Sleep Doctor: If You Wake Up At 3AM, DO NOT Do This!

What are the most popular questions people come to you with as a sleep doctor?

>> There's three biggies. Number one is, "What do I do if I fall asleep, okay, and I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't fall back asleep?"

>> And you can help people with that.

>> Absolutely. The second question is, "What pillow should I buy?" And I'm going to walk you through which pillows make sense for which people. And then

another one that people ask me all the time is, "What's the best time to have sex?"

sex?" >> That's a strange thing for somebody of your profession to be >> about. Well, let me explain why. So,

>> about. Well, let me explain why. So,

I've been an actively practicing sleep specialist for 26 years. I take care of people's sleep problems like apnea, insomnia, and I'm really interested in the things that you might be doing right now that are messing up your sleep that are easy to fix. So, for example, most

people don't know that they have a genetic sleep code inside them called their chronoype, which decides when your brain releases things like melatonin, cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine. And

so I can show you based on your chronotype when it's bedtime, but also the perfect time of day to do almost any activity, including the perfect time to have coffee and alcohol. Crazy. There's

even data to show that your ability to understand complicated concepts improves when you're more in line with your chronoype. Now, there are three known

chronoype. Now, there are three known chronotypes, but what I'm famous for is discovering a fourth one, which I think might be you. So, we're going to talk a lot about that. We're also going to talk

about dreams because dreams can tell you things about yourself that you may not want to know. And then there's how to fix jet lag, whether you should sleep with a TV on, the truth about melatonin supplementation, and my favorite way to get magnesium.

>> Before we get into all of that, shall we go and look at the best possible sleep position?

>> Yeah, let's check it out.

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yeah, let's do this.

>> Dr. Bruce, yes. What is it you do? Why

does it matter so much now? And what

perspective do you take on what you do that is atypical versus other people I might have spoken to about this subject?

>> I'm a sleep doctor. Um I take care of people's sleep problems like apnea, narcolepsy, insomnia, things like that.

I've dedicated a good portion of my career not just to understanding how to treat those disorders which are sleep disorders, but what I also I call disordered sleep. I'm really interested

disordered sleep. I'm really interested in behavioral habits. What's going on?

what are the things that you might be doing right now that are kind of messing up your sleep that are easy to fix um and be able to maybe change how things are going forward? You know, I I didn't start out thinking I was going to become a sleep doctor if I'm going to be honest

with you. Like that that was not on the

with you. Like that that was not on the on the path. Um I was actually going in a completely different direction. And

one of the things I really discovered was when you change someone's sleep, dude, you change their life. Like it is fundamental to who they are. And it's

important for me to be a sleep educator in a way, shape, and form that's practical so that people can actually get something from what I'm talking about and apply it right then and there.

>> And there's probably a couple of million people that have clicked onto this conversation to listen.

>> Yeah.

>> Who is this conversation for?

>> I think it's for anybody out there who's either curious about sleep or wants to try to improve their sleep or maybe suspicious that they could have a problem with their sleep. I think any one of those three types of people would

find tremendous value here. And what are we going to be able to do for those people today specifically?

>> So, I'm going to give people um several different like plans, if you will, uh maybe even a five-step plan of things that they can absolutely learn how to do. They're also going to learn about a

do. They're also going to learn about a genetic sleep code that they have inside them called their chronoype. A lot of people don't even know that they have a chronoype or maybe they've heard of the of the idea, but they haven't ever heard of the term. We're going to learn a lot

about that. We're also going to talk

about that. We're also going to talk about dreams a little bit. Um I'm

excited to have the opportunity to do that. I've spent the last year and a

that. I've spent the last year and a half learning more about how to use dreams in my clinical work as a psychologist, which is very interesting stuff. So, I'm excited to share some of

stuff. So, I'm excited to share some of that. So, I think people are going to

that. So, I think people are going to learn a whole bunch.

>> And dreams matter.

>> Oh, yeah. They absolutely matter. I'm I

call dreams emotional metabolism, right?

And so, when you're dreaming, what is you what is the function? What is the purpose? What are you doing? You're

purpose? What are you doing? You're

actually working through your emotional states that you had during the daytime.

Um this is why we have nightmares, right? And so in a nightmare, it's a

right? And so in a nightmare, it's a scary scene and all a sudden it gets so emotional, you wake up. That is

officially called a nightmare. That

awakening, but you stop processing. And

when you go back to sleep, you go back to the dream and you get to that scary point, you wake up again and you get caught in this loop, right? And so

dreams matter because they can be incredibly disruptive. Also, they can

incredibly disruptive. Also, they can tell you things about yourself that you may not want to know or may not have in the front of your mind at all times.

Right? Sometimes people have very interesting dreams like dreams of being chased or dreams of their teeth falling out or all these different things and they can mean a whole host of different things. But I want to be super clear.

things. But I want to be super clear.

There's no guide book that says, "Hey, you know, if you're if you're dreaming of that you're in water, you hate your mother." Like, it doesn't really work

mother." Like, it doesn't really work that way. Dreams mean something to the

that way. Dreams mean something to the dreamer. And so the goal is to

dreamer. And so the goal is to understand the context within that. So

who is the dreamer? What is the dream?

And then how do those two work together?

And what is the experience that you're drawing from academically but also professionally? Give me a view of how

professionally? Give me a view of how many people you've worked with and the range of things people come to you with.

>> Yeah. So I've been an actively practicing sleep specialist for 26 years. So I work in offices with medical

years. So I work in offices with medical doctors cuz I'm not a medical doctor. I

have a PhD and I work with them on their patients. lot of insomnia patients but

patients. lot of insomnia patients but also the apneas, the restless legs, the narcolepsies of the world because I have kind of a unique distinction in that I'm one of 168 people in the world who took

the medical boards without going to medical school and passed. So I can work within that framework and really understand a lot of what's going on. I

don't prescribe medication, but if I'm honest with you, most people don't need sleep medication as far as I'm concerned. I can get them to sleep

concerned. I can get them to sleep usually without any medication at all.

>> And you're a psychologist as well?

>> I am. I'm a clinical psychologist. And

how does those two worlds make 1 plus 1 equal three?

>> Sure. So when you talk about sleep, psychology is all over the place. I

would argue 75% of the reason people don't sleep is anxiety or fear. That

really falls well within the range of psychology for sure. Um, and it's different kinds of fears. It's fears

that you know about that are right in your face, like something that's going on in your daytime, but it could be other fears. It could be fears of your

other fears. It could be fears of your relationship. It could be financial

relationship. It could be financial fears. It could be a whole host of

fears. It could be a whole host of different things. So, I think there's a

different things. So, I think there's a lot of psychology that gets to be played in all of this kind of thing.

>> I got two more questions before we really get into the details and specifics and start really helping the audience with whatever they're dealing with.

>> The first is we have lots of props here.

>> Yes.

>> Give me a a topline view of the types of things you're going to show me and why you've brought all of these wonderful props.

>> Absolutely. So, I get asked a lot of questions as you might imagine and um one of the big questions that I get asked is what bed and pillow should I buy? So, sitting next to you is a large

buy? So, sitting next to you is a large stack of pillows, all different types, actually. And I want to be able to show

actually. And I want to be able to show some of your viewers how you look at pillows and which pillows make sense for which people. Believe it or not, there's

which people. Believe it or not, there's like a fitting process. We're going to go through that. This device right here is a sleep test, believe it or not. So,

it used to be we'd have to send you to the hospital. Yeah, you can unwind it.

the hospital. Yeah, you can unwind it.

Uh, you have to send you to the hospital. We'd put 27 electrodes all

hospital. We'd put 27 electrodes all over your body, respiratory belts across your chest. We'd have cameras zoomed in

your chest. We'd have cameras zoomed in on you. And then, by the way, you're

on you. And then, by the way, you're supposed to be able to go to sleep, right? And we're supposed to be able to

right? And we're supposed to be able to monitor you. Now, historically, we were

monitor you. Now, historically, we were able to do that pretty well. But once

COVID hit, nobody wanted to sleep in the same bed that somebody else had been sleeping in the day before. So, now we have what are called HSTS or home sleep tests.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah. We'll talk about how to use it and and what it can tell you.

>> My last question before we get into the details is what are the most popular questions that people come to you with as a sleep doctor?

>> Yeah. So, I'd say there's probably three biggies, right? Number one is, "Hey, Dr.

biggies, right? Number one is, "Hey, Dr. Bruce, I fall asleep just fine, but I wake up somewhere between 1 and 3:00 in the morning, and it either takes me 20 minutes or 3 hours to fall back asleep.

What the heck is going on there?"

>> And you can help people with that.

>> Absolutely. I'm going to give everybody a exactly what I do in clinic. Like, I'm

going to explain to everybody exactly what I say to my patients and how to go about getting through that particular problem because it's it's so flagrant.

Everybody needs to know how to how to work with that. The second question would be um what bed should I buy or what pillow should I buy? I think we're going to address that over here. Um and

then another one that people ask me all the time is, you know, is there some kind of timing? Is there

some like I feel like my body is off.

They say this all the time. They're

like, if I just lived in a different time zone, I feel like everything would work out well. So the very basics of sleep.

>> Uhhuh.

>> What do I need to know about what sleep is, the role it solves for us to even understand the context of the things we're going to talk about today?

>> Yep. There's only a few things that are truly important to understand about sleep. One is how does sleep work in the

sleep. One is how does sleep work in the brain. It turns out that there's two

brain. It turns out that there's two separate systems in the brain. One is

called your sleep drive. The other is called your sleep rhythm. And they both work uh in an interesting way. They're

both a little bit like hunger, right? So

sleep drive is like hunger because right I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I

I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I

eat something. that hunger begins to dissipate. Same holds true with sleep.

dissipate. Same holds true with sleep.

The longer you stay awake, the more the more sleepy that you get. When you look at it from a biology standpoint, it's kind of interesting. So, when a cell eats a piece of glucose, something comes out the back end. One of those things is called a denisonin. It works its way

through your system and goes to a very specific receptor area, as a denisonin accumulates, you get sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. Now, why am I going into so much detail? Turns out

when you look at a denisonin and you look at caffeine, they're off by one molecule. So, here's a little tip or

molecule. So, here's a little tip or trick early in the pod for everyone. I

call it the nappa latte. So, what you do is you take a cup of drip black coffee, just throw in a couple of ice cubes, right? Merely to cool it down, drink it

right? Merely to cool it down, drink it as fast as you can, and immediately take a 25minute nap. The adenosin that's built up in your brain will burn through while you're napping. Caffeine, since

it's so close in molecular structure, can fit into that receptor site. It

blocks any new adenosin. You're good for four hours, guaranteed. I use it with every CEO that I work with. So, let's

say you only got three hours of sleep the other night and you've got a big presentation to do or an awards ceremony or something like that. You can do a nappa latte for about 25 minutes or so and you will feel much better. That's

sleep drive.

>> Let me just >> Sure.

>> I want to make sure I really understand this. Can you explain this to me again

this. Can you explain this to me again as if I'm a 16-year-old? by having a coffee and then taking a nap would make me feel energetic because one would think that having a coffee and taking a

nap are like >> would be almost impossible, right? So,

number one, the caffeine doesn't kick in before the end of the nap. So, a lot of people think when I drink coffee, boom, it just kind of spins up and all a sudden I'm able to, you know, I get a lot of energy from it. That's really not

actually how caffeine works. It has to go down, has to get absorbed, has to be digested. And so while all that's going

digested. And so while all that's going on, which takes approximately 25 to 30 minutes, you're actually taking a nap to lower the amount of adenosin that has built up in your brain. Let's say it's 2

o'clock in the afternoon and you only slept for 4 hours and you are dragging, right? All that adenosine that's built

right? All that adenosine that's built up when you take that 25minute nap, you'll burn through a lot of it and then caffeine fits in and blocks any additional adenosin from coming in. So

that way you're actually adding caffeine to the situation and boom, your energy goes straight. Okay. So adenosine is

goes straight. Okay. So adenosine is makes me tired when it's docked in my brain.

>> Exactly.

>> So I have 4 hours sleep which means there's lots of adenosine and sleep get clears the adenosine.

>> Correct. And then caffeine comes in because it fits so perfectly into that receptor site >> and off you go. That's sleep drive.

Sleep rhythm has to do with your circadian rhythm. Right. And so lots of

circadian rhythm. Right. And so lots of lots of information about that. But

basically your circadian rhythm is also a lot like hunger. Right? You ever

notice you're hungry around breakfast time, around lunchtime, around dinner time, right? That's your circadian

time, right? That's your circadian rhythm for hunger. For sleep, most people, at least here in North America, have a tendency to fall asleep somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00, 11:30 at night.

So, that's kind of the circadian rhythm there. So, when your circadian rhythm is

there. So, when your circadian rhythm is high and your drive is high, you sleep.

But if either one of them is off, that's when you have a sleep disorder or disordered sleep.

>> My circadian rhythm is high.

>> When your circadian rhythm is on point, high is probably not the right word. On

point. So meaning you are abiding by your circadian rhythm. Now another

question you might say to me is well how do I know what my circadian rhythm is?

And we're going to talk a lot about chronotypes cuz that's what your circadian rhythm is.

>> Okay. So let's do chronotypes then.

You've got some cards in front of you.

>> I do. I kind of like these cards. So

when we talk about chronotypes, a lot of people may have heard of the idea but not actually heard the term chronoype before. So if anybody out there has ever

before. So if anybody out there has ever been called an early bird or a night owl, those are chronoypes. So, we've got early birds. These are people who, by

early birds. These are people who, by the way, this is genetic. You don't you don't actually get to choose this.

There's a special area on your genome called the PER3 area. And when you have something called a single nucleotide polymorphism or a snip. If it's flipped one way, you're an early bird. If it's

flipped another way, you're a night owl.

If it's not flipped, you're in the middle. Okay? So, so far, I haven't told

middle. Okay? So, so far, I haven't told anybody anything new. Like, this is this is all stuff that we've already learned.

The new part is this irregularity that seems to happen for people during for their sleep schedule. Specifically, an

irregularity in their melatonin and cortisol production. So, all of this is

cortisol production. So, all of this is predicated on when does your body make melatonin. So, if you're an early bird,

melatonin. So, if you're an early bird, your body makes melatonin earlier in the night starting at around 8:00 in the evening. Makes you want to go to bed

evening. Makes you want to go to bed around 9:30. You have a question.

around 9:30. You have a question.

>> So, melatonin is a hormone >> it is >> that >> you produce inside of your body that actually helps you sleep. It guides, it tells your body when it's bedtime, which is a little bit different than the

adenosine, which makes you feel sleepy.

>> I guess people listening now would be asking themselves, why does it matter to know my chronotype? Like, as it relates to my productivity, the way I live my life, my relationships, whatever matters to me, why does it matter?

>> Because I can show you based on your chronoype the perfect time of day to do almost any activity. So if you f if you know when your body is doing certain things, when it has melatonin or when it

has cortisol or adrenaline or all these other things, if you know the schedule, you can actually just change your activity to when your body is naturally producing the hormone and then you do the hormone better.

>> Okay, >> so let's talk about the easy one, which is sex, right? So a lot of people want to know, "Hey, Michael, what's the best time to have sex?" By the way, I think that might be the third question that I

get asked most um often other than uh the insomnia one and the mattress one I think is what's the best time for sex might be the the other question that I get asked more than anything.

>> Must be tricky if you the time you want to have sex and the time your partner wants to have sex are off.

>> Well, think about it like this. What if

your partner's an early bird and you're a night owl?

>> Yeah, I think that's me.

>> Don't worry, we're we're going to be able to fix you. So, first of all, there's a couple of different answers to this question. So, number one is you

this question. So, number one is you want to have a time. So, first of all, most people are intimate between 10:30 and 11:30 at night. That's just a survey that we did. So, it makes kind of a lot of sense. But here's what's interesting

of sense. But here's what's interesting is your hormone profile doesn't look too good at 11:30 at night for having sex.

In order to have successful sex, you want to have estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, adrenaline, and cortisol all to be high and melatonin to be low.

What do you think your hormone profile looks like at 10:30 at night?

>> It's literally the opposite, right?

Melatonin is high and all those other things are low. That's hint number one as to when would probably be the best time to have sex. Hint number two, if you happen to be having sex with somebody who was born biologically male,

what do most men wake up with in the morning? An erection. If that's not

morning? An erection. If that's not mother nature telling you when to use that thing, I don't know what is. Right?

So, when you start to look at it, and we actually did the surveys, we discovered that people actually have greater connection and greater performance in their sex when they have sex in the

morning time. Now, do you have to brush

morning time. Now, do you have to brush your teeth and throw in a little mouthwash first? Yes, of course you do.

mouthwash first? Yes, of course you do.

Like, let's be fair to your partner here. But you end up learning quite a

here. But you end up learning quite a bit. Again, your body is telling you

bit. Again, your body is telling you this is actually the perfect time to do something like this. Did you know there's like a perfect time to have coffee?

>> I didn't.

>> Yeah, there's absolutely a perfect time based on your chronoype, too. One of the first things that I ask people all the time, I'll ask you, um, is the first liquid that crosses over your lips in the morning caffeinated?

>> Yes. So, let's talk about why that's probably not the best idea. So, most

people don't know, sorry, most people don't know, but uh sleep in and of itself is a dehydrative event. You lose

almost a full liter of water just from the humidity in your breath by by breathing all night long. Caffeine is a diuretic, which mean it makes you have to go pee. So, when you're already lost

a liter, now you add a couple of cups of caffeine, which makes you have to pee, you're going to turn into a raisin before this whole thing is through.

Okay? So, we need to get some water inside of you. And so, one of the big recommendations that I give all of my patients is don't have caffeine for the first 90 minutes you're awake. Now,

you're going to sit here and say, "9 minutes? That's a Michael? That's a long

minutes? That's a Michael? That's a long time not to have any caffeine." Like,

how am I going to do that? Like, I've

got my morning routine. I can smell the coffee in the morning. It smells so good. Everything's going. How's how's

good. Everything's going. How's how's

this going to work? Let me explain the biology. In order to exit a state of

biology. In order to exit a state of unconsciousness, you need two hormones, and you need a lot of them. You need

adrenaline and cortisol and they both wake you up. When you have a brain that's full of adrenaline and cortisol and you add caffeine to it, it's like it's like adding weak tea to somebody

who's taking cocaine. Okay? It's not a very powerful stimulant compared to the hormones that are in your brain that are a powerful stimulant. But if you just wait 90 minutes, cortisol and adrenaline

naturally drop. If you have your

naturally drop. If you have your caffeine, then it actually boosts the cortisol and gives you a bigger bang for your buck. M

your buck. M >> so you hydrate before you caffeinate and about the amount somewhere between 15 and 20 ounces of water if you can get that down in the first hour and a half that you're awake.

