work 30 minutes. Theories? Like, is it like a healthy version of, what is that? What is that? What is that everyone? Ambient is like a healthy ambient.

So it's kind of interesting that you mentioned that. Yeah. So one of the, so what I did was I looked at the mechanisms of action of all of the top sleep pharmaceuticals that there were. Let's be honest, sleeping pills work, and they work really well. They knock you out. But pharmaceuticals induce sleep

and natural sleep are two totally different animals. They're just different, right? So what I wanted to do is I wanted the efficacy of pharmaceuticals but in a natural sleep. So what I did was I looked at where do those pharmaceuticals hit in your brain? Which receptor sites do they activate? And then I found natural ingredients that activate the same ones.

So I basically kind of reverse engineered those using natural constituents and that's what I created. I've got two different lines of supplements. One's called sleep doctor PM and one's called active sleep boosted. And it works like truly it work. They work. Here's what I can tell you is, within usually five to seven days is when people see the greatest, but I've got plenty of people that literally see it working in 30 minutes. So the way the way the reason there's two different ones

is active sleep booster actually has CBD in it. So CBD is a constituent of the hemp plant, also the marijuana planted. It's a huge topic right now. It's massive. We can literally do like two additional podcasts just on the CBD situation. Oh yeah, for sure. But CBD has actually been shown to be helpful for sleep, but not everybody is grooving on CBD. So I have one brand that's CBD, and then I have another

brand which is very unique, Sleep Doctor PM, and the reason it's so unique is because I have two different ingredient profiles. I have one that you take in the beginning of the night and nobody's ever done this before. I have a separate one that you can take in the middle of the night if you happen to wake up. The biggest problem that most sleep supplements have is they use melatonin. Okay. Now there's nothing wrong with melatonin. Melatonin can work and can be very helpful if people sleep at the beginning of the night. But if you wake up in the middle of the night and you take melatonin, you're gonna feel like

crap the next day, you're gonna feel hungover, your whole circadian rhythm is off, all of those different things. So what did I do? I have my starting of the night formula has melatonin in it, and my middle of the night formula does not have melatonin in it. It's a wait.

So then how do these, if this works, by the way, you know, let's do this. Let's give some, but like on the show notes, let's give everybody a code and it will work on all these products. I feel like there's a million products that you can people can use. And let's do that afterwards. I'm just making a mental note telling you that. If these sleep pills work, why wouldn't it? It's a spray. A spray?

Yeah. So we don't use pills for a very specific reason. So if you use a pill, you have to swallow it. It has to go down to your gut. It has to get digestiveness. And it gets back up there. Takes almost 90 minutes for plasma concentration levels there.

Nobody wants to wait 90 minutes for sleep, and nobody's taking something 90 minutes before sleep, which is actually when they should. So I use a spray and it's sublingual, so it gets into the brain within 30 minutes. So I wouldn't everybody use it, not to be like dumb. Really? I have no idea why nobody's used it before. And it works with everybody because I would feel like after all this other stuff, it's

like they could just take it and use a spray. Yep. So the biggest issue with sprays historically has been toothpaste. You brush your teeth and then you get in bed and you use the spray and it tastes really bad and so people don't like that. So it took us a while but we got the flavoring down really?

So that it works, yeah. Okay, so I'm good now. There's also another hack, you think a spray. And I guess the last thing I wanna ask you since it's habits and hustle or what are your what is your Have like what are your habits besides I know you're sleeping habits. I know you sleep about 97 animals You know besides that what are other kind of things that you do daily to kind of keep you on point and productive and good sure So non sleep related habits and this is gonna sound ridiculous

I can't believe I'm even admitting that I learned this from this person, but I watched an interview with Ashton Kutcher of all people, and he was doing an interview with Ariana Huffington. And one of the things he said that he does is when he wakes up in the morning, he writes a list of five things that he wants to do that day, and he does them before he looks at his email. Why before? Because you get caught in that email vortex, and it happens to me constantly. And so this is a habit that I just instituted recently, and it works. And it doesn't have to be, I don't have to have five of the most miraculous things.

I mean, one of those things could be take out the trash, right? It's five things that I know I want to get done that day. If I knock them out first and then get to email, because what happens with email is I spend an hour going through, I get about 200 emails a day. So when I wake up from living on the West Coast, all the East Coast emails have already showed up. So I pound through maybe 60 or 70 emails in the morning, but here's the problem. They email me back within a couple of hours. So now all I'm doing is making the situation worse.