>> What's that in English terms?

>> Oh, I don't know what that we'll have to look it up.

>> Is it one cup? Is it two cups?

>> Oh, I would say it's probably 3 to four cups of water.

>> Okay. Well, that's a lot.

>> Well, don't forget you've lost a lot of water while you're sleeping and you might have lost it the previous day because let's say you worked out or things like that.

>> So, let's get into these chronotypes then.

>> Yeah. So, let's start off with the lion.

So, lions are my early birds. Um, you

know you've got a lion in your midst when you get an email at 6:00 a.m.,

right? That's somebody who's been up for a while and who's got their brain kind of cooking. Um, lions like to make a

of cooking. Um, lions like to make a list and go from step one to step two to step three every single day. They get a lot of confidence and they get a lot of pleasure following uh this list. But, if

I'm honest with you, being a lion isn't all it's cracked up to be because dinner and a movie is out for a line. They've

been up since like 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning, right? They don't want to go see a concert late at night. They

want to go to bed at like 8:30, nine o'clock. So, when you're looking at

o'clock. So, when you're looking at lions or what I early birds, what I call lions, they've got some very interesting characteristics. They make up between 10

characteristics. They make up between 10 and 15% of the population from a biological characteristic standpoint, their melatonin stops early and their cortisol starts early. So, their

melatonin stops at about 4:30, 5:00 in the morning, and that's when cortisol starts. And that's the reason why they

starts. And that's the reason why they wake up so early.

>> What sort of window do the lions wake up in?

>> So, it's interesting because I've got some lions who are kind of extreme, like they're getting up at 4:30 in the morning, which is not really probably the best idea. But generally speaking, my lions get up right around 5 5:15 up

until about 6:00 6:30, but they are definitely my early risers. They have a small breakfast. They don't like to eat

small breakfast. They don't like to eat a lot of food early in the in the morning time because a lot of these people like to go work out fairly quickly after they've uh after they've woken up. um which is very different

woken up. um which is very different than some of my other chronotypes. My

night owls don't like to work out in the morning. They don't like to do anything

morning. They don't like to do anything in the morning. So, my lions like to work out early in the morning. A light

breakfast. And also, their best work window is usually somewhere between like 9:30 and 11:30. Like, that's when all the good stuff gets done. Like when they have if they have to get details or if they have to do brainstorming or things

like that, that's really kind of where a lot of the magic happens for them. By

about two o'clock in the afternoon, there's not a lot of stuff left inside the lion to be able to do do a lot of good things. That's when I have lions do

good things. That's when I have lions do more physical activities that don't require a lot of cognition. So maybe you go for an afternoon walk or maybe you have uh you know you're you're meeting with your folks that may not be really

detail oriented but more processoriented in the afternoon >> admin and stuff.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I actually had one uh fellow chronotype his entire company and then move meetings based on who was going to be in the meeting. Like it like he had all the early birds and he had

meeting at 8:00 in the morning and then all the night owls he had a meeting at 4:00 in the afternoon. He said it was amazing. He said it worked out really

amazing. He said it worked out really really well.

>> Wow. What's the next one?

>> So the next one is the bear. So bears

are representative of people that are in between early birds and night owls, right? So bears are the best. Honestly,

right? So bears are the best. Honestly,

dude, I wish I was a bear because the whole schedule of life works on a bear schedule. 9 to5 is perfect for a bear.

schedule. 9 to5 is perfect for a bear.

And they make up between 50 and 55% of the population. So, literally one out of

the population. So, literally one out of two people is a bear.

>> And when's their peak work time?

>> So, their peak work time has a tendency to be sort of in the noon to 2:00 range.

Um, they're a little bit later than what you would see the line. Some of them, I think, can actually be better at 11.

It's kind of interesting. And we've had almost 3 million people take the quiz and we've discovered that inside of bears, there appear to be early bears and later bears. So there are people who fall into that category but like to get

up a little bit early. So for them their productivity window is probably 10:30, 11. But for the later bears, it's more

11. But for the later bears, it's more like 11:30, 12, and then it's about a 2hour window after that.

>> For the people listening, um on screen at the moment is a grid showing you the different chronotypes, the weight times, the peak work window, and the sort of afternoon slump time. What's the next chronotype?

>> So, the next chronotype is me, the wolf.

>> I think I'm a wolf.

>> You might be a wolf.

>> I love lions. I get it. I get a wolf.

>> Well, you might be. Hey, look, join me.

It'd be great. So, wolves represent the night owls, right? And so, wolves are my artists, my actors, my creatives. If you

know a creative, when do they get their biggest idea? It's not 2 o'clock in the

biggest idea? It's not 2 o'clock in the afternoon, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. Wolves are my highest

morning. Wolves are my highest risktakers. I know that that probably

risktakers. I know that that probably you fall into that category as well.

Wolves are the folks that show up at the party at 11 o'clock at night, but they stay till 2 o'clock in the morning and they help you clean up and they hate mornings more than anything.

>> So, should we talk about dolphins?

>> What's the next one? Yeah,

>> dolphins. This is the category that you fell into. So, let's talk about who are

fell into. So, let's talk about who are the dolphins and and what does this actually represent? So, dolphins are

actually represent? So, dolphins are usually highly intelligent. They're

usually people who are fast-talking, well- read. These are people who are a

well- read. These are people who are a lot like a lion in terms of they like to get up. They crave longer bouts of

get up. They crave longer bouts of sleep, but unfortunately their body just doesn't have a long sleep drive and so they get really frustrated a lot of times. Um, also I think they have just a

times. Um, also I think they have just a teeny bit of anxiety behind them. So a

lot of them, for example, the details really matter to a dolphin, right?

Versus other people where details might not matter nearly as much. I think a lot of my dolphins have got just a little bit of obsessivecompulsive disorder. So

they're kind of focused in on the on the different things. Like if I ask a

different things. Like if I ask a dolphin to do a project, generally speaking, they're never finished with it until I say, "Can you just give me the project back now because they're always working on a little detail here or working on a detail there." Um, but

dolphins are my favorite. They're the

people that I actually wrote the book for. Um, they're the ones that I I enjoy

for. Um, they're the ones that I I enjoy working with the most. Um, because

they're actually the easiest to work with because we can once I explain to them how their hormones can be up and down and sideways, it can it starts to make a lot more sense for them. And for

anyone trying to figure out which one of these they are, where do they go to do the test and how long does it take?

>> Yeah, you can go to my website. It's

called chronoquiz.com.

Uh, and uh, it takes about 3 4 minutes.

It's not very long at all. It's going to ask you a bunch of questions about your sleep, about timing, things like that.

>> Okay, I'll put that in the description.

So, after you finish listening, you can all go take it and let me know your thoughts in the comments section as well. So, once you figure out what your

well. So, once you figure out what your chronosype is, come back to the episode and and let me know below, >> please.

>> And does my sleep change with age, Michael? It does. Absolutely.

Michael? It does. Absolutely.

>> So, do my do my chronotypes change with age?

>> They do, actually. So, believe it or not, you've gone through all the chronotypes already. When you're an itty

chronotypes already. When you're an itty bitty baby, you're a lion. You go to bed really early. You wake up really early,

really early. You wake up really early, right? Then you're a toddler, right? And

right? Then you're a toddler, right? And

in in like grammar school, you're a bear. You're going to bed around 7:30.

bear. You're going to bed around 7:30.

You're waking up around 7:30. Then

adolescence hits, right? What do you want to do? Stay up until midnight and sleep until 2, right? You become a wolf.

Then at about 23 24 your chronotype has a tendency to set into one of those three or four things and then you stay there for an extended period of time like 25 30 years until you hit my age.

So I'm going to be 58 soon and right when you hit in the mid-50s what we see is melatonin production can either slow down or get earlier. So as an example if your parents are still alive and you

said hey mom dad I want to go for dinner. What time would they want to go

dinner. What time would they want to go for dinner?

>> Early.

>> Right? four o'clock in the afternoon, 4:30 in the afternoon, you're like, "What is wrong with you, mom? What's

going on?" That's her chronoype is going backwards and your sleep changes over the course of time. To be clear, at once you hit like age probably 50, 45 or 50, we start to see a slowdown in production

of melatonin. We also see an increase in

of melatonin. We also see an increase in what are called EEG arousals. So things

that break up your sleep and make it so it's not so continuous. That can be problematic as well. So there's a lot of things that can happen as you age.

>> So do I start sleeping less as I get older? You start sleeping poorer

older? You start sleeping poorer quality. I'm not convinced that it's

quality. I'm not convinced that it's always less.

>> And is that going to make me grumpy?

>> Yes, it is.

>> Really?

>> Absolutely. Poor quality sleep is, I would argue, is much worse than poor quantity sleep. I I would rather I've

quantity sleep. I I would rather I've got somebody who got 5 hours of really great sleep versus seven hours of really light crappy sleep every time.

>> Does that mean that as I get older, I'm going to be more grumpy?

>> It depends on the quality of your sleep.

So, what I can teach you is how to not get poor quality sleep as you age.

Perfect example, a lot of folks who are a little bit on the older side are used to drinking coffee late in the day.

Well, if you change that habit, then you don't have as many sleep problems. >> And I shouldn't I shouldn't be having coffee late in the day at all.

>> Probably you want to stop by about 2 p.m., right? So, if you stop around 2

p.m., right? So, if you stop around 2 p.m., the halfife of caffeine is between

p.m., the halfife of caffeine is between 6 and 8 hours. So, 8 hours later is roughly 10, which is roughly when people are kind of wanting to go to sleep. So,

I would say that that would probably be the the time to do it. I think about my siblings and us all being woken up for school and I think about my performance in school >> and of all my siblings, there's four of us.

>> I was the one that always struggled with being woken up in the morning in part because I'd gone to bed later.

>> But then I was also the one that struggled with school the most.

>> Yeah. That characteristic of a wolf characteristic of this night person. If

I'm honest with you, dude, like most kids should not be waking up at the time they're waking up to go to school, right? I mean so many kids are waking up

right? I mean so many kids are waking up at real like you know 5:30 6:00 in the morning they have an hourong bus ride then they get there and if you're an adolescent I don't think anything could be worse >> right

>> so we have to really start to try to be a little bit more thoughtful and look at like what are some of the activities that kids are doing how can we get them to maybe take naps during the day if they need them um athletic performance can depend on sleep academic performance

can depend on sleep it's it's unbelievable all the different things yes >> has there ever been any research done >> there has on different chronotypes academic performance.

>> There has been actually they haven't they labeled it directly as chronotypes but they've looked at it based on age range and we know that for example here in the United States there's a big push

for to change school start times so that way high schoolers aren't starting at 7:00 in the morning because high schools shouldn't be starting at 7 o'clock in the morning. Preschoolers should be

the morning. Preschoolers should be starting at 7 o'clock in the morning because their body naturally wakes up at that time. So, we've actually seen there

that time. So, we've actually seen there was a great study um that was done at the University of Minnesota that discovered that um when they just had people come in 1 hour later from their

first period, they improved by one full letter grade, meaning they went from being C students to being B students or from B students to A students merely by changing the timing of their first

class. So that should give you pretty

class. So that should give you pretty good insight as to sort of these big area like and and all children are vulnerable to this. Like this is not like I'm not telling you anything that's new. This is these are studies that have

new. This is these are studies that have been going on for quite a while. And

there's actually a whole movement trying to get school start times to to slow down now.

>> Looking at some of the research here, it says research consistently shows that morning types, which is the >> lion, >> the lion, earn higher grades not due to higher IQ, but because exams are scheduled during their peak alertness

windows. You got it.

windows. You got it.

>> That's crazy.

>> Sometimes wolves turn out to be much smarter, but because they're they can't perform at those early times, nobody knows. Remember, wolves are my

knows. Remember, wolves are my creatives. Like, where do you think some

creatives. Like, where do you think some of these create great creative innovations and ideas come from in the tech world, right? Like, these are the wolves that are out there that are up late at night coding and trying to

figure out what's going on.

>> It's pretty cool when you think about it. And I just there's this thing called

it. And I just there's this thing called the synchronous synchrony effect from a study in 2020 where nearly 800 students found a clear synchrony effect. Students

performed significantly better when their class schedule matched their chronotype.

>> Exactly.

>> Those morning people dominated in morning classes and and the owls um or the wolves often caught up and outperformed the morning people when tested in the afternoon or evening.

>> Exactly.

>> It's pretty fascinating. Now think about it like this. Could you imagine a school system where if we identified children's chronotypes during their particular age range and then we changed the testing so that they got tested when they're at their peak hours?

>> Yeah.

>> They'd actually do better.

>> People don't know this, but I never do p podcasts in the morning.

>> I don't blame you ever.

>> You shouldn't. Yeah.

>> It's it's not your time. Yeah.

>> Right. Like you have a very specific subscribed time that I think works well for you. So I think you should abide by

for you. So I think you should abide by that.

>> Duration of sleep. There's lots of conversation around how long you're supposed to sleep for. What what's the truth? Yeah.

truth? Yeah.

>> 8 hours is a myth. Let's be fair. Like

we came up with that from like the 30s.

There was a great study at Stanford that came up with 8 hours and 13 minutes plus or minus. And that's kind of where we

or minus. And that's kind of where we came up with that as an idea. The truth

of the matter is somewhere between 7 and 9 hours really is kind of the amount that people should be looking for. But

some people don't have that luxury. Some

people don't have that much time that they can put towards sleep and so they get a little bit less sleep. But for the lower level limit, I don't like anybody getting less than 6 hours. When somebody

gets less than 6 hours sleep, their driving is off. And so you can't operate machinery. So if you're driving to work

machinery. So if you're driving to work or god forbid, carpooling your kids to school and you're only you only got, you know, less than 6 hours of sleep on on board, it's probably not going to go well.

>> We we do have to stop here and talk about parents because listen, you're either a parent now, you might be someday. Absolutely.

someday. Absolutely.

>> Maybe you won't be. But for those I've just got a huge amount of respect for parents because you know I've gone I'm not a parent yet. I hope I will become one. But when I see what my brother who

one. But when I see what my brother who has three kids under the age of what seven now um >> how much sleep has he lost?

>> A lot and and and his wife as well. But

um you must get parents coming to you all the time being like what the hell do I do? Like I've got the I've got to wake

I do? Like I've got the I've got to wake up when the kids wake up and but I'm it's destroying my my relationship, my marriage, my sex, whatever it might be.

>> Yeah. So parenting children and sleep are difficult to coexist, but they're not impossible. It really has to do with

not impossible. It really has to do with discipline and kind of thinking through some ideas for yourself. When my So I have a 23-year-old son and a 22-year-old daughter, so I'm a little bit out of the

the realm of having to deal with them every day. Um, but I was, like I said

every day. Um, but I was, like I said before, I was in charge of mornings uh at our house waking them up. And it's a lot, right? And so the very first thing

lot, right? And so the very first thing that I try to explain to parents, especially if they have a child who has an irregular sleep pattern and is really causing chaos for the rest, like one child who won't go to sleep and it's

keeping every the whole house up. First

thing you want to do, educate the kid, right? A lot of kids don't know what

right? A lot of kids don't know what they're doing is causing a lot of problems. They they're just kids.

They're just hanging out having fun. You

know, they're they've got energy. They

want to be awake. So that you want to educate them and say, "Hey, now is a particular time to wind down. This is

where your body recovers. this is how you get to do sports the next day or theater the next day or ac whatever your computers whatever your thing is you can tie it to sleep and performance pretty

easily and so getting them to understand that becomes very very critical number two is have some guidelines right have bedtimes have wake up times and follow them as quick as closely as you can for

parents oftentimes what I try to tell them to do is like look after your child goes to bed if you've got a child that has problems for sleeping take turns. Do what I call the on call

take turns. Do what I call the on call method. So, as a doctor, sometimes, you

method. So, as a doctor, sometimes, you know, you get a call in the middle of the night because you you're covering patients at the hospital for your buddy or something like that. You're on call.

So, when you've got two people who are managing one child, one person handles Monday night, Wednesday night, Friday night, the other one handles Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. You flip a coin for

Thursday, Saturday. You flip a coin for Sunday. So, if the kid wakes up at 2

Sunday. So, if the kid wakes up at 2 o'clock in the morning, both parents aren't awake. One parent has that

aren't awake. One parent has that responsibility. the other one can keep

responsibility. the other one can keep their eyes closed and go to sleep.

Interesting study was done looking at men and women in bed when a child cries.

So women take care of the child whereas men lie there and fake sleeping in order to be able to stay asleep, right? That's

problematic. Um in a lot of >> they know in the study that they were fake sleeping >> because they asked the men afterwards what were you doing and they all said they woke up and they were faking it.

It's pretty crazy when you think about it. But this is a big this is a big deal

it. But this is a big this is a big deal for parents, right? A lot of parents turn to me and they're like, "This is killing our marriage." Like, "We haven't had sex in, you know, three years because we've got a child who maybe the child has special needs or maybe the

child doesn't have special needs, but has other things going on or maybe it's just normal development and and you know, they're worried about it." And so, what I like to sit down with parents and do is number one, let's figure out when your kid needs to sleep and let's set

some guidelines and rules. But number

two, let's do the same for you.

>> Right? A lot of parents when they're super stressed out, one of the first things they do, grab a glass of wine, right? Wine's about the worst thing you

right? Wine's about the worst thing you could possibly do for sleep to be fair.

Now, I'm going to teach people how you can still have a glass or two of alcohol and not completely destroy your sleep.

But I want to be very clear about something. If you're using alcohol as a

something. If you're using alcohol as a stress relief tool at night before bed, it's messing up your sleep probably pretty bad.

>> You might be asleep, but the quality of your sleep is >> is [ __ ] It's awful, right? And

interestingly enough, during the one stage of sleep that alcohol knocks out, which is stage three and four sleep, what's the most interesting is that dur during that particular stage of sleep, there's something called the glimpmphatic system that comes in and

scoops out these proteins that have a tendency to accumulate in your brain.

And when proteins accumulate in your brain, they wrap around the nerves and that's called Alzheimer's disease.

>> So stage four sleep is imperative to avoid Alzheimer's disease. And when you drink alcohol, you destroy stage four sleep. H.

sleep. H.