But if I wait that period of time, get my stuff done, they get their email, they'll take 24 hours to respond because it's not, they know I'm not still working and it actually worked out really much better. So that's one hack that I do. Another thing that I'm very consistent with is water and supplementation. So I'm a big water fan. Most people don't know this, but you lose a liter of water every night while you're sleeping just from the humidity and your breath. So in your breath, just from breathing. So you should be drinking 12 to 24 ounces of water immediately when you wake up. So what I do is I have my green drink, which has got all my...

That's in your green drink. That's something that part of your... So I use... There's two different companies. There's one that I use called Athletic Greens, which is great. And there's another one from Tom Morter, who's actually... He's a chiropractor, but he's got an amazing nutritional line. I've been going back and forth between those two as my green drink.

Then I take almost 1,000 milligrams of magnesium every morning. So I had a small cardiac scare maybe 10 months ago. And one of the things that was suggested was that the electrolyte activity in my heart was not going the way we wanted it to. And it could be that I have low magnesium in my cardiac tissue. So I have an excessive dose of magnesium, but magnesium's great.

Nobody gets enough magnesium. Everybody's deficient in it. A thousand milligrams is not what you need. 250 is probably fine. I also do omegas, so I do about 900 milligrams of, no, sorry, 300 milligrams of omegas, and then I do vitamin D. I do 5,000 international units every morning.

That's a lot, isn't it? It's a small pill, it's not. No, no, yeah. I know people say the vitamin D because even living in Los Angeles and California, people think you get a lot of sun or a lot of sun block on. You have a lot of sun block on. Yeah, I was gonna say you don't even get enough that way.

So imagine that on the East Coast. Yeah, and then I run, or I work out with my trainer. So it just depends. With you every day you work out? I don't work out every day just because I'm old and I don't think I can handle it. You're not old. I turned 51 yesterday.

Okay, well you don't look a day over 29. And thank you. And 51 is not old. It, there are days where it feels old. But, you're dead until 103. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I know, right? I'm like, I'm on the half side of this thing. Yeah. it, there are days where it feels old. But that being said. Your dad was all 103, and you're basically in your prime right now.

I know, right? I'm on the half side of this thing. Yeah. I try to do three, five Ks a week. OK. And then after the five K, which takes me anywhere from 26 to 28 minutes, I work out with my trainer. So I'll do that as my warm up.

How often are you with your trainer? Two to three days a week. For strength training, I would imagine. Right. So then you're basically. How often are you with your trainer? Two to three days a week. For strength training, I would imagine. Yeah. So then you're basically run, you work out with your trainer. And then I spin on the weekends. OK, so you're pretty active. You have your greens juice.

You do your five tat, you write down five things you want to accomplish in that day. And they can be small things. I don't have to be big daunting tasks before you even check your email. Correct. And you drink a lot of water and supplement. A boatload of water. I like that. That's what those are your email. Correct. And you drink a lot of water and supplement. Both of them water.

Yeah. I like that. That's what those are good ones. Yeah. And without really trying to, I've dropped weight. I'm much stronger than I ever was before. I mean, I'm actually bench pressing more than I did in high school at age 51. Right.

Because you're building. Well, no, you're building positive, healthy habits. And the byproduct is losing weight from that. But that shouldn't be the one I'll be all because that's what people get stuck, right? So wow, okay, so I guess this is good for today. I feel like I have a lot of information. I've actually taken notes. And literally, I want you to come back just to kind of go through a lot of different elements.

I didn't even get to because you're like a fountain of information. Seriously, this is amazing. Happy to do it. Thank you. Well, tell everyone where they can find you. Sure, so if people are looking, you can find me at www.thesleepdoctor.com.

And check out my blogs. I have over 800 blogs. So if you go into the search, you can you want to learn about magnesium put in magnesium Elf theanine if you want to know, you know, why do I wake up in the middle of the night? Like it's all in there and I've been blogging for over 10 years. So there's a lot of great information there and there's also products So some of the products and ones that I've created every product I have that I endorse I've tried myself I've tried on patients, it really works, there's real data. Wow, there's a reason why you are like the leading sleep expert in the world.

I'm telling you because of all of this. Well, thanks. No, you're welcome. Thank you so much for coming. I love to have you and you're going to be coming back. I'm sure very soon. So thank you, everyone. Bye. Yeah, and wishing everybody sweet dreams. Sweet dreams. Bye. Hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about

elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me. I'm going to go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners. I have been a longtime fan of Heather's no matter what phase of life I find myself in. Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched and I love her go getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence and reach that next level.

Thank you! I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes, and I immediately subscribe to this podcast. It has not disappointed, and I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can as quick as I can. Thank you, Heather, for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now. Attention, Kroger Shoppers.

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