>> So, it would be great if nobody drank alcohol, but I'm not so stupid as to think that. Plus, I like bourbon. I like

think that. Plus, I like bourbon. I like

whiskey. I enjoy a glass of champagne every once in a while. So, how can you successfully still drink alcohol and still get a decent night's sleep? I'm

going to give you a quick one, right?

Let's say you're having dinner at 6:30, have your first glass of wine, then have a glass of water, right? Then your

second glass of wine starts at, let's say, almost 7:00, right? Then you have your second glass of water. Then you

stop everything by 7:30. You wait 3 hours, which would be 10:30, and then you can go to bed.

>> Why the water? Why the weight?

>> So, the water helps wash it through the system. Also fills your stomach up so

system. Also fills your stomach up so you don't have too much. So, you you've got more fluid in there so that way you don't drink extra wine. Um, and it makes you have to pee, which flushes the system out as well. The 3 hours.

>> And it hydrates you.

>> It does. Okay.

>> Absolutely. Because remember, wine pulls uh both magnesium and uh most water out of your system because it makes you have to go pee.

>> Helps with the hangover. So, there's a couple of different things that I would say. Number one, this definitely helps

say. Number one, this definitely helps with the hangover because you've got water going in. For a lot of my patients, what I tell them is the very last thing that you could do is have a little bit of coconut water. So, coconut

water is loaded with zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B. And those are some of the things that get pulled out of your system uh when you're drinking. By the

way, did you know that there are happy hours specific to your chronoype?

>> Didn't know that. No.

>> Yeah. So, it's kind of interesting. So

here's what's cool about it is your body produces something called alcohol dehydrogenase which is how you metabolize alcohol but it does it at a particular time and the time is different for each chronotype.

>> So your body is most efficient at drinking between basically the hours of 4 and 8 happy hour as a lot of people know it.

>> And how do you think about what time you eat at night time?

>> Such a great question. So 3 hours before bed, you want to stop fluids including alcohol um and food. You want to just stop it all 3 hours before bed. So it

takes your body about that level of time to number one digest, clear all the food, and then have all the mechanisms that are working towards digestion now be able to be refocused onto the

recovery process of sleep. However, I I will tell you that there's this uh I've seen a couple people and there are people out there that are claiming that if they stop eating at 11:00 in the morning that it helps their sleep

dramatically at night. And it turns out it has to do with your heart rate. So,

one of the big metrics that is very important that all of our viewers and listeners want to know is you need a heart rate of 60 or below in order to enter into a state of unconsciousness.

And when you've got food in your stomach, >> your heart rate is up.

>> That's right.

>> So, right. So if the longer you can wait, the lower your heart rate is, the easier it gets into sleep. And so when we're talking about So a great example, let's get back to parents for a second,

right? You feed your kids at an earlier

right? You feed your kids at an earlier time and then what do you do? Oh, then

you go back and have dinner with your spouse, right? Maybe that's not the best

spouse, right? Maybe that's not the best idea because you're having dinner so late. Maybe you should have dinner with

late. Maybe you should have dinner with your kids, right? And and enjoy that time with them and eat earlier because that gives you more space later on to be able to relax and go to bed. I said that tracks because I remember I've told this

story once or twice before. I remember

when I was doing some podcasts over here in LA, we had Seth Rogan on.

>> Sure.

>> And the day before in the hotel before I lived here, I had a cookie from the mini bar. I'm going to admit it. I had the

bar. I'm going to admit it. I had the cookie and >> they're so good.

>> It was And then I went to bed pretty quickly.

>> Oh god, >> we were just terrible. And I was looking at my whoop the next day ad >> and it my heart rate

>> was like 75 or 80 for the first 2 to 3 hours after I got into bed.

>> Isn't that crazy?

>> And I woke up feeling like hell.

>> Yep.

>> Terrible day the next day. I was

terrible during the conversation >> and I looked at my go, "Oh my god, it was that cookie. It put my heart rate high."

high." >> So also on top of that is sugar.

>> Yeah. I mean, [ __ ] me. Yeah.

>> Right. So sugar turn so sugar actually slows production of melatonin. Remember

melatonin is kind of the key that starts the Yeah. The key that starts the engine

the Yeah. The key that starts the engine for sleep.

>> So is there anything else that I can do to make sure my heart rate is low as I get into bed?

>> Absolutely. Meditate.

>> Okay.

>> Breath work. All kinds of brings my heart rate down.

>> Yeah. Absolutely. So what a lot of people don't realize is just because we're breathing doesn't mean we're actually breathing in a way, shape, and form that can be helpful for us for sleep. So, in my most recent book,

sleep. So, in my most recent book, Sleep, Drink, Breathe, I talk a lot about breath work and what is it and how does it work for you. But I'd love to teach you my favorite form of breath

work and meditation. Um, that I think you'll you'll get a lot out of. So,

>> and I do this before bed.

>> Exactly.

>> Okay.

>> And you can, by the way, you can do it in the middle of the night if you wake up as well. Right. So, let's talk about how to get how to fall asleep and do some relaxation exercises for that. And

then I'm gonna give you some different ones for in the middle of the night. So,

let's talk beginning of the night. So,

number one, you need runway to land the plane. Okay? So many people think

plane. Okay? So many people think they're just waiting for their head to be bobbing in front of the TV and then they go brush their teeth and they get in bed and then all of a sudden they're wide awake and they don't know what's going on, right? So, you need time for

your system to shut down. It's not an onoff switch. It's more like slowly

onoff switch. It's more like slowly pulling your foot off the gas and slowly putting your foot on the brake. There's

a process. It should take you about 12 to 15 minutes to actually fall asleep.

Okay? So number one, what I ask people to do is take the last hour before bed and chop it up into three 20 minute segments, right? So let's say you're

segments, right? So let's say you're going to bed at 11, starting at 10:00.

And by the way, set an alarm on your phone to to tell you that it's 10:00 because it's really easy to slide by your bedtime and then all of a sudden it's like all bets are off. So set the alarm 20 minutes for [ __ ] you just got

to do. So, in our house, it used to be

to do. So, in our house, it used to be getting backpacks together for school for our kids, finding sports equipment, maybe laying out my stuff for work the next day or getting last emails sent, something like that. 20 minutes for

hygiene, right? Brush your teeth, wash

hygiene, right? Brush your teeth, wash your face, maybe take a shower, something along those lines. And then 20 minutes for some form of meditation, relaxation, prayer. I don't care what

relaxation, prayer. I don't care what you do, but it has to be something that's calming to get you there. Okay?

So, my one of my favorite techniques to do is meditation. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm a terrible meditator. I have never been able to do

meditator. I have never been able to do it. I've actually gotten kicked out of

it. I've actually gotten kicked out of meditation retreats because I'm the guy that's like, "What's going on?" Like, am I doing it right? You know, I'm kind of that that person. And so, I was I was told about this tool called a Muse

headband. We have one right here. So,

headband. We have one right here. So,

this is my personal Muse. I actually

brought it from home. And um you'll notice on the inside there are sensors here. And there are sensors along the

here. And there are sensors along the earpiece here. And so what happens is is

earpiece here. And so what happens is is you wear it on your head, right? And

it's measuring your brain waves. And so

when we're Yeah. Check it out. And so

when we're when we're doing it and we're measuring brain waves. Yep. Exactly. And

that goes on the back part. Yeah. There

you go. So what's cool about this is it's attached to an app. And then while it's measuring your brain waves, you're listening to a particular music. It

could be a guided meditation. It could

be any of those things. And while you're doing this, the volume gets lower. And

then you know you're getting closer to a meditative state.

>> The volume comes down when >> on the app when your brain wave starts to relax.

>> Oh, okay.

>> So, you're immediately getting feedback.

We can try it if you want. Um, but it's pretty interesting. And then when you

pretty interesting. And then when you get to the alpha state, little birds start chirping.

>> The alpha state.

>> Yeah. The alpha state is when your eyes are closed and you're at the most relaxed state of your brain waves. It's

called the alpha state. And that's

really what people are trying to get to for meditation.

>> And are you affiliated with this company in any way?

>> I am not.

>> And how much does it cost? I think it's around $275 I think is the headband.

>> Okay. Interesting.

>> It's pretty fascinating. Um I I've been pretty impressed with them.

>> So that's meditation.

>> You talked about breath work as well before.

>> Yeah. Let's talk about it. So one of the other things that I do is I do something Well, this isn't breath work. This is

called progressive muscle relaxation. So

this is where you tense and relax muscles starting from your feet and going all the way up your body. And as

you tense and relax the muscles, you feel that relaxation from releasing that tension and it helps you fall asleep.

Um, actually, you know what I can do is I can send you a an audio file that has me walking through progressive muscle relaxation that we can make available for everybody if you want. We for free.

It's no big deal.

>> Amazing. I'll put that in the description below as well.

>> Yeah. Yeah. People will really dig it. I

think they'll really enjoy it. So,

that's another thing that we do. But

now, let's talk about the middle of the night, right? So, by the way, do you

night, right? So, by the way, do you have this as an issue? Have this has this happened to you before? It it

happens sometimes and it's typically when like my sleep is somewhat disordered or disruptive or when there's really something on my mind.

>> Yes. So that that precipitatory anxiety like before a flight like if I have an 8:00 in the morning flight like I sleep like [ __ ] the night before because I'm constantly worried about that. Right.

But a lot of times what people do normally is they just wake up in the middle of the night and they can't return to sleep and they're really not sure why. So number one there's biology

sure why. So number one there's biology involved. So your core body temperature

involved. So your core body temperature rises rises rises and when it hits a peak it drops. That drop is then a signal to your brain to release melatonin. Right? Again, the key that

melatonin. Right? Again, the key that starts the engine for sleep. However,

your core body temperature continues to drop, drop, drop. By the way, this is the reason why we tell people you want to sleep in the cool, not the warm environment. Because again, your core

environment. Because again, your core body temperature is dropping. If it's

too hot, your core body temperature can't go down and you can't get to sleep, >> which tracks with evolution.

>> Exactly. So, here's where it gets interesting is it keeps going, going, going, and then at some point in time, your body has to heat up. And if it doesn't heat up, you go hypothermic.

Guess what time that is? Between 1 and 3 o'clock in the morning.

>> Oh, your body starts heating up at 1 1 and 3.

>> Every single person's body on Earth does this. Everybody on Earth wakes up

this. Everybody on Earth wakes up between 1 and 3:00 in the morning.

However, most people burp, roll over, get comfortable, and fall back asleep in 30 seconds. However, there's a select

30 seconds. However, there's a select group of people who end up being my patients who don't have that. And there

here in lies the problem. So, here are the steps you want to take in the middle of the night to be able to solve this issue. So number one, don't go pee. I

issue. So number one, don't go pee. I

know, I know, I know people like, "What?

What are you talking about, Michael?" So

here's what ends up happening is when people wake up in the middle of the night, they say to themselves, "Well, I'm up. I might as well go pee." Right?

I'm up. I might as well go pee." Right?

Here's the problem. Remember I told you the big metric was in order to enter into a state of unconsciousness, you need a heart rate of 60 or below. Right?

What do you think happens to your heart rate when you go from a lying position to a seated position to a standing position? You walk across the room, your

position? You walk across the room, your heart rate goes straight up. So what we want to do is keep your heart rate down.

So, if you don't really have to go to the bathroom, don't go to the bathroom.

75% of people sleep on their sides and they kind of squunch up, which means they're putting pressure on their bladder. So, my guess is is that most of

bladder. So, my guess is is that most of those people, if all you did was when you woke up is lie and get on your back for about 25 seconds and see if you still need to pee. If you don't need to

pee, stay in bed and keep your heart rate down. If you need to pee, please go

rate down. If you need to pee, please go pee. Right? If you're going to go to the

pee. Right? If you're going to go to the bathroom, have a strategically placed nightlight along the way so you don't have to flip on the light in the water closet because if you do that, you just told your brain it's morning and it stops producing melatonin. But let's say

you don't have to pee. The second thing, don't look at your phone. Now, this

turns out to be very difficult for 99% of the people out there because the first thing they do is they grab their phone and they head to the bathroom, right? and they're either checking

right? and they're either checking emails, looking at Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media they're on, >> or we're just trying to figure out what time it is >> or and that's where the problem is is as

soon as you see the time, you instantly do the mental math and now you're pissed off, right? It's 3:30 in the morning. I

off, right? It's 3:30 in the morning. I

got to get up at 6:00. Sleep, sleep,

sleep. And you try to force your brain to sleep. Dude, in the history of time,

to sleep. Dude, in the history of time, nobody has been able to force their brain to sleep, okay? Because your heart rate's going in the wrong way, right? It

needs to be coming down. So, if you can, don't look at the clock. All right, so you haven't peed, you haven't looked at the clock, but you're still awake and nothing's going on. Here's where the breathing technique comes in. It's

called 478 breathing. I did not develop this

breathing. I did not develop this technique. It was developed by Dr.

technique. It was developed by Dr. Andrew Wild, Harvard trained natural doctor, super smart dude. Um, and uh, he did it for the military to teach them how to lower their heart rate during stressful situations. We use it because

stressful situations. We use it because it helps lower our heart rate past 60.

And it's super simple. I'm going to get you to try it. So, go ahead and sit up straight. Okay. And so all you're going

straight. Okay. And so all you're going to do is breathe in for a count of four.

You're going to hold for a count of seven. And you're going to breathe out

seven. And you're going to breathe out for a count of eight. And I'm going to walk you through it. I want you to have your eyes closed. And what I also want you to do, you're going to go in through the nose, out through the mouth. And

then what I also want you to do is picture the number in your head. So when

I say breathe in two, three, four, you should picture the two, the three, the four in your mind's eye. Okay?

>> With my eyes closed.

>> With your eyes closed. You ready?

>> Yep. Breathe in. 2 3 4. Hold. 2 3 4 5 6

7. Push. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Good. You want

7. Push. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Good. You want

to get through about 20 cycles of that.

It's incredibly relaxing. I actually did it before I came out here to do the pod because it helps lower my heart rate and gets me centered.

H. It's pretty remarkable. Now, there's

some problems with the technique. Number

one, sometimes it's hard to hold for seven, and sometimes it's really hard to push for eight. So, I tell people you can do this four, five, six, 4, 6, 7, or 478. So, just work your way up to it,

478. So, just work your way up to it, right? If if it's too hard to hold your

right? If if it's too hard to hold your breath for 7 seconds or it's too too hard to push your breath for eight, you can do a little bit less just while you're getting used to it. And then the other big thing is it's hard to figure out where the 20 cycles is because you

need to get to 20 cycles of this. So,

what I have people do is take their hands and make light fists while they're doing this. And when they do one cycle,

doing this. And when they do one cycle, they put out a finger. Another cycle,

put out a finger. And before you know it, you got 10. And when you bring it back, you've done 20 cycles.

>> It's funny. I just did two and I start yawning.

>> I know. I just saw that. I'm telling

you, dude, this thing works, right? And

so, I have people do this technique.

Here's the best part is it avoids monkey mind, right? So, what is monkey mind?

mind, right? So, what is monkey mind?

Monkey mind is I'm thinking about stuff that I have no business thinking about in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason. Like what's on the grocery list or what did I say to my spouse or did that podcast go okay or

any of the things that might be floating through your head? You cannot count and worry at the same time.

>> And why does it work? What's going on in my physiology? Uh-huh. You're

my physiology? Uh-huh. You're

distracting the brain from the thing that's stressing you out and it's lowering your heart rate and then the natural sleep process comes in after it.

So, all these are are distraction techniques to be clear. Now, there's

there's several of them out there. One

of the other ones I use for some of my patients is I tell them, "Hey, count backwards from 300 by threes. It's

mathematically so complicated you can't think of anything else and it's so damn boring. You're out like a light." On

boring. You're out like a light." On

that point of distractions, a lot of people go to bed listening to podcasts or movies. Jack was just saying that,

or movies. Jack was just saying that, you know, he he needs to listen to something to fall asleep. I'm the same.

I listen to like serial killer stuff, >> which is, you know, >> that's interesting.

>> Don't don't judge me.

>> Wait till we get to the dreams part of the podcast. I can't wait to hear what

the podcast. I can't wait to hear what you dream about. I

>> I don't I think I always try and figure out why it is. And I My sister's the same, my sister Amanda, and she >> she listens to serial killer stuff to fall asleep. I think it's because this

fall asleep. I think it's because this is just hypothesis. My mom would always ask me to put on forensic files, which was this like serial murder documentary thing when we were younger cuz she

couldn't use the remote. So my mom would say she'd pass me the remote, say, "Put on forensic files." And I'd like put on the number for her, right?

>> And so that was always playing in our house at night time. And we all had TVs in our bedroom that just mirrored what was ever what was playing downstairs, course.

>> So when I got into bed, >> I'd watch fall asleep.

>> This explains a lot about you.

>> I know, right? You say that to people, they think you're yours. Yeah.

>> So, let me tell you what it's like in my house. And actually, you and I have a

house. And actually, you and I have a commonality. So, in my house, we have a

commonality. So, in my house, we have a big screen TV. It's on all night long.

>> Where? In which room?

>> In my bedroom.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. When I met my wife, she said to me, "Michael, if you ever happen to spend the night, I want to let you know that I sleep with the television on." I

said, "Don't worry about that, Lauren.

I'm gonna be a sleep doctor. I'm gonna

fix that." We we met when I was uh 30, so uh known her for quite a while. And

uh you ever tried to change something in your bed partner? Yeah, good luck.

>> Yeah, good luck. So I took the TV out.

She said, "If you ever want to come back in here again, I suggest you put the I put the TV back in." And then I studied her to learn what was going on. And it

turns out that she's listening to it out of what I call the corner of her ear.

Her eyes aren't even open. And half the time it's a episode of Seinfeld or something like that. My wife actually likes murder mysteries and so it's usually forensic files or something along those lines that's going on. But

for her, it's a perfect distraction technique. Now, there's a second thing

technique. Now, there's a second thing that's important uh in our bedroom that happens uh is we have two dogs. They

sleep in the bed with us. I'm the

freaking sleep doctor, dude. Like, it's

insane. But the point here is sleep is flexible. Okay? Just because it works

flexible. Okay? Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works for your bed partner. And and vice versa is also

bed partner. And and vice versa is also true, right? Like just because some

true, right? Like just because some people can't sleep with the TV on doesn't mean that it's going to mess up your sleep forever to have the television on cuz it's not. And by the way, 99% of TVs have timers built into

them. Like if you don't know what it is,

them. Like if you don't know what it is, ask your kid. I had to ask my son. He

showed me how to use it. We turned it off. It wasn't a problem, right? So

off. It wasn't a problem, right? So

creating a sleep environment that is conducive to sleep for you and your bed partner can have a lot of variation to it. And I don't think people there's no

it. And I don't think people there's no hard and fast rule that says, "Hey, nobody should ever sleep with the TV on." I mean, there are people out there

on." I mean, there are people out there who say that, but quite frankly, everybody sleeps with the TV on.

>> Well, a lot of people do. I I I wouldn't put the TV on in our bedroom. I mean,

we've done it once or twice or whatever, cuz we're watching something and we slip off to sleep and I wake up and I realize it's on and I turn it off.

>> But I I also really think it's an important point to say that people will listen to podcasts like this. They'll

listen to the like biohackers of the world and then they'll get so militant about how they fall asleep that it will cause friction because one partner is different.

>> Don't do that. And I had this problem in my relationship which was >> my girlfriend sleeps in silence and is has like just such a glorious routine to everything she does.

>> And I am >> completely the opposite >> and the opposite like I need to like I want to listen to a murder. I could be on my phone. It's like when I look at my Whoop scores >> works for me.

>> Yeah.

>> It's like I am getting I have I get great sleep even if I'm listening to a serial killer documentary.

>> So >> but not if you eat a cookie before bed.

>> Not if I eat a cookie. That's that's

gone. But I so what I do is I put one AirPod in in my right ear. So whichever

ear is not going to be on the pillow >> and it means I can listen to her if she says something.

>> But when it's silence, all I hear is the thing that I'm listening to.

>> So I've got a trick for you.

>> And I wake up in the morning and dig the AirPod out of the bed where it ended up.

>> Right. So now I'm going to help you with the digging of the AirPod. So first of all, they now make these things called pillow speakers.

>> Oh, interesting.

>> Right. So it's a it's a it's a Bluetooth speaker that will attach to your phone that you can just slide and it's just under your pillow so only you can hear it. So, that's number one. You might

it. So, that's number one. You might

want to consider that. And they're

pretty inexpensive. Number two, they now make specifically earbuds designed to be slept in.

>> Oh, nice.

>> So, there's a a new company out called Next Sense. Um, and they have developed

Next Sense. Um, and they have developed an earbud that actually measures your brain waves while you are sleeping. And

when you move into a lighter stage of sleep, it sends in a frequency signal to help you go back to sleep or to stay in that depth of sleep. Brand new company.

Next sense. I have nothing to do with them. I mean, it's a friend of mine who

them. I mean, it's a friend of mine who owns the company, but I'm not on their own.

>> I would like something to do with them >> if we'll figure that out.

>> So, does it allow you to play your music as well or your or your podcast or whatever?

>> I can listen to Diary of a CEO every single night while I fall asleep and it will make sure that I don't wake up from any dreams. >> And you can still like and subscribe and stuff.

>> Even through the earbuds, of course. I

think everybody should like and subscribe.

>> That's a good feature like an AI agent that helps you subscribe. Okay, so

that's that's you woke up in the middle of the night. You don't pee. You don't

check your phone. You're doing these breathing exercises. You don't give

breathing exercises. You don't give yourself a hard time.

>> And then what happens? It doesn't work.

What do you do? Yeah. Right. So, there's

the new research on something called non-sleep deep rest. We call it yoga nidra. Okay? It's been around for

nidra. Okay? It's been around for thousands of years. When you lie relaxed in like a corpse pose like this, you're actually doing something that's valuable for your sleep. Now, I want to be clear.

It's not the same as sleep, but if you lie there for an hour, it's like 20 minutes worth of sleep. So everybody

should know that even lying relaxed and calm is very very helpful right but if you start to get anxious and your heart rate starts to tick up you need to get yourself out of bed because that's when

because all you're doing then is thinking hey this bed is this place where I get anxious and pissed off. This

is not a place to sleep. So as long as you stay nice and quiet the non-sleep deep rest absolutely the thing to do.

The other big thing that I do and by the way this happens to me on occasion too like I'm not immune to it just because I'm a sleep doctor. You have to stay positive. And what I what do I mean by

positive. And what I what do I mean by that is everybody when they wake up in the middle of the night, your brain is set to negativity. There's no reason you should be up at 3:00 in the morning that something good is going on, right?

Nobody's coming in wishing you happy birthday at 3:00 in the morning.

Something terrible has happened. And

your brain has gotten accustomed to that. So when it wakes up, it

that. So when it wakes up, it immediately goes to the negative and you start thinking about bad things. You

can't stop your first thought, but you can stop your second thought, right?

Right? And so when you wake up and you think negative, what I want you to replace that with is, "Okay, Michael, for some reason, your body has decided to wake up at 3:00 in the morning, it's

not the game that I wanted to be playing tonight. However, I think I'm going to

tonight. However, I think I'm going to be okay. I'm just going to lie here and

be okay. I'm just going to lie here and relax and let the natural sleep process take over. If I feel my heart rate

take over. If I feel my heart rate increasing, I'm going to go to another room in the house where I've already got a book and a light set up so I can do a little bit of light reading and then come back to sleep." And I just tell

myself that I give myself permission to just chill, just relax. And then you know what happens? The natural sleep process comes over. As soon as your heart rate starts to go down, your body

wants to get back to sleep. And so it really has a lot to do with heart rate.

>> I love having these conversations on the diio because I have a huge amount of sympathy and concern for people that don't get sufficient sleep. And I know there's a lot of people that don't. And

I actually think it's to some degree it's somewhat increasing because of the way we live our lives. I was looking at some of the stats around the increase and there's a study done in 2025 and

early 2026 that revealed we're in a global sleep crisis.

>> Oh yes, we are.

>> Both the CDC and Stanford Medicine report said that one in three adults and nearly 80% of teenagers are now chronically sleepdeprived.

>> Correct. A 2026 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 93% of Gen Z admit to regularly losing sleep due to social media usage. And 71% of

employed respondents globally have said >> that they sometimes call in sick at least once or twice due to poor sleep.

>> Just to sleep. Yeah. When I was down in Australia doing some work down there, a lot of Australians they take holiday and they just sleep.

>> Yeah.

>> Just to catch up. Like it's it's pretty remarkable. We're in a very sleep-d

remarkable. We're in a very sleep-d deprived society and I think there's a couple of different reasons why that is.

Number one, >> have you seen what's going on outside in the world today? It's pretty crazy out there. Well, I can understand why people

there. Well, I can understand why people are getting a little anxious.

>> I think one could argue it's been crazier through history, but we never knew about it, >> right? Well, I mean, the media getting

>> right? Well, I mean, the media getting it to getting us this information so quickly, I think, is definitely what I would agree with you. It was much crazier during like World War II, you know, and stuff like that. Now we're

getting information so quickly and people are getting so ratcheted up about it. I think that has something to do

it. I think that has something to do with it. But if I I think the bigger

with it. But if I I think the bigger culprit is people being overweight. You

know, when you look here in the United States and you look at the obesity epidemic and you look at people being overweight, it's something close to like 70s something percent of people in America are overweight. When you're

overweight, that puts you in line for potentially having something called sleep apnea. Now, I want to be clear,

sleep apnea. Now, I want to be clear, not everybody with sleep apnea is overweight, but a a large percentage of the people with sleep apnnea are bigger people. And so, when you look at a

people. And so, when you look at a society that's getting bigger and all the unhealthy food that we've got going on, like all this highly processed food, things of that nature, that isn't

helping anybody, it's adding the pounds.

And specifically, like for men, we gain weight through our necks. Like I I don't know if you've ever noticed it, but like if you ever were heavy and you lose weight, the first thing somebody says is, "Oh, it looks like you lost weight cuz I can tell from your face, right?"

and they're like, "Oh, your neck looks, you know, different now." And so, we see a lot of what's going on in the world from a weight perspective and a food perspective could be driving some of the sleep problems. Then there's the anxiety

perspective that I spoke of earlier that I think comes in. And again, I I agree with you. I don't think we have more

with you. I don't think we have more crazy stuff going on. I think we know about more crazy stuff that's going on, >> but also work is now largely digital.

And I imagine for my great-grandfather, he would go to, I don't know, the factory or wherever he works. His work

would finish at 6.

>> Yes. Your work doesn't finish at 6 now.

It finishes when you're awake.

>> Yeah. Absolutely. It finishes when you go to sleep.

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> Yeah. And and that becomes problematic, right? Because a lot of times also, by

right? Because a lot of times also, by the way, you need to have dividers in your home. Like let's say you live in a

your home. Like let's say you live in a studio apartment and your bed is your couch is your kitchen, right? You have

no designated spot for sleep. Your body

needs to know, hey, this is the spot where I can chill out and finally get some rest. And I think a lot of times

some rest. And I think a lot of times our environments just aren't that way.

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>> Which sleep disorder should we start with?

>> Sleep apnea and insomnia. Sleep apnea,

for folks out there who may not know what it is, is when you are snoring at night. Almost everybody who has sleep

night. Almost everybody who has sleep apnea snores. Not everybody, but almost

apnea snores. Not everybody, but almost everybody. And when you're sucking air

everybody. And when you're sucking air in, you pull your tongue to the back of your throat and you cut off your air.

And you literally stop breathing, right, for a few seconds. And then all a sudden you and you make all this kind of grunting, groaning noises. and then you wake up. This can happen hundreds of

wake up. This can happen hundreds of times a night and it can be very problematic because of course it wakes you up every single time that you have one of these events, right? And so as an

example, we measure the events per hour.

So as an example, somebody with sleep apnnea could have between five and 15 times per hour that they stop breathing and that's mild.

>> So how are they going to get into the deep sleep that clears out their brain?

>> That's the problem, right? And so apnea prevents them from getting into a lot of that deep sleep. And so their brain doesn't clear out and then they got they're they're kind of screwed. So at

the end of the day, the the goal here is to get as many people to number one identify if they have a sleep disorder and then be able to try to figure out what to do about it. And the percentage of people in the US that have

undiagnosed sleep apnea is pretty big.

It's like somewhere between I think like 18 to 20%.

>> This is crazy. I was just looking at the stats. It says according to 2026 data

stats. It says according to 2026 data approximately 936 million people to 1 billion adults worldwide have obstructive sleep apnnea which is what one in seven

>> yeah that's about right >> making it as common as diabetes. One in

seven people listening have sleep apnnea.

>> Yes.

>> Wow.

>> As popular as diabetes. Let that sink in for like half a second. Everybody knows

what diabetes is. Almost nobody knows what sleep disorders are. Specifically

sleep apnnea. And it says 80 to 90% of those people remain undiagnosed. That is

correct.

>> So there's people listening right there's actually a huge percentage of people listening right now >> that have sleep apnea and have no idea that they have it.

>> Exactly. Right.

>> How would they know?

>> Do the sleep test.

>> This thing here.

>> Yeah.

>> And what would this show?

>> So this would this actually collects what is your oxygen levels throughout the night? What is your heart rate

the night? What is your heart rate throughout the night? How many times do you actually stop breathing? And also

the depth of your sleep, which stages of sleep you get when you fall asleep, things like that. And what would this So, you know, because people are going to be like, "How do I know if I need to do the test?"

>> So, great question. So, you want to think about the symptoms that you might have. So, do you snore? Do you wake up

have. So, do you snore? Do you wake up gasping for air? Has anybody told you that your snoring stops for brief periods of time or that they've heard you gasping for air? Do you wake up with

a headache in the morning? Do you find your moods are up and down? All of those are signs and symptoms of sleep apnnea.

>> And this test, are you affiliated with this company at all? I am not. But um we do have that test on my website. We sell

it to people so that way we can test them.

>> And how much does it cost?

>> $189.

>> Okay. So it's not >> it's not exorbitantly expensive. And it

also is covered by insurance.

>> And it connects to an app.

>> Uh-huh. Absolutely. So you'd put it through your sleeve.

>> So I' I'd put that there and like this.

>> Yeah. Exactly. And that's it. You go to bed, wake up, then the information ports over to your phone and then tells us exactly what's going on. Now, here's

where it gets even better. I know,

right?

>> Can you imagine me getting in bed with my fiance and being like, "Come on, babe. Let's

babe. Let's >> We're recording all kinds of good stuff.

Who knows what she might like?

>> Is this going to help my sex life?"

>> It's absolutely it will because getting into bed and knowing how well you sleep and knowing if you have sleep apnea or not will definitely affect your sex life. Also, by the way, I've saved more

life. Also, by the way, I've saved more marriages as a sleep doctor than I ever would have as a marital therapist dealing with snoring in the middle of the night and things like that. So,

you'd be you'd be surprised. But what's

nice about this is it's one night. You

don't have to do it multiple nights.

It's super easy. Um, and again, believe it or not, that's disposable. You can

actually throw that whole thing away after it's all said and done.

>> And on that point, before we just go a little bit further into sleep apnnea, should should we be sleeping in bed with our partners? And I know that's an

our partners? And I know that's an interesting thing.

>> Great question. Great question. The

strength of your relationship has nothing to do with where you sleep.

Okay? So, lots of people are like, "I got to sleep with my partner otherwise my relationship's going to go to [ __ ] and everything's going to go terrible and we're never going to have sex and we're not true." Okay. So, a lot of times for people that I have, so for

example, I've got people who um have sleep apnnea and they use a a machine to help them sleep called a CPAP machine, right? And um that noise for some people

right? And um that noise for some people can be disruptive and so they sleep, let's say, in a different room, right?

So, is that is that detrimental to your marriage? No, it's not. Because here's

marriage? No, it's not. Because here's

what you do is you vacation on the weekends in your bedroom, right? I can't

count the number of people who sleep separately during the week and then together on the weekends. And it turns out that they get much better sleep during the week. And then guess what?

Intimacy shows up much faster on the weekends because they're not so tired.

Used to be, you know, not tonight I have a headache. It was really not tonight

a headache. It was really not tonight I'm exhausted. When you allow your

I'm exhausted. When you allow your partner to get good sleep during the week, there's a reasonably good shot that you're going to be able to be intimate over the weekend if they got good sleep. So, wearing that to bed

good sleep. So, wearing that to bed might not be the sexiest thing in the universe, but it's better than having sleep apnnea and eventually ending up dead.

>> Are the symptoms of sleep apnnea different for men and women?

>> They are. Great question. So, it turns out that men and women are quite different, but we've historically been scoring them the same. So women don't have a tendency to have as much snoring

as men do. Um women have a tendency to have more arousals where they wake up constantly. Women have a tendency to

constantly. Women have a tendency to report headaches in the morning more so than men do. So it's actually different types of symptoms for women versus men when it comes to sleep apnea to the

point where we're now considering using different testing devices. So this

testing device um would not necessarily measure EEG and in women EEG might be important. That's what we're learning.

important. That's what we're learning.

So, as an example, our company is finding a device specifically to send to women so that way we can more accurately measure sleep apnea in women. Now,

there's a lot of questions about treatment for sleep apnea. And the

biggest reason why nobody gets sleep tested is because they're afraid that they're going to end up sleeping with a CPAP machine on their face at night. And

so, let me describe to your audience what that is. Also, full disclosure, I have sleep apnea. I don't look like somebody who has sleep apnea. I stop

breathing in my sleep. I think it's 26 times an hour. I know, right? Kind of

crazy. And I wear a CPAT machine and it helps me sleep every single night. Let

me explain what it is. So, when your throat closes here, CPAT machine is a little air compressor with a tube and a mask that sits on your nose, pushes a just thin stream of just air, and when it hits that blockage, it ever so

slightly opens it up, shoots air straight down to your lungs. Now, you

might be saying to yourself, "That sounds barbaric. That is insane. That's

sounds barbaric. That is insane. That's

a haird dryer blowing up my nose all night long. Here's what I can tell you

night long. Here's what I can tell you is when you have a severe case of sleep apnea, this can be a lifesaver. This can

be one of the biggest, most important things that you possibly do. Now, a lot of people say, "Oh, I don't think I could sleep with a mask on my face."

Well, that's not the only treatment.

There are other treatments called oral appliances. This is like a a mouthguard

appliances. This is like a a mouthguard like you see the footballers wear, but it's an upper and a lower. and the lower slowly brings your jaw forward which opens up your posterior airway space.

The same way that air pushes things aside, the oral appliance structurally moves your jaw slightly forward thereby opening up your airway. So that works well and there's no mask on your face.

There's a third device that you can wear on your tongue that vibrates that shrinks your tongue by a couple of millimeters which opens up this posterior airway space and allows you to breathe better.

>> Have you tried all of them?

>> I have as a matter of fact. And why did you choose the apnea machine?

>> So for me, the apnea machine worked the best and made the most sense for me right now. But I'll be honest with you,

right now. But I'll be honest with you, I will probably get the uh mouthguard for when I travel. There's a lot that can be done out there. And by the way, there's also surgeries and surgeries are

a little bit more permanent fix. Um, but

in many cases, those surgeries can be quite effective. Also, by the way,

quite effective. Also, by the way, they're working on a pill >> for sleep apnnea now. And that's just apnea. We haven't even talked about

apnea. We haven't even talked about insomnia yet.

>> I was just reading about the FDA approving a drug. Yeah, it's it's quite remarkable. And there's actually two I

remarkable. And there's actually two I think there's actually three different companies that are working on different drugs right now for sleep apnea. And I

mean to be clear, when that happens, I think it's pretty much game over for sleep apnea, right? I mean once we can get it in a pill form, which means compliance increases dramatically, we can help a lot of people with sleep apnea, which I think would be pretty

amazing.

>> And women are heavily undiagnosed, right? Because we heavily

right? Because we heavily >> we think of it as I mean I've heard it being referred to as a sort of an old man's disease.

>> Yeah. And oh, absolutely. And here's the thing. Many women have a tendency to

thing. Many women have a tendency to report insomnia types of symptoms over sleep apnea types of symptoms when in fact they actually have under undiagnosed sleep apnnea, which we can catch.

>> We talked a little bit earlier, but um from many of the conversations I've had on the show about Alzheimer's, >> yes, >> your chance of um getting Alzheimer's, I imagine, is going to increase, right?

Because absolutely you have sleep apnnea.

>> Yeah. Well, because when you have sleep apnnea, it keeps you out of the deeper stages of sleep. the deeper stages of sleep is where that lymphatic system comes in and scoops out those proteins and that's really probably one of those big causes for it. So that's one of the

things that we always want people to understand. But there's also something

understand. But there's also something else that I think is important to maybe talk about which is on the other side not sleep apnnea side but on the insomnia side which is there's a lot of people who go and they go to the

drugstore and they buy an over-the-counter sleep aid. Right now

I'm not talking about supplementation yet. We can get into supplements in a

yet. We can get into supplements in a minute if you want to, but I'm talking about things like the PM medications, right? You know, they so here in

right? You know, they so here in America, we have them where there's like there's like an analesic plus a PM. So

there's Tylenol PM, Advil PM, and what it is is it's a pain reliever, but they add something called dyenhydramine and it makes you feel sleepy and it makes you fall asleep. Dyenhydramine is

actually an antihistamine, right? So

it's used for congestion and things like that. But there's now data to suggest

that. But there's now data to suggest that daily use of the PM part of this, not the pain relieving part, but the PM part can lead almost directly to Alzheimer's.

>> Oh, wow.

>> Right. So, if people can just go to bed and follow a couple simple rules and go to bed naturally, you'd be shocked at how much better your world is going to be. The Queensland Brain Institute um at

be. The Queensland Brain Institute um at the University of Queensland found that people with untreated apnea have a 45% higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

>> Like I said, >> which is crazy.

>> Soant here's the thing is we've got all these people who are watching your show right now. They need to start thinking

right now. They need to start thinking in their head like maybe I have sleep apnea, maybe I don't, but maybe I should take a look at what are some of the symptoms and see if that's something that could be going on for me. Because

again, testing is available. And to be clear, it's not like I'm the only guy out there testing people. I mean, there are sleep doctors all over the world that are testing people. My

encouragement to people is, hey, figure it out. If if you can't figure it out,

it out. If if you can't figure it out, you know, shoot us an email. We'll find

a sleep center for you to go to. But if

you think there's something going on, it's definitely worth checking out because, by the way, you can stay with undiagnosed sleep apnnea for your entire life. And it all it does is basically

life. And it all it does is basically break down everything that's going on inside. And that's not what you want.

inside. And that's not what you want.

Like remember sleep is recovery, right?

This is how your body still functions.

Like if you want to lead a nice prosperous life, you want to sleep.

>> Insomnia has become a bit of a word that people throw around >> for sure, >> right? They they kind of self diagnose

>> right? They they kind of self diagnose themselves. We kind of think of it as

themselves. We kind of think of it as this one specific thing. I think people say, "I have insomnia when they just don't sleep well."

>> Right.

>> What is insomnia and what's the big myth around it?

>> Yeah. So, number one, there's a couple of different flavors of insomnia.

There's the I can't fall asleep. There's

the I can't stay asleep, which we talked about quite a bit. There's the I wake up too early, and then there's just the I wake up from unrefreshing sleep. So, we

really think that there are four sort of types of insomnia, right? And um when people I would say some of the biggest myths that a lot of people have surrounding insomnia is or like the

biggest problem that they do is when somebody has a really crappy night then what they try to do is the next evening go to bed early and try to catch up on some of that sleep that they missed. So

to be clear this is a terrible idea because your circadian rhythm isn't ready to go to bed early. So you lie in bed and you're exhausted but you can't fall asleep. you're what I call wired

fall asleep. you're what I call wired and tired, right? And so what we want people to do is if you do have a bout of insomnia where you have difficulty falling asleep or difficulty staying

asleep, number one, don't overcaffeinate during the daytime. So many people are like, "Oh, I'm dragging. I got to get a coffee," you know, and and they and they caffeinate caffeinate caffeinate and then they caffeinate so late into the

day that they have shitty sleep that night, and now we're in the washing machine cycle going over and over and over. It sounds like you might be

over. It sounds like you might be relating to this uh a little bit maybe yourself. And then so we want to avoid

yourself. And then so we want to avoid that. The other thing we want to avoid

that. The other thing we want to avoid is over stimulation at night, right? So

a lot of pimps people get that nervous energy and so they're just doing doing.

Again, you need runway to land the plane. So give yourself some kind of

plane. So give yourself some kind of that space. Um and then just make sure

that space. Um and then just make sure that you've got some level of regularity. I would argue for my

regularity. I would argue for my insomnia patients, but quite honestly for anybody who's watching this, the number one sleep tip that I can give people is to wake up at the same time

seven days a week. Not go to bed. I

don't actually care when you go to bed that much. I know there's a lot of sleep

that much. I know there's a lot of sleep specialists out there who are like, you got to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time. I'm not of that ilk. I don't really care that much

that ilk. I don't really care that much about the going to bed time. I really

only care about the wake up time. Let me

explain why. When you wake up in the morning, sunlight hits your eye and you have a special cell in your eye called the melanopsin cell which sends a signal to your brain to turn off the melatonin faucet in your head. But it sets a timer

for exactly 14 hours later. It's called

the melatonin phase response curve. So

if you're waking up at 6, melatonin turns off until about 8:00 p.m. Then it

takes about a couple hours for it to get up and in. So then you start to get sleep around 9:30 and you go to bed. But

if you did that and now it's Saturday and you sleep in until 8, melatonin doesn't kick off until 10:00 Saturday night. So what I'm saying is the time

night. So what I'm saying is the time that you wake up directly determines when your internal melatonin kicks into gear. So if everybody woke up at the

gear. So if everybody woke up at the exact same time every single day, seven days a week, automatically you would get tired at the right time and you would start going to sleep.

>> And is there two different types of insomnia? Sometimes I hear primary,

insomnia? Sometimes I hear primary, secondary insomnia. I think you have

secondary insomnia. I think you have that on your YouTube channel.

>> So when you look at primary insomnia versus secondary insomnia, the way we categorize that, secondary insomnia is usually due to something else that's going on in your life. So

>> psychology, >> so maybe caffeine abuse.

>> Okay?

>> Right? Um maybe something along those lines. Whereas primary insomnia is

lines. Whereas primary insomnia is there's nothing else. You the only thing you've got going on is sleep disorder.

Another example of of something where insomnia might be secondary would be pain.

>> Right? So if you have a pain syndrome, if you have fibromyalgia or low back pain, that could prevent you from sleeping. That would be secondary

sleeping. That would be secondary insomnia, secondary to pain.

>> And I hear that the most common treatment for insomnia is CBT therapy.

>> So yes and no.

>> Okay.

>> So I would say that the most common therapy for insomnia is alcohol.

>> More people drink themselves to sleep >> than any other single thing out there.

Um and then you start to get into the pharmacy of it all. And there's a lot of pharmaceutical drugs out there that people utilize for for sleep. And I want to make a point if I can is there's

nothing wrong with needing a pill to sleep. Okay? I want to be very clear

sleep. Okay? I want to be very clear about this. There are people out there

about this. There are people out there who need pills, right? All kinds of different ones. Thank you. There's a

different ones. Thank you. There's a

whole host of reasons why you and your doctor may have come to the conclusion that a sleeping tablet is good for you.

The problem comes when those sleeping tablets are overprescribed. So insomnia

is in the in the sleep world, we call it a door handle diagnosis because when the doctor has their hand on the door and they're just about to leave, that's when the patient says, "Oh, and by the way, I'm not sleeping."

>> And then the doctor usually pulls out the prescription pad and says, you know, ambient or trazadone or something like that, writes it up, says, "Here, come back in 30 days." Well, you haven't really done anything for this person.

You've handed them a pill. And by the way, now they're probably either psychologically or physiologically addicted to said pill right now. Once

again, if you've got a major mental health issue, I don't think I care. I

think it's okay for you to have your AMVN and be fine. And

>> and a lot of people that do have insomnia have depression.

>> Oh, I think it's one of the biggest things that we see. But I would argue anxiety might be a little bit more than depression. But yes, anxiety and

depression. But yes, anxiety and depression, I would argue, make up 75% of insomnia at any given time. Right? I

work with people and I do something called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia which you correctly identified as CBTI, right? And so I work with patients all the time. Um, and that's exactly what we do is we reschedule

them. So that's the behavioral part. And

them. So that's the behavioral part. And

then the cognitive part is we talk to them about how do you think about sleep?

Because a lot of people think about sleep in disastrous ways. They're like,

if I don't get eight hours, my old day is screwed and everything's going to happen. It rarely happens that way. Like

happen. It rarely happens that way. Like

it's called catastrophizing. You just

make it worse and worse and worse. And

so we look at those cognitive distortions and we help fix them in therapy by really kind of what I call doing the math. And so I say, "Well, have you ever had four hours of sleep?"

"Yes." "Did you do something terrible the next day?" "No." "So where's your evidence?" Right? And you start to get

evidence?" Right? And you start to get people to challenge themselves and all of a sudden they kind of they can kind of get there. There's also another area of that a lot of people go to somewhere

in between the pills and therapy, and that's supplementation. So there's a lot

that's supplementation. So there's a lot of people out there who like to use supplements and try to understand how to fix quote their insomnia with supplementation. So if we can let's talk

supplementation. So if we can let's talk a little bit about supplements and sort of what's good and what's bad.

>> What is the difference between a supplement and a pill or is it you talking about the same thing here? So

under the context of this conversation, a supplement is a non FDA regulated thing that you can purchase at any drugstore and a pill is a by

prescription only from a doctor.

>> Okay, >> that's how we're going to make the distinction for this particular conversation.

>> Okay, so those pills that are in front of you there, >> so right in front of me, these are most these are actually all supplements. So

these are different. So these are not pharmaceuticals. These are different

pharmaceuticals. These are different things. So, we've got

things. So, we've got >> I mean, in different countries, it's different right?

>> Great point. So, let's talk about melatonin since that's kind of the biggie that a lot of people like to know about. So, number one, melatonin is by

about. So, number one, melatonin is by prescription only almost everywhere other than the United States, >> right? So, in England, in Australia, in

>> right? So, in England, in Australia, in Europe, you can't just walk into the drugstore and buy melatonin. And there's

a reason. A lot of people don't realize it, but melatonin is a hormone. There's

a reason you can't go to the CVS and get testosterone and estrogen, right?

Because hormones affect the entire system. They affect all three almost 300

system. They affect all three almost 300 different things in your body. So what

you don't want to do is have somebody just willy-nilly grabbing a hormone and starting to pop it without somebody understanding what's going on with them.

More importantly, melatonin in particular, and the point I wanted to make earlier about depression, melatonin

interacts with all SSRI medication. An

SSRI is a serotonin specific reuptake inhibitor, an anti-depressant. So things

like Prozac, Zoloft, um, Selelexa, all of those are medications that will be affected by melatonin ingestion and nobody knows that it is. In addition,

melatonin affects birth control. Yes,

you heard it here, birth control. It

affects blood pressure medication and it affects diabetes medication. So, one of the problems is that people go into the local drugstore and they're like, "Oh, I'm going to grab some melatonin and I'm going to make my sleep better because

I'm sleeping poorly." So, first of all, that's not what melatonin does.

Melatonin is a sleep regulator, not a sleep initiator. Melatonin doesn't

sleep initiator. Melatonin doesn't affect sleep drive. Melatonin affects

sleep rhythm. So, remember in the beginning of our conversation, we're talking about the two systems. Melatonin only affects your brain telling it when it's time to go to bed. It does not make you sleepy. That's a denisonin. We

you sleepy. That's a denisonin. We

already talked about adenosin and caffeine and how similar their molecular structures are. So when you look at

structures are. So when you look at something like melatonin, you need to really be thoughtful about using it.

Number two, melatonin is not to be used in children. Okay? So a lot of people

in children. Okay? So a lot of people are like, "Michael, I've got pediatricians all over the country telling my telling me to give my children melatonin." I'm going to say it

children melatonin." I'm going to say it right here in front of everybody. That

is the dumbest idea I have heard in a long time because you just taught your child that they need a pill to sleep.

Normally, no child needs pills to sleep.

And by the way, most children make almost four times the amount of melatonin that their brain even needs.

So, giving them extra melatonin doesn't do you any good. There is, however, one group of children where melatonin does work well, and that's in kids on the autism spectrum. um we don't know

autism spectrum. um we don't know exactly why but um or at least I don't but there is data to suggest that at five six seven milligrams that that can

be very helpful for them. Dosage also is a problem like if you go to the drugstore you can you almost can't find it in the appropriate dose. The

appropriate dose is anywhere from about half a milligram to one and a half milligrams. Maybe top out at three but that's about as high as you want to go.

But when you go to CVS you find a gummies in 10 and 20 milligrams. And people tell me all the time, "Oh, I can't take melatonin. It gives me crazy dreams." Number one side effect of overdosing on melatonin is crazy dreams.

>> On this point of going to a supermarket and picking some melatonin off the shelf, >> FDA approval and the lack of FDA approval in melatonin means that there's

less clarity on what's actually in there. Right.

there. Right.

>> That's exactly right. I was reading about a study in 2024 um where they looked at different melatonins that were found on the shelf >> and they found very different things inside the bottle.

>> Very very different things. They looked

at an analysis of melatonin gummies marketed for children and found that the actual amount of melatonin ranged from 0% >> right >> to 667% of what was listed on the label.

>> Yep. See it all the time. And in the same study, melatonin gummies, some melatonin gummies contained absolutely no melatonin, while others contained hazardous contaminants like CBD that were not disclosed on the label.

>> Yep.

>> Because melatonin is sold as a supplement in the US and not a drug, the FDA does not test it for safety or accuracy before it hits the shelf.

>> You are 100% correct. And that's a huge problem. Just think about that for a

problem. Just think about that for a second. I mean, the market for melatonin

second. I mean, the market for melatonin is tremendous. It's huge in the

is tremendous. It's huge in the supplement world. Yet, there's no

supplement world. Yet, there's no regulation. whatsoever. Nobody knows

regulation. whatsoever. Nobody knows

about these interaction effects which are big, big, big. And by the way, most people are using it wrong. There's

really only three maybe four different instances when melatonin would be useful. I would use melatonin for jet

useful. I would use melatonin for jet lag, and we should talk about jet lag.

>> Um I I would use uh melatonin for shift workers, right? So for people who work,

workers, right? So for people who work, you know, night shift who have to sleep during the daytime, they would be excellent people to use melatonin.

people with a melatonin deficiency. A

lot of people don't think about that, but right around age 50 is when if you're going to have a melatonin deficiency, we start to see that happening for people is it their the ability to produce melatonin begins to decline. So, I think those three

decline. So, I think those three situations absolutely would be on board for melatonin. Believe it or not,

for melatonin. Believe it or not, there's some data to show that in ADD and ADHD there's uh some use for melatonin and then also for a very specific sleeping disorder called REM behavior disorder.

>> We're going melatonin crazy as a society, aren't we?

>> Absolutely. We don't need it. It's

completely unnecessary.

>> I was looking at the data. In 1999, 0.4% of Americans said they used melatonin.

Today, it's almost 30%. So, 70 million Americans up, dude. That is problematic.

And again, they have no idea what it's doing to them, right? And they're giving it to their kids. Like, I can't think of anything worse for a young female developing body than to add a contraceptive when it's not necessary.

Like, it just doesn't make sense to me.

The rise in children overdosing on sleep gummies is the fastest growing trend in poison control data.

>> Yeah, I think it's like almost 600% increase or something crazy like that for kids who have uh gotten uh who've overdosed on melatonin like within there was a study that came out maybe a year

ago, year and a half ago showed like almost 600% of uh increase in uh overdoses for kids. Like that's pretty messed up when you start to think about it. And here's the thing, kids know how

it. And here's the thing, kids know how to sleep, >> right? You just got to stop. You just

>> right? You just got to stop. You just

got to let them sleep, right? You got to give them some parameters. Here's when

you go to bed. Here's when you wake up.

Don't get out of bed. You know, don't come in and ask for 12 glasses of water.

You know, all the all the stuff that goes on there. I mean, it this isn't hard.

>> So, when and how So, I used melatonin once in my life.

>> Okay.

>> And I got to be honest, it [ __ ] worked.

>> Yeah. Oh, if you use it right, it works, bro.

>> And it was it was actually about a week ago because I'd been struggling with lots of jet lag. I'd flown from the UK to the LA to UK to LA to Cape Town to Middle East to wherever and I was

getting to bed every night at like 4:00 or 5 a.m. and still waking up at, you know, having to wake up at about 10:00.

>> So, I thought, I need to correct this.

It's been going for two weeks and I need to correct this.

>> Absolutely.

>> So, I thought, [ __ ] it, I'm going to cave. I g I took the melatonin and

cave. I g I took the melatonin and corrected it.

>> Yes, it does. So, let's talk about jet lag. So, it's a bit of a story, but I

lag. So, it's a bit of a story, but I got involved with a company that um has got an app, which is very interesting.

Okay. Um I don't have any like I'm not invested in the company, just to be clear, but it's one of my close friends who developed this. So, I'm kind of a space nerd.

>> It's not Time Shifter.

>> It is Time Shifter.

>> Oh, really?

>> It is.

>> I also like an affiliation with Time Shifter >> because I used to Yeah, I will get you that. So, here's what's fascinating is

that. So, here's what's fascinating is the way the whole time shifter started was um so aren't you kind of a space guy? Like, aren't you

guy? Like, aren't you >> I'm an investor in SpaceX and >> Okay. So, I'm a space nerd myself,

>> Okay. So, I'm a space nerd myself, right? So, you know, the the ISS is

right? So, you know, the the ISS is moving around at 17,500 miles an hour around the Earth. It's cooking.

>> ISS meaning the International Space Station. It's whipping around, right?

Station. It's whipping around, right?

>> Can you imagine how many sunrises and sunsets they get in a given day?

>> Oh, no. How many?

>> Every two hours. So, they basically get 12.

>> Wow. Think about how messed up their circadian rhythms would be from seeing the sunrise and seeing it go and see it gets really messed up, right? And by the way, you don't want to make big mistakes in the space station. Like you don't leave the air lock open, you know, or

[ __ ] like that. Like that's when things get really really bad. So they called down to NASA and they were like, "Hey, we got a problem up here. Everybody

wants to use the lab at the same time like people seeing the sun. Like what's

going on?" So they called a buddy of mine named Steven Lachley over at Harvard. Stephen is arguably the one of

Harvard. Stephen is arguably the one of the best circadian researchers in the world. um super smart dude and he was

world. um super smart dude and he was like, "Well, let's send up a lighting kit and let's create ships on the space station."

station." >> Mhm.

>> Right. So that's exactly what they did.

So they sent up a lighting kit. I think

it was on the Colombia um shuttle before it got decommissioned. And they set up lighting and then they set up timing for lighting. And so there was a morning

lighting. And so there was a morning shift, a midshift, and a night shift for the astronauts. Once they got the

the astronauts. Once they got the algorithm working, they brought it down terrestrially and they put it into the Mercedes-Benz uh Formula 1 race car team. So they gave it to Lewis Hamilton.

team. So they gave it to Lewis Hamilton.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. Because when you think about it, think about what he has to do, right?

He's on or off the podium on hundreds of a second, right? And he's in a different country every 3 weeks, >> right? So this guy's got jet lag like

>> right? So this guy's got jet lag like you wouldn't believe. And so once we were able to get it going there, then we created the time shifter app. And so

it's an app you can get it on your phone. And what you do is you put in

phone. And what you do is you put in your flight number and it automatically pulls up the flight and knows where you are. This is why I think that jet lag is

are. This is why I think that jet lag is a math problem. Let me explain. We

learned about 20 years ago that when you take a certain frequency and intensity of light and you shine it in somebody's eyes, you can move their circadian rhythm by about eight hours if you want to.

>> That circadian rhythm again being >> being that internal biological clock, the time when your body wants to go to bed and wants to wake up. We can

actually move that by about 8 hours with about 10,000 lux, which is the brightness level of blue light, particular frequency of light. Okay? So

when you hit that, if you start in LA and you're going to Manchester, right, and there's a big time difference and you know what time it is in LA and you know what time it is in Manchester, it's

a math problem of when do you get the light.

>> So that's what time shifter is, is it determines when do you need that light and then on the times when you don't need light, it has you use caffeine, right? Or to keep you awake or if it's

right? Or to keep you awake or if it's time to sleep, then you use a little bit of melatonin. That's when melatonin

of melatonin. That's when melatonin becomes so valuable.

>> It also tells you when to eat.

>> It does. It tells you all of these different things. And it's kind of nice

different things. And it's kind of nice because it kind of shows up on your phone. It's like, "Hey, do this then. Do

phone. It's like, "Hey, do this then. Do

this then." And it works really, really well. But yeah, Time Shifter is one of

well. But yeah, Time Shifter is one of my favorites. Uh I've been uh using it

my favorites. Uh I've been uh using it literally for 15 years.

>> Wow.

>> And it solves jet lag, bro. Like we're

going to fix that for you. No, no

question.

>> How often should someone be having melatonin? Is there like too often?

melatonin? Is there like too often?

Because some people literally have it every day. Yeah, I would argue it's a

every day. Yeah, I would argue it's a bad idea. So, if you have a melatonin

bad idea. So, if you have a melatonin deficiency, sure, have it every day.

But, um, or if you're a shift worker, probably. But I I use it only for jet

probably. But I I use it only for jet lag myself. Otherwise, I'm not using it

lag myself. Otherwise, I'm not using it on the regular.

>> And what's the risk there of having it every day? Is it?

every day? Is it?

>> Uh, it's a good question. So, when you start to look at melatonin overdose and you start to look at melatonin on board for long periods of time, there's been some conflict in the in the research.

Um, there's a group of people that say if you stay on melatonin for extended periods of time, your body stops producing it. There's another group of

producing it. There's another group of people that have looked at research and have said actually that's not the case.

So, right now we have we have studies that lead out to about a year or so on melatonin. And when you stop their

melatonin. And when you stop their melatonin production after they've been taking it for a year, their body seems to start back up no problem. It's

different than testosterone, right? So

with testosterone, we know that when men start taking testosterone, their body actually stops producing it. With

melatonin, that does not appear to be the case, but we don't have studies that go out past, you know, that yearong. And

so if somebody's been taking melatonin every day for 5 10 years, you know, you you kind of start to wonder uh what's going to happen. Also, don't forget that that melatonin is different than the melatonin that's actually produced in

your head. I think it was Andrew

your head. I think it was Andrew Huberman who I was speaking to a couple of weeks ago that was was saying about not giving kids an overdose of melatonin. And I think afterwards I I

melatonin. And I think afterwards I I was doing some research on it and I read something that said it has an impact on puberty potentially.

>> So in high dosages melatonin is a contraceptive.

>> So that would pause puberty.

>> Exactly. Or change it >> and ways we may or may not know. So, I

agree with Andrew on that point that again, melatonin is not something that kids need unless you've got kids on the spectrum, which is again where I find it to be helpful and I've treated kids with that before, but generally speaking, I

don't put melatonin on anybody under the age of 18.

>> Am I more likely to have nightmares if I'm having lots of melatonin?

>> If you're overdosing, you are. So, the

number one side effect of a high dose of melatonin is super vivid dreams and then eventually nightmares.

>> Why? I'm not really sure. If I was garnering a guess, then what I would say is that part of the reason why that you have crazy vivid dreams from melatonin

is because it probably does put you into REM sleep a little bit quicker than you normally would and might keep you there a little bit longer. I don't have any data to support that. So, I want to be clear. Um, this is more of a hypothesis

clear. Um, this is more of a hypothesis on my end, but that might make intuitive sense to me.

>> Just on a quick search, um, Sure. You're

right. It says it keep keeps you in REM sleep a little bit longer and more intensely.

>> There you go.

>> This leads to vivid highly vivid dreams or night terrors which paradoxically makes you wake up feeling more exhausted.

>> Right. I can't count the number of people who tell me >> I need to go back to sleep because I'm so exhausted from my dreams. >> Oh wow.

>> Right.

>> So let's finish off on these supplements then.

>> Yeah. Absolutely. So we talked a little bit about melatonin which like I said select usage. Um a couple of other ones

select usage. Um a couple of other ones that we've got here um one of them is Valyan. Right. So when we talk Valyan is

Valyan. Right. So when we talk Valyan is probably the most studied it's a root um it's called the Valyrian root but to be clear it's an anti-anxiety medication

right so what it is is it's it helps lower your level of anxiety um and that is the reason why it has a tendency to work interestingly when you look at the data it works better when combined with

hops like what you'd find in beer so a lot of times when you're looking for a preparation you should look for Valyan plus hops as the preparation also we should talk for a talking about

supplements. A lot of people don't

supplements. A lot of people don't understand this, but a lot of people will put a whole bunch of different supplements together and put it into a capsule. I don't think that's the best

capsule. I don't think that's the best idea. I think you should have single

idea. I think you should have single ingredient supplementation.

>> Why?

>> Well, number one, you get the correct dose so you know it's actually working for you. There's a lot of companies out

for you. There's a lot of companies out there that are uh that make a powder or something and they put a bunch of stuff in it and they put just enough in there to be able to say it on the ingredient profile, but not enough for it to

actually do any good for the patient.

So, I like using single ingredient pro uh supplement profiles because I know exactly how much of each thing that I'm going to get in there and I can make sure that it's the correct dosage for the what the person needs. So, I prefer

single ingredient supplementation.

>> Okay. So, val Valyan.

>> Yep. Valyan root.

>> Not going to mess up my hormones?

>> Nope. It's not going to mess up your hormones.

>> Going to help me with overthinking?

>> Probably not. What it'll probably do is slow your thinking down a little bit depending upon how much of it you take.

Um, I think if you were looking for a if you're looking for something that's going to slow down your thinking, then I would say we don't have the the thing here, but it's called GABA, GABA. Um,

gamma amunobbuteric acid. So, this is a substance that your body makes. It's

kind of the breaks of the brain, and you can buy it um as a supplement. I've had

several people use that, and that seems to help calm people down in the evening times.

>> What about ashwanaganda or whatever it's called?

>> Ashwagandha.

>> Ashwagandha.

>> Exactly. I just kind of like saying it.

So, here's my theory on supplementation is the first thing I tell people to do is go do blood work. Okay? What

deficiencies do you have? Fix your

deficiencies first before we start going to the valyians and the melatonins of it all. If you're deficient in vitamin D,

all. If you're deficient in vitamin D, magnesium, iron, fix those three things first. Dude, I can't tell you. I pro 15%

first. Dude, I can't tell you. I pro 15% of the people that show up at my doorstep we do blood work on and all I do is fix their deficiencies and their sleep magically gets better.

>> What are some of the surprising things though that you discover like blood sugar like diabetes that impacts sleep?

No, >> it absolutely does. I also think that a lot of people who have uncontrolled diabetes, it wakes them up in the middle of the night um because their blood sugar gets so low and then they're hungry in the middle of the night. Then

they up eating in the middle of the night then they have a sleep eating syndrome which is kind of a pain.

>> There's this one here that I've never heard of before. What's this uh it's called tryptophan. So uh elptophan in in

called tryptophan. So uh elptophan in in particular. So tryptophan is the

particular. So tryptophan is the substance that we find in turkey that has a tendency to make people sleepy.

However, when you really look at the data, you'd have to eat a 46 pound turkey in order to get enough tryptophan to make you sleepy. Even in my best days in college, dude, I couldn't eat a 46

pound turkey. Okay? Same holds true with

pound turkey. Okay? Same holds true with milk. Um, tryptophan is the thing in

milk. Um, tryptophan is the thing in warm milk that supposedly makes people uh, sleepy, but once again, you'd have to drink almost a half a gallon of warm milk, which is kind of disgusting um, in order to do it. Tryptophan can be

helpful for people if you have a tryptophan deficiency, but it's definitely something that lowers a little bit of anxiety and can make you feel a little bit sleepy, but it is a naturally occurring amino acid in your system.

>> Calcium.

>> So, calcium turns out is interesting because when you mix calcium with magnesium, it's easier to absorb. So for

some people mag we what we've discovered is if you have a magnesium deficiency and you fix the magnesium deficiency in many cases it can actually help with overall sleep and calcium is one of the

things that can be added to it that helps with absorption. Now unfortunately

the big problem is that there are 13 different kinds of magnesium out there and so people don't know what's been studied and what hasn't. So, I'm here to let you know there's only a couple of

brands out there that have actually been studied for magnesium. The ones I like is there's one called magnesium 308, which is made by a company called Magen.

Um, they actually have a published research study in the journals. That's

why I mentioned their brand name. I have

no association with them. There's also

another company called Upgraded Formulas. They make a magnesium. And

Formulas. They make a magnesium. And

kind of funny story is the guy who runs mag uh upgraded formulas told me he says my magnesium is the best in the world. I

can make anybody fall asleep. And I

said, "Hey, you want to put your money where your mouth is? Let's do a clinical trial." He handed me a check for 75

trial." He handed me a check for 75 grand. I went and did a clinical trial

grand. I went and did a clinical trial and he was right. His magnesium really made people sleep better.

>> What is magnesium doing?

>> So, we're not 100% sure. In the

deficient people, it's it's obviously clearing up the deficiency of magnesium.

And then magnesium is used in about I think almost 300 different functions in the body. So it probably lets the body

the body. So it probably lets the body work more efficiently and probably that helps to overall sleep. But I'm not convinced that we have the whole mechanism of action worked out. I will

tell you that when people take magnesium they tell me that they introspectively feel calmer and we definitely know that it can definitely help uh cause a relaxation response in the musculature.

So I think that might have something to do with that.

>> Why did you bring a banana and a knife and a teapot? Ah, this is my favorite way to get magnesium.

>> A lot of people want to know, "How should I take my supplements? I'm tired

of taking a fistful of pills every morning, Michael. There's these powders.

morning, Michael. There's these powders.

Like, what what's the best way?" The

best way So, number one, supplementation is when you're not getting all of the things, the vitamins and minerals that you need from your food. So, the best place to get it from is food. Generally

speaking, turns out magnesium is one of the best ones, but it's problematic because we have to eat our magnesium.

Our body doesn't actually produce it.

themselves. And by the way, you could eat a bushel of kale and still not get enough magnesium because here in the United States, the soil has been overtilled, which means the magnesium isn't in the soil. So, it's not coming

up through the root stocks and allowing people to have it. So, a lot of people require magnesium supplementation.

Believe it or not, between magnesium and vitamin D, I'd say we've probably covered most of America in terms of having a deficiency. Bananas are loaded with magnesium, but it turns out it's

not the fruit, it's the peel.

>> Oh. itself. So, no, I'm not going to make you eat the peel. Don't worry. So,

I developed a recipe that I call banana tea. All this is is a regular old

tea. All this is is a regular old banana. So, what I what you do is you

banana. So, what I what you do is you cut off the stem, right? And cut it in half and then you drop it in to some boiling water. Okay? So, we've already

boiling water. Okay? So, we've already done this, right? And you can see the banana has turned brown, right? It's

been soaking in the boiling water. So,

it's not really tea. It's just basically hot banana water. But with the banana from the skin, you also get these things called phytostereroids that actually help you absorb the magnesium better

than if you just had it from a supplement. So you have to really like

supplement. So you have to really like bananas. My daughter says it's very

bananas. My daughter says it's very banana e. Dad, the flavor, I mean.

banana e. Dad, the flavor, I mean.

>> Oh, it does smell like bananas.

>> I'm telling you, if you like bananas, >> it's nice.

>> I know it's nice. And you can use this as a like an evening ritual and you can make banana tea and have it in the evening with, you know, a biscuit or what have you and have a nice and read a book and just be chill.

>> How do I know the magnesium is actually in there?

>> Cuz it came through from the from the um steeping in the water.

>> Okay.

>> Well, you could test it if we want, but I can assure you it's in there. You need

to leave it in there for about 5 minutes and we've been talking for a while, so I'm pretty sure it's there.

>> And and how long before sleep to get those effects?

>> I would say about 2530 minutes. You

don't want to have too much, by the way, because then you're gonna have to wake up and pee. So try if you can >> to be able to have it about 30 40 minutes before bed.

>> So you can put it in anything. A lot of people have different types of teas. So

you could just use that as the water instead.

>> Yeah. Oh, without question. Actually,

that would be a really good idea. And

you could, if you did it, if you mix it with like a fruit tea, like an herbal fruit tea, that would be really delicious.

>> Are there any other supplements that you, you know, you do encourage people to take if they're struggling with sleep that we haven't talked about yet?

>> We haven't talked about vitamin D, and that's a big one. So it turns out that vitamin D is a circadian pacemaker. So

when light comes into your eyeballs, it helps change your whole uh circadian system. And if you're if light is coming

system. And if you're if light is coming in for a certain amount of time, about 15 minutes, your body will start to produce vitamin D. Vitamin D does a whole host of important things to your body. But most importantly from a sleep

body. But most importantly from a sleep perspective, is it helps regulate melatonin and when your body produces it. So by taking vitamin D every day or

it. So by taking vitamin D every day or getting 15 minutes of sunshine, either way, you're going to be in better shape.

So, like as an example, my morning routine that I have all my patients do is I have them when they wake up in the morning, I have them uh go outside if it's if it's, you know, nice out, sit in

a chair and have 15 deep breaths merely to wake up the respiratory system, then 15 ounces of water cuz once again, remember, you're dehydrated, and then 15 minutes of sunshine. So, they can do all of this together at the same time. And

it's a nice way to wake up in the morning.

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>> So, let's talk about waking up in the morning.

>> Sure.

>> Morning routines.

>> Yep.

>> A lot of people talk about what's the perfect morning routine? Do you need to have a morning routine? What's your take on that? So, it depends upon how

on that? So, it depends upon how disciplined you want to be and it depends upon how much time you have. I

can tell you what my morning routine is because it's very specific and I I've discovered that it works really really well for me. So, I wake up naturally somewhere between 6:10 and about 6:25 or

so. My body just seems to naturally wake

so. My body just seems to naturally wake up. I do 15 minutes of red light

up. I do 15 minutes of red light therapy. So, I have a red light uh in my

therapy. So, I have a red light uh in my office that I sit in front of and I do my meditation at the same time in the morning time. So, I have about 15

morning time. So, I have about 15 minutes of meditation. Sometimes what

I'll do is um I'll sit on the floor and the boys will come and sit on my lap and then we'll all meditate together. I know

that sounds a little weird. Then um we use a we do a 15-minute walk. I try not to have any music or any telephone or anything like that uh up at all up until this point. I put the dogs away and then

this point. I put the dogs away and then I hit the gym. I'm at the gym from about 8 till about 9:30, 10:00. I do a sauna every day afterwards and then I'm in front of my desk by about 10:30 and

that's is when I have my breakfast. And

so I make the same breakfast almost every morning. I do uh ground turkey

every morning. I do uh ground turkey with uh a third of a pound of ground turkey, three eggs and broccoli and I I put it all into a skillet and I make it every morning.

>> Do you use any sleep trackers?

>> In the past I've used uh a few of them.

I I try them out because a lot of my patients try them out. Um, I think if I was going to be looking at them, I think the aura ring probably does the best job. I really don't think they've gotten

job. I really don't think they've gotten there quite yet because remember depth of sleep is based on brain waves and it's hard to get brain waves from your finger, right? And so what they're doing

finger, right? And so what they're doing is they're creating a proxy. So they're

looking at heart rate or oxygen or pulse or something along those lines and then saying, "Okay, when Stephven's at this pulse, we think he's in REM sleep, so we're going to label every time that REM sleep." when in fact they don't really

sleep." when in fact they don't really know because they're not measuring your brain waves. So I think until we get to

brain waves. So I think until we get to the point where we can measure brain waves from distally, I think we'll have a little bit better shot at it. However,

>> there's some interesting things that are going on kind of in the sleep tracker world. And some people get a little too

world. And some people get a little too into the whole tracking of it all, if you know what I mean. Like I can't count the number of people that are like, "Oh my god, Dr. Bruce, you know, this says I only slept 14 minutes last night. Like

what do I do?" And I'm like, "Well, number one, how much did you sleep the night before?" And they say, "Oh, 16

night before?" And they say, "Oh, 16 minutes." I'm like, "Okay, well, let's

minutes." I'm like, "Okay, well, let's check you tomorrow." They come back tomorrow, it's even worse, 12 minutes.

I'm like, "Oh, you're fine." They're

like, "What?" I'm like, "Look, it's being consistently inaccurate. There's

no way you only got 14 minutes of deep sleep, right? That's just not how the

sleep, right? That's just not how the body works, right? But if you got 14 minutes, 14 minutes, and then one night you look at your score and it's 407 minutes.

>> I want to know what happened on that night."

night." >> My friend was a big fan of Whoop. So, he

told me to try a Whoop. I tried a Whoop.

the the most I think critical thing it's done for me is it allowed me to create some understanding of like causation and like associations with my sleep. So one

of the ones that completely changed my life when I first wore my Whoop, which by the way I'm an investor in the company so I have to disclaimer that >> um was I didn't realize how impactful sleep alcohol was on my sleep.

>> It's massive.

>> Like it blew my mind cuz I had had one glass of wine.

>> Yep. And then the bloody whoop thing said you're either really sick um really stressed or you drank alcohol. And then

I watched a video online where they compared all of the devices to the hospital grade stuff.

>> Yep. Poly synography

>> and the Whoop 4 was the closest to the hospital grade. And then I contacted the

hospital grade. And then I contacted the company and said can I invest etc etc. I've also tried I've also tried like a sleep and >> I would argue that temperature like if we're talking about what is the easiest thing to manipulate to change your sleep

either good or bad temperature is it um and people don't realize it but you can change the temperature in your bedroom even in your bed and you can change the quality of your sleep. You mentioned

eight that's a company that has a a topper type of thing that can change the uh the temperature underneath the covers. There's also taking a look at

covers. There's also taking a look at the the accutramal that's on. So

pillows, sheets, comforters, all of those things. But if you can get your

those things. But if you can get your body to cool down, your body will go down and get into deeper stages of sleep. If you can stay cool versus

sleep. If you can stay cool versus bumping up and down all night long, let's say you're a woman in menopause, right? That becomes highly disruptive.

right? That becomes highly disruptive.

And so by being a by being able to keep a consistent temperature stimulus to the body, it ends up sleeping a whole lot better.

>> Dreams. Let's talk about dreams. People are so fascinated by dreams, >> aren't they? I love it.

>> But but so little is known about dreams. >> Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, here's

>> Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, here's the thing. Dreams have been studied

the thing. Dreams have been studied honestly since the dawn of time. If you

look in the Bible, you will see that people are talking about dreams. If you look at ancient texts, people are wondering about these crazy movies that are going on in my head. Right? When you

start to look at dreams, here's the thing that I will tell you is dreams mean something to the dreamer. They

don't necessarily mean something to somebody who is not the dreamer. And so

when I do dream work and so I so to be clear, just take a step back, I took a year and a half and I became a dream therapist. So what does that mean? What

therapist. So what does that mean? What

is that even is that even a thing? So

dream therapy, by the way, is not dream interpretation. That is not here's a

interpretation. That is not here's a symbol, here's what that means. Dream

therapy is where you use dreams in the therapeutic context to help people with things like depression and anxiety.

>> Let me give you an example. A nightmare,

right? So when somebody has, let's say somebody was in an active theater of war and they watched one of their friends, god forbid, something terrible happened to them and that image is now in their head and now they constantly have this

image over and over and over. But what

happens is they're going, going, going going and they wake up. They're going,

going, going going going, they wake up.

We talked a little bit about it earlier that dreams are emotional metabolism, right? So dreams are where you work out

right? So dreams are where you work out all of these different things that are going on in your head and kind of become okay with them so that way next day you can kind of move forward and keep keep doing your thing.

>> Do we need to explain why we dream because I think that's the big sort of >> Sure. So there's a couple of theories.

>> Sure. So there's a couple of theories.

One theory is is that this is a great stage for for practice, right? So we

dream about things that we're eventually going to try in the real world and so we get a chance to practice them in our head beforehand to to make sure it doesn't we don't kind of screw the whole thing up. So there's that whole idea of

thing up. So there's that whole idea of being able to kind of work stuff out in my head. Then there's the processing

my head. Then there's the processing idea that we talked about before where this is emotional metabolism. So

therapy, >> right? Exactly. It's like you go to

>> right? Exactly. It's like you go to therapy every single night. I actually

that's a really good way to think about it. I hadn't thought about it like that,

it. I hadn't thought about it like that, but I think I'm going to use that. I'm

going to take that from you. Um, I like that dreams are therapy every single night because they really are. You're

really moving through a lot of that emotionality. Some people think dreams

emotionality. Some people think dreams are complete nonsense. Some people think that's just some crazy movie in your head and it's just this after effect of your brain moving into a different mode and who knows what it could mean. I find

that one hard to believe myself >> because humans don't do anything.

>> I don't think so.

>> That isn't for some type of survival benefit >> for sure.

>> It's a waste of energy or you know >> Yeah, I agree. And so if we looked at it from an evolutionary perspective, like what is the evolutionary purpose of dreams, I would argue that it probably

has something to do with emotions and being able to uh move through some emotionally difficult times and or it's an early warning system. A lot of people dream things and uh it helps them understand something else that's going

on in their life. You ever heard the um thing uh people say, I before I make a big decision, I want to sleep on it.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. this is what they're doing is when they sleep on it all these desperate pieces of information come together and work themselves so that you can come to a solution. So I think the other thing that reason that we dream is

to come to solutions and to create innovation >> that tracks in my life. I I can be going to bed really thinking about something quite like you know remunerating about

something to the point that it's like overthinking and it's a problem. It's

stressing me out.

>> I can get eight hours sleep and wake up and it's like the clouds have parted, >> right? It's like magic.

>> right? It's like magic.

>> It's like magic.

>> It's great. And I only real realized this in the last couple of years when you know business my businesses got bigger and there was more problems to to work through that like actually I could use sleep as a weapon against the problem. Absolutely.

problem. Absolutely.

>> Versus trying to stay up all night and solve the problem. I could focus on the sleep to solve the problem.

>> Yeah. I do it all the time. And and what you can actually do it's called priming is you can think about the problem in a in a way before you go to sleep and then it triggers your brain to think about

the problem while you're sleeping. what

you write it down or do you >> There's a lot of different ways you can go about doing it. So, for example, what I have some people do is write down everything they can remember in their dream beforehand before they come to therapy. But what you can do is

therapy. But what you can do is something different. If you want to

something different. If you want to change your dream, you write it all down, but that you change the ending.

Okay? And you read it several times before bed and it will actually change your dream.

>> So, what am I writing down before bed then?

>> So, let's say you had a scary dream.

Okay? You're walking through a haunted house and something terrible is going to happen when you walk out the back door >> the night before.

>> Yeah. The night before. Then I have you write all of that down and then when you come into session with me, I say, "Okay, we're going to change the ending because at the at the very end, you walked out onto the porch and somebody got you right." So instead of that happening,

right." So instead of that happening, you're going to walk out to the porch and you're going to pull out a gun and you're going to shoot the guy. Okay? And

so we change that in the dream in the right in what you wrote down and then we talk about it in therapy. And then right before bed, you read this to yourself

multiple times and it over 7 to 10 days, you change the ending of the dream.

>> And how does that help?

>> So it makes it more positive. And when

you change the ending, the reason you're waking up is something is scaring you so much that you're waking up and you stop processing. And so when you change the

processing. And so when you change the ending and you don't wake up, you continue to process and then you move past the dream. Just like you said when you wake up and the clouds have cleared.

>> A lot of people wake up and the clouds don't clear because they have nightmares and they keep repeating it over and over and over again.

>> H >> it's quite remarkable. The process is very interesting. So what I do is I

very interesting. So what I do is I bring them into session put them into a mild hypnotic state uh only by doing some simple breath work. Right? So let

me give you an example of somebody that I worked with and tell you exactly how it went. So I was working with somebody

it went. So I was working with somebody who had had uh pretty significant trauma. They had been raped. Right? And

trauma. They had been raped. Right? And

so they were having nightmares about this. So serious situation, right? So

this. So serious situation, right? So

she had a she had a nightmare of being in a jungle. And so I had her come in session, wrote it all down. And when we got to the end, we were walking through the jungle. She was actually being

the jungle. She was actually being chased through the jungle. So I turn to her and I say, "Okay, well, we're in the jungle. Tell me more about this jungle."

jungle. Tell me more about this jungle."

And she says, "What do you mean?" I

said, "Well, in jungles there's lots of tropical plants. There a lot of colorful

tropical plants. There a lot of colorful flowers." and she'll stop and you can

flowers." and she'll stop and you can see she's looking around inside her head at the dreamscape and then she says, "Oh, there are there's some beautiful flowers over there. I've now advanced

the dream, right?" Because she didn't know there were flowers before. Now

she's imagined that they're flowers. I'm

moving the dream forward. So, we go over and we smell the flower. And I said, "Well, you know, usually in jungles there's there's animals. Are there any animals?"

animals?" "Yeah, there's a lion." "Oh gosh, is the lion friendly?" "Yeah, the lion is

lion friendly?" "Yeah, the lion is friendly. Can we go over and talk to the

friendly. Can we go over and talk to the lion? Yeah, Michael, we can. So, again,

lion? Yeah, Michael, we can. So, again,

in her head, we walk over. So, I say to her, "Uh, does the lion have a name?"

And she said, "I don't know. Let me

ask." So, she asked the lion his name.

And she said, "Yeah, his name is Jack."

And I said, "What does Jack mean to you?" And instantly she says, "Jack was

you?" And instantly she says, "Jack was my uncle and he saved me from getting raped by my stepfather."

Now, we're getting somewhere. Now, we

understand what's chasing her. Now, we

understand where she's headed to. She's

trying to head to the person that saved her. Now she starts to understand where

her. Now she starts to understand where this dream is coming from. And guess

what? In three or four more sessions, she doesn't have the dream anymore >> because you did what?

>> Because she now understands where it is.

She's no longer scared in the middle of her dream. She's able to understand it,

her dream. She's able to understand it, wake up, and move forward.

>> It's remarkable.

It's kind of the coolest thing ever. If

you want to know the truth of the matter, working with people's dreams is just ma amazing stuff. And for people at home that might not have access to you, >> um is is a is there a simple thing that they can do to start to sort of get a

hold of these dreams?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Number one is you could actually start a dream journal.

>> So it's just a journal. Um and there's a couple things that you would write down in a given dream journal. So you might write down um what was the theme, right?

So was it was like describe it like was it dark out? Was it light out? Uh was it scary? Was it happy? You might describe

scary? Was it happy? You might describe the surroundings of it and you might describe the people that are in it as well. um and start listing these things

well. um and start listing these things and getting as detailed as you possibly can. Once you've kind of gotten through

can. Once you've kind of gotten through the point of getting the details down of your dream, then if you want to change them, you can change the ending. It's

not hard. You just change it the way you want it to be. Then you start to read it over for yourself. Now, I want to be clear, in terrible nightmare situations, this can be a little bit difficult. And

so, you're probably going to want to talk with your therapist about it and maybe work with the therapist while doing something like this. But it is absolutely possible to collect information from in a dream journal u and be able to do some interesting stuff

with it. I would not recommend taking

with it. I would not recommend taking your dream and stuffing it into chat GPT and asking chat GPT what it means. Um

lots and lots of people are doing that these days. And here's why that's

these days. And here's why that's probably not the best idea. So number

one, unless chat GPT really knows and understands you there, it's going to give some very broadbased sort of encyclopedia. you know, here's a symbol

encyclopedia. you know, here's a symbol that means this type of thing, which once again, we have very little evidence that that actually works. So, I would argue that you're better off talking about your dreams with people who know

you. Um, because they can actually help

you. Um, because they can actually help you understand a little bit more about what's going on.

>> There's a few other items on the table here. Um, I mean, this is I don't use

here. Um, I mean, this is I don't use this exact one, but maybe I should, but this has been an absolute game changer for me when I travel, when I'm on planes.

>> I love a good sleep mask. My wife says it looks like I'm living in the 50s.

you know, when I'm wearing it. But I

love a good sleep mask. That one in particular is pretty cool because you can remove the eye cups and you can change the sizing of where you want it.

And then these can actually you can replace these with things that heat or cool.

>> Um, but I love that that particular eye mask. It works. Yeah, it's really works

mask. It works. Yeah, it's really works quite well. It's very dark in there. You

quite well. It's very dark in there. You

definitely can't see up there.

>> Crazy, >> right?

>> And then I've got one more thing that I think people will find interesting. I

can't explain how how much of a game changer it has been to cover my eyes when I go to sleep because gosh the amount of nights per week where I don't know there's like a crack in the in the curtains or I don't know someone gets up

early and >> well also for you you're traveling all the time you're in different you're in planes you're in different environments also by the way every time you're in a different environment you have something called the first night effect so we see

this with every human on earth when you sleep in a new place for the first night you never sleep well because it's new sounds new sights you know, new smells, all that stuff is new. So, what's nice about having this is when I put one of

these on, I don't have to worry about light. I don't have to worry about

light. I don't have to worry about anything.

>> Does CO2 play a role?

>> In what way?

>> In changing sleep. I was thinking if ventilation, the amount of oxygen in the room matters at all because sometimes I go to hotels and they don't have windows you can open.

>> Right. So, air quality is also a important thing, not just air quantity, right? And so number number one thing if

right? And so number number one thing if I was to tell people, hey, here's an easy thing to do to to make your sleep better, just go out and buy an air purifier for your bedroom. Think about

it. It's the room you spend more time in than any other room in the house. You

want that air to be fresh and filtered, right? And not a big, it's not

right? And not a big, it's not expensive. 20 25 bucks. One sits in the

expensive. 20 25 bucks. One sits in the corner, just runs the air, cycles all day long. That way you know you have

day long. That way you know you have good clean fresh air. Um, also I tell people open the windows once a week. Um,

it's good to get fresh air in. Now, the

only problem comes is if you have allergies and the allergens fly in and there's pollen or dust or things like that, that can be somewhat problematic.

But generally speaking, if you don't have enough oxygen going on, you're definitely not going to sleep well and your body's going to wake up. So, if you were in, let's say, a oxygen restrictive environment, so let's say that you were

underneath the covers, >> right? And you've got the thing all all

>> right? And you've got the thing all all the way over your head, you're not going to sleep particularly well and eventually you're going to get so feel so restricted that you're going to open up the covers. I want to understand the best possible sleep position. I do have

a bed um in the room next door that we can go to and talk about these pillows.

But before we do that, >> sure.

>> I would like to talk about >> relationships, arguing with your partner, sex, all those kinds of things.

What do I need to know >> to protect my sleep, but also to protect my relationship? If we start with

my relationship? If we start with talking about I know you wrote about it in your book, um the power of when you talked about I think it's on page 10 >> 101. You talk about arguing with your

>> 101. You talk about arguing with your partner before bed.

>> Yes.

Possibly the worst thing you can possibly do is argue with your partner before bed. Um because it's increasing

before bed. Um because it's increasing heart rate, right? What I tell all my patients to do is if you if you need to have an important discussion with your

spouse or your partner, do it right after dinner, right? So like in that 7:00 range, 7 to 8:00 range. So that way you have enough space and time to be able to discuss something and not

hopefully go to bed angry if you can avoid it at all possible. It happens.

Look, I can't say that I've never gone to bed angry. I'm sure you can't say that either. Sometimes things are a

that either. Sometimes things are a bigger deal. But if you can find better

bigger deal. But if you can find better times to schedule those things, they work out a lot better. For me, the other thing that I oftentimes ask a lot of my patients to do is, for example, if there's known issues that are going on,

like let's say somebody's going through marital therapy or there's there's an issue that they're trying to work on, then maybe that's better off done at 11:00 in the daytime versus starting to

kind of address some of those issues in the evening time. I like evening times to be as stressfree as humanly possible.

Now, if you got something you got to talk about, you got to talk about it.

But generally speaking, I would say the le the less emotionality that you have in towards the evening, the better.

Unless it's joy or happiness.

>> So many couples, they have these difficult conversations on the pillow.

>> Yeah.

>> Including me sometimes.

>> Yeah. Well, and it makes sense like when else do you see that person, right? You

haven't seen them all day. You're you're

literally face to face like, "Hey, I got something I got to talk to you about.

This is kind of the best time to do it."

>> It ruins your sex life as well, doesn't it? absolutely ruins your sex life

it? absolutely ruins your sex life unless you have makeup sex afterwards and then it's great but at the end of the day it's not a lot of fun to have those conversations at night. That's

again why I choose to if I'm going to have that conversation the best time honestly to do it is right after breakfast.

>> In my relationship we've banned uh difficult conversations at night time.

>> Good. That's probably a smart move.

Dude, >> you're tired and it's going to destroy your sleep, >> right?

>> You you can't think straight. You're

probably more emotional >> and you haven't put all the pieces together yet of the issues that are really going on. I can assure you if you sleep and then have your discussion in the morning, you'll actually think about the issue better.

>> It's so crazy. As I've gotten older, I've realized how much of my mood is determined by my sleep. Like, it's so And I think it's got worse with age.

>> Oh, absolutely it does.

>> Because at 25 you could blow [ __ ] off.

Oh, yeah. Or you could drink a monster or a mood. Yeah. Sleep matters. And I think

mood. Yeah. Sleep matters. And I think that's what you're that's that's the button that you're pushing here. And I

think it's important for your audience to hear that, right? is look, you're 33 years old and you're already seeing things changing in your sleep that have a big effect in your life. I'm 58 years old, okay? I see the same thing

old, okay? I see the same thing happening. Everybody, sleep is so

happening. Everybody, sleep is so fundamental to the human condition that it's one of those things that we've got to really pay attention to. And the

thing is, most people don't pay attention to it because they're like, "Well, my body does it automatically, Michael. Like, how tough could this be?"

Michael. Like, how tough could this be?"

I walk into that room in the back of the house, I turn off the lights, h go to bed, then I wake up, something magical happens, and I should be great, right?

doesn't always work that way.

>> I was reading in your work about the best time to fall in love.

>> Yes.

>> That's a strange thing for a >> somebody of your profession to be thinking much about was in this book, was it?

>> Yeah, it was.

>> Yeah.

>> When you think about it, everything is based on timing, right? So, the timing when your hormones at a certain point and you meet that person and their hormones at a certain point and then all

of the sudden there's a connection, >> right? That's hard to do when you're

>> right? That's hard to do when you're exhausted, right? Try going on a first

exhausted, right? Try going on a first date when you're completely like when it's the worst, right? You know, you're not giving a good impression of yourself. You know that you're not

yourself. You know that you're not getting a good impression of that person because your mind is not going where it needs to be. So, there's timing involved and understanding your chronoype and

that person's chronoype really leads you in that positive direction. And I would argue that it's pretty easy to fall in love at that time.

>> Okay. So, in your book, >> um, Power of When, >> yes.

>> On page 9, uh,4, you say, "Dolphin's best mood is in the afternoon to evening." So, the best time for them to

evening." So, the best time for them to fall in love is 8:00 p.m. Lions

>> 700 a.m.,

>> right? Cuz remember, they're early morning people. They're exhausted at the

morning people. They're exhausted at the end.

>> Damn. So, they should be going on morning dates.

>> Yes.

>> Bears, >> 400 p.m. And the wolf, like me, 11:00 p.m. That tracks.

p.m. That tracks.

>> Yeah, I get it. So, should I be doing my, you know, okay, I'm in a relationship. I'm about to be married.

relationship. I'm about to be married.

But, um, I should >> you got engaged. Congratulations.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Yeah, >> but I should be doing my dates later. It

kind of tracks. That's kind of when I did them.

>> Well, look at your whole schedule, dude.

You don't do a thing before 11.

>> That's true.

>> Right. I think you're exactly like I am.

>> Shall we go and look at the best possible sleep position?

>> Yeah, let's check it out. And we talk about pillows, too.

>> Okay. So, I'll bring all the pillows with me.

>> Okay, great.

>> Okay. Okay. So, we're going to go into the next room where there's a bed and you're going to tell me what can you tell me when we look at the bed. How can

you help?

>> So, there's a couple of different things. So, number one, I'm going to

things. So, number one, I'm going to look at your starting sleep position and I'm going to give you some feedback about that. Then, we're going to fit you

about that. Then, we're going to fit you for the right kind of pillow for you.

And then there's some cool technology in there that I want to show you as well that can help keep you cool all night long.

>> And do we need to take this with us?

>> Yes, take that one. And then, how many pillows are there?

>> I think there's five.

>> There's five different pillows. Okay,

great. Let's

>> They all do different things.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Okay, so we're now downstairs in a bedroom we have in the house. I have

lots of pillows here, quite a few.

>> And there's a bunch of questions I have for you. The first is

for you. The first is >> pillows. Do they matter? Is there a

>> pillows. Do they matter? Is there a perfect one? Is it different for every

perfect one? Is it different for every individual >> sleeping position? Is there a perfect sleeping position? There is.

sleeping position? There is.

>> And the third one is about temperature.

>> You got it. Let's go.

>> So I just grab whatever pillow is in the bed wherever I travel.

>> Terrible idea.

>> Really >> terrible idea. So, first of all, a lot of people need to understand that a pillow is a bed for your head, right?

And so, the goal here is to keep your nose in line with your sternum, which is sort of the center part of your chest, right? And but you don't want it facing

right? And but you don't want it facing down and you don't want it facing up.

You want it to be completely in the center like that. And so, if you have a pillow that tilts your head to the one way or tilts your head to the other, it causes a pain signal from the strain of the musculature that goes to your brain.

You don't get into deep sleep. So, you

really want to make sure that you've got a good pillow. Otherwise, you end up with a crick in your neck. You don't get good deep sleep. It becomes problematic.

>> Okay. All

>> right. So, the big question is how do you pick a pillow? Right. So, first

question you want to ask yourself is squishy or firm? Right. So, let's take a look at our tower of pillows here.

>> So, for you, let's let's take a look.

So, this is a pretty firm one. This is a basically a foam based hunk of foam pillow, right? Versus this one, which is

pillow, right? Versus this one, which is sort of the normal kind of pillow, much more squishy. So, which are you? A

more squishy. So, which are you? A

squishy or a firm?

>> That one.

>> Okay, perfect. So, you're more on the squishy, which means you like to manipulate the pillow. You don't want it to have a huge form factor where your like head is on a block of cheese, right? Got it. So, perfect. So, let's

right? Got it. So, perfect. So, let's

move this foam pillow out of the way.

>> The second thing you want to look at from the pillow is when the fabric comes together here, it forms what's called a knife's edge. So, it's where the two

knife's edge. So, it's where the two pieces of fabric meet. Now, why is that important? Because when you have your

important? Because when you have your head on a pillow like this and the knife's edge is down here, you're not getting as much support underneath your neck here, right? So, in order to fix

that, we have something called a gusset.

So, a gusset is this piece of fabric that comes along here. So, you notice these two pieces of fabric don't meet.

There's a thickness here. So, when you were to sleep on it, it actually catches you all the way down. So, let's say you would be like this, you it gives you support all the way down. Now, you don't

like the foam of it all, but you do like the the gusset, right?

>> Here's one that's got the gusset without the foam. So, it's squishy and has the

the foam. So, it's squishy and has the gusset. So, if you were going to use

gusset. So, if you were going to use this, >> that's good.

>> So, now we've been able to fit you for the pillow. Now, the next question we

the pillow. Now, the next question we have, uh, well, the last one is there are some special types of pillows.

Actually, this one has got a cutout. So,

you notice how that's got like a moon here. It fits perfectly here. here. And

here. It fits perfectly here. here. And

notice, right, this is this is my personal pillow.

>> Oh, okay. I can So, >> you have to shift.

>> I know. Sorry. Um, and so you can see it really comes all the way down to your neck and it gives you support all the way from the base of your neck all the way up through. And that's one of the reasons that I like it cuz I can cut it out and put it right there on me.

>> For the average person, if if they had to pick one pillow without you knowing anything about them, which pillow would you pick of these six?

>> So, of all of these six, well, if I had my choice, I'd pick this one because this is my favorite. By the way, there's also another feature of this that I think is important to that people should notice is it's got a zipper, which means

I can change the stuffing and I can pull it out or put it in. So, I can change the height of my pillow.

>> And what stuffing is that?

>> This is actually a shredded latex.

>> Okay.

>> Which I really like to sleep on.

>> So, what's this pillow called?

>> So, this is by a company called Coupe.

Um, and um I like it because of the change in the in the shape as well as the stuffing and the zipper on the side.

It really makes it kind of what I would argue to be probably the best pillow out.

>> And what's the worst pillow?

>> The worst pillow that we've got here, this one. So, almost no support, right?

this one. So, almost no support, right?

It's super squishy, >> right? We don't we don't we have the

>> right? We don't we don't we have the knife's edge here. There's not much to it. Also, by the way, it feels like this

it. Also, by the way, it feels like this is made with polyester, which is a heat trapper. Now, let's lie you down on the

trapper. Now, let's lie you down on the bed, get you in your starting sleep position, and I'm going to show you exactly where the pillow should go and what pillow should be for you. So, if

you can lie down for me. Now, what is your starting sleep position? Are you a back sleeper? You a side sleeper? You a

back sleeper? You a side sleeper? You a

stomach sleeper?

>> I start on my stomach and I roll to my right.

>> Got it. Okay, perfect. Go ahead and get on your stomach for >> By the way, how weird is that?

>> Roughly 75% of sleepers are side sleepers, either right or left. So,

you're definitely not don't fall into that category. Another 20 or so percent

that category. Another 20 or so percent are back sleepers. You're in the like 5% category of stomach sleepers. The reason

it's the worst position is when you're lying on your stomach, right, and the pillow is here. You're pushing on your back here and it causes what's called a spllay, which is extra pressure on your lower back. And that can give you low

lower back. And that can give you low back pain over time.

>> I only do it for the first like 10 minutes >> and then you rotate.

>> And then I rotate onto my side.

>> Which side? Right or left?

>> My right. This side.

>> Perfect. So in all actuality, you actually want to be on your left side because when you lie on your right side, you're actually all of your organs push down onto your stomach and it can leak some of those gastric juices and you end up with something called

gastroosophageal reflux disease. So the

way I teach people is right is wrong. So

you don't sleep on your right side, you sleep on your left side if you can. If

you can, but let's fit you anyway. Let's

go ahead and get you down on your what would be your right side and let's see how you do. Lie down.

>> How I normally lie down.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Okay. This is how I lie down when I first get in bed for the first time. I

can't wait to see.

>> I'm like this. I move the pillow out the way >> and I just learn lay like this for a while.

>> Okay. And you have no pillow.

>> No pillow.

>> Perfect. And then when you rotate to get to your side.

>> Yeah.

>> Show me that.

>> I sleep like this on my on my right side.

>> Like roughly like this.

>> So, what you'll notice is your shoulder is now up into this part here. So, it's

still being supported. Your head is fine. And what you'll notice is his head

fine. And what you'll notice is his head is in line with his sternum, right? His

nose is in line there. It's not falling too far. It's not overextended.

too far. It's not overextended.

>> That's my sternum.

>> Your sternum is the direct center of your chest. It's the m like your breast

your chest. It's the m like your breast plate is what you would call it, right?

Right. Sort of in the center of So, you want your nose to be in line with that, which it basically is. And when I look at your head, your head is not tilted to one side or another. So, I know there's no more neck strain. So, that would be

the perfect pillow for you. But that

happens to be my pillow. So, I'm not going to give it to you, but I might get you one if you're nice to me.

>> Thank you. What about these other pillow? So, the bad one was which one?

pillow? So, the bad one was which one?

The bad one was this one. So now go ahead and put yourself on that one.

>> Yeah, I'm going too far down.

>> Right. And you're not even trying. Like

you don't even have to push your head that far. And and you can see and your

that far. And and you can see and your and look where do you put your arm? Your

arm's not supported. Like it's becomes like people don't realize it but pillows matter. What I try to tell people is I

matter. What I try to tell people is I used to be a runner and when you're a runner like equipment matters like your shoes matter, your music matters, your your dry fit wear matters. The same

holds true with sleep. If you don't have good pillow, good mattress, good sheets, you don't have the right equipment, you're not going to get good sleep.

>> That is a terrible pillow.

>> I'm telling you, >> really, really bad pillow. Okay, so

sleeping on my left side is the correct side >> with a good pillow.

>> With a good pillow.

>> But now, let's talk about temperature.

>> Y.

>> So, while you're lying here, you may have noticed that there's different temperature on either side of the bed.

>> So, if you feel here >> Oh, it's warm.

>> It is.

That's correct. So when you're lying there, your body will naturally become more warm. So remember how we were

more warm. So remember how we were talking that sleep follows the core body temperature cycle, right? And so as your core body temperature drops, you want your environment to drop with it because

if it doesn't and the environment is too hot, you can't fall asleep. So this is a product. It's called an Orion sleep

product. It's called an Orion sleep system, and it's a topper that's you're lying on top of. Has a thin tube that goes through it. You can't feel the tube. should feel cool over there and

tube. should feel cool over there and warm over here.

>> It's cold here, it's warm here.

>> Exactly. And we and you can rotate it however you want. But what's so fascinating about this is you can actually set it so that it follows your circadian rhythm and it actually can help you stay asleep. The only thing

that you as a consumer can manipulate in your sleep. Like you can't write a

your sleep. Like you can't write a pharmaceutical right prescription. You

can't get a CPAT machine. But what you can do is control the temperature. So

you might say to yourself, when would I want to control the temperature for my sleep? Well, if you were female and you

sleep? Well, if you were female and you were 45 years old and you were going through menopause, you really want to control the temperature because hot flashes might wake you up in the middle of the night. Those types of things become very, very important.

>> And how much does this cost?

>> So, this runs about a little over 2,000 US. Um, the nearest competitor is

US. Um, the nearest competitor is significantly more expensive, almost a third more expensive.

>> And are you affiliated with them in any way?

>> I am affiliated with these guys. I am

their chief sleep officer.

>> Oh, nice. Didn't know that was the job title.

>> I know. I didn't know. I made up the job title myself. Thank you very much.

title myself. Thank you very much.

>> Okay. Is there anything else I should know about the broader room that is pertinent?

>> So when I talk about broader room aspects, I think of the five senses. So

sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, right? So sight is light, right? So

right? So sight is light, right? So

clearly you want the lights down as we're starting to get towards bed. Maybe

having a dimmer switch or something like that is a great thing to slowly start to do that or kept the overhead lights and just have the bedside table lamps about 30 minutes before bed. Again, setting

the tone. The next one would be sound.

So, it's always better to be quiet, but at the end of the day, sometimes you can have that and sometimes you can't. It's

really about the emotionality that you attach to the sound itself. If you get annoyed by something, it's just going to get worse and worse. But if you can think in your head, hey, this isn't so annoying anymore, it becomes less

problematic. But to be clear, certain

problematic. But to be clear, certain volume sounds and certain decibel levels are going to wake you up. And so, you really, it's hard to sleep next to a big highway, right? So, you want to have as

highway, right? So, you want to have as much sound buffering as you possibly can. So, we did sight, we did sound.

can. So, we did sight, we did sound.

Let's do touch. Touch is temperature, right? We talked about that. You want

right? We talked about that. You want

the bedroom to be cool. If you can get the get the um air conditioning on, but let's say you've got the air conditioning on, but it's super hot summer and you're not fortunate enough to have an Orion sitting underneath your

sheets. What do you do? Go out and buy a

sheets. What do you do? Go out and buy a plastic bottle of water, two of them.

Stick them in the freezer. Then put them into socks and then put them on your sides. Okay, so frozen water bottle

sides. Okay, so frozen water bottle inside a pair of inside a sock that sits on your side. It's like a mini air conditioner underneath the covers. It

works like a charm. I use this when I travel because a lot of times, you know, the room you can't necessarily change the thermostat or things like that and it's a great way to be able to do that kind of stuff. Then the final one is

smell. So, people always ask me, "Does

smell. So, people always ask me, "Does aroma therapy really work?" Believe it or not, there are at least two scientifically rigorous studies that show that aroma therapy can actually be helpful for you. But I want to be clear,

candles are not the way to do aroma therapy. Fire and sleep do not mix.

therapy. Fire and sleep do not mix.

Okay?

>> But a diffuser I'm fine with. Or a

little sache or a pillow mist. All of

those can be quite helpful. And you just put them, you spray it on your pillow, or you have it right next to your pillow. And as you breathe in the aroma,

pillow. And as you breathe in the aroma, two aromomas have been shown to be helpful for sleep. One is lavender.

Surprise, surprise. The other is called elang elang. Um, that's one that's

elang elang. Um, that's one that's actually got some data on it. And I

actually think I saw a study on vanilla.

>> And should I be sleeping naked?

>> Such a good question. So, here's what I'll tell you is you thermorreulate better with less clothing on. So, less

barriers allow your body to do exactly what it should do. So, I would argue you definitely could sleep naked. And I I think there's an argument for sleeping naked will allow you to sleep better and thermorreulate better. However, be

thermorreulate better. However, be careful because if you have animals in the bed and you're sleeping naked, what looks like a chew toy to them might be important for you.

>> You're speaking from experience.

>> I'm just letting you know there's problems out there. I'm not saying that I had one of those problems myself.

>> Okay. I I think we've covered it, right?

>> Last one. Yeah.

>> Socks.

>> Oh, socks. Everybody wants to know, should I wear socks to bed? So, here's

what's interesting is you dissipate heat faster wearing uh with uh unsocked foot because there's no hair on the bottom of your feet. You ever notice when you're

your feet. You ever notice when you're hot at night and you stick your foot out from under the covers, you instantly cool down and everything's okay. So,

what I do for some of my patients who have thermmorreulation issues, I have them start with socks but no clothes and then they can remove their socks afterwards as they start to get too warm.

>> Okay, let's go back upstairs and finish this conversation.

important question to ask you.

>> So, I want to go back upstairs. Thank

you so much for that. Super, super

useful.

>> Sure.

>> Dr. Michael Bruce, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.

>> Oh, I didn't know this. This is awesome.

>> And the question that's been left for you is, if you could have the power to change one thing in the US healthare system, what would it be and why?

>> What I would like to see happen, well, there's two things. One is a wish and one is I think a possible reality. So

the possible reality is I'd like to see everybody in the United States get tested for sleep apnnea. It's so

underdiagnosed. There's so many people that are suffering from it. You saw the statistics. I mean it's it's an

statistics. I mean it's it's an epidemic. So if I could have one thing

epidemic. So if I could have one thing that happens in the US health care system, it would be that somehow or another somebody the powers that be say, "Hey, you know what? We need to test everybody for sleep disorders,

specifically sleep apnea." I think that would be a great big wish that I would have. The second wish, which I don't

have. The second wish, which I don't know would would ever happen, but I'm going to take my second wish anyway, even though you didn't offer it, is I want everybody to get a great night's sleep, but I wanted to all be on the

same night.

I want everybody in the world to get a really good night's sleep on the Can you imagine what would happen the next day?

What if what if what if people actually found peace in the waring nations because they actually got a good night's sleep? What do you think innovations

sleep? What do you think innovations would happen with if we get some of the smartest people in the world to just get a good night's sleep? Like what about charities? What about philanthropy? Like

charities? What about philanthropy? Like

every single thing that you do, you do better with a good night's sleep.

Wouldn't it be cool if everybody got one just for one night and see what happens?

>> Nine months later, there'd be a lot of kids. There would be a lot of kids born

kids. There would be a lot of kids born for sure.

>> That's so beautiful. Michael, thank you so much for the work that you do. It's

so incredibly important because as the numbers and the stats have shown, people are struggling increasingly in the world that we live. But through lifestyle factors and the way that we work and all these other factors we talked about with this more than anything and for so many

people, it's the cause of so much frustration. It is the thing furthest

frustration. It is the thing furthest upstream from a lot of the problems that they struggle with in relationships, in their work, in their sex life, and everything in between. So having great educators out in the world that help to

demystify this black box is so critical and you're one of the very very best I've ever met and in part because you're so unbelievably engaging. You're a great storyteller. You've you've been in the

storyteller. You've you've been in the field doing this with patients of wide varieties but also you bring that psychology element which is of quite rare to people that talk about >> the clinical side of sleep. You have

several great resources if people want to continue to um learn more. I would

highly recommend um people if you've gotten to this point in the conversation, I would highly recommend going over to your YouTube channel now and watching some of your top videos because I found them to be fascinating and I learned so much more. We we

weren't able to go through everything today, but if there's specific things like waking up in the middle of the night, um your videos about that have six or seven million views over on your channel and they're very very focused on that subject. So, if there's specific

that subject. So, if there's specific things that you felt weren't covered in this conversation, right now go over to Michael's channel. Um, it'll be linked

Michael's channel. Um, it'll be linked below and um, watch more there. But

also, if you're a reader and you love to read and that's your thing, which I know is great for sleep, two great books here in front of me. The power of when, discover your chronotype, and the best time to eat, lunch, ask for a raise,

have sex, write a novel, take your meds, and more. And also this book here,

and more. And also this book here, Sleep, Drink, Breathe, which talks broadly about the simple daily habits for profound long-term health. Michael,

thank you.

>> Thank you. This has been so much fun. I

wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but it was lovely. I really enjoyed it.

Everybody here is fantastic, and uh I just want to wish everybody sweet dreams. YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you would like to watch next based

on AI and all of your viewing behavior.

And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you. It's

different for everybody looking right now. Check this video out and I bet you

now. Check this video out and I bet you you might love it.