Speaker 1: What is the one thing you can do to improve
Speaker 1: just about every aspect of your life? Your energy, sharpness, performance,
Speaker 1: your immunity and longevity, even your sanity. It's something that
Speaker 1: every single one of us does every day of our lives,
Speaker 1: but we too often do it poorly. Well, today I've
Speaker 1: got the world renowned sleep doctor, Michael Bruce. He says
Speaker 1: we can't achieve true wellness without conquering sleep problems. I
Speaker 1: was sleep deprived for about years. I was fooling myself
Speaker 1: that it wasn't damaging my mind and body. But I
Speaker 1: have seen the light and I have used many of
Speaker 1: the ideas and practical tools that doctor Bruce has pioneered
Speaker 1: as a clinical psychologist and best selling author. His books
Speaker 1: include The Power of When and the latest one Energize,
Speaker 1: How to go from Dragging ass to Kicking It in
Speaker 1: thirty Days. I do love the title. His website, The
Speaker 1: Sleep Doctor dot com, is loaded with all kinds of
Speaker 1: great info. So here we go a coveted appointment with
Speaker 1: this sleep doctor. Well, Michael, I don't believe in regrets,
Speaker 1: and I've long ago given up trying to improve my past.
Speaker 1: But if I had known about the stuff that you
Speaker 1: have been espousing for the last twenty years, I probably
Speaker 1: would live longer because before you get into this, this
Speaker 1: was a very ignored space, and you were a pioneer,
Speaker 1: and so there wasn't as much info out there. And
Speaker 1: so for about twenty five years when I hosted College
Speaker 1: Game Day, I got buy in about four or five
Speaker 1: hours of sleep a night, night after night, week after week,
Speaker 1: for months at a time, for twenty five years, because
Speaker 1: I just I felt he was required. I was getting
Speaker 1: by an adrenaline and caffeine. But I feel like I
Speaker 1: took years off my life by doing that. So the
Speaker 1: good news is, I don't think you've taken two off
Speaker 1: the back end of your life, and there's lots of
Speaker 1: room for improvement. So I don't want you to worry.
Speaker 1: Um And as I think we've talked about before, I'm
Speaker 1: a huge college football fan, and this year my team
Speaker 1: is doing quite well. I went to the University of Georgia,
Speaker 1: so we're being the champions last year and looking pretty
Speaker 1: good this year. I'm watching a lot of college football.
Speaker 1: My friend, these are good days for the dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all my friends who are Georgia fans at a great
Speaker 1: time in Indianapolis last year for the championship and they
Speaker 1: might get a sequel this year. In working with college
Speaker 1: football teams and athletes, sleep Michael has become such a
Speaker 1: huge topic, and the players sleep is monitored and they
Speaker 1: are expected to report that data, required to report that
Speaker 1: data every day, and if they miss sleep, they're chewed
Speaker 1: out like missing a tackle in a practice. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I love that stuff well. And here's the thing that
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't think about is, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about you know, Division one, Division two,
Speaker 1: Division three, you know, kids who are athletes like these
Speaker 1: are elite kids right like the and and they're they're
Speaker 1: top highly tested for things like steroids and things of
Speaker 1: that nature. And so if you're looking for the edge,
Speaker 1: it's in sleep. Um And a lot of people never
Speaker 1: think about it that way. But if you are a
Speaker 1: well slept athlete, I can show you reams of data
Speaker 1: to show people getting their personal best on you know,
Speaker 1: days when they're well slept, on world records. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: some of the athletes I've worked with historically, the difference
Speaker 1: between being on the podium or off the podium in
Speaker 1: the Olympics is how you slept the night before. Almost
Speaker 1: every time. It got me thinking because some of us
Speaker 1: just try to get by, but athletes need to achieve,
Speaker 1: you know, peak performance, and a lot of what you
Speaker 1: write about is how to optimize your performance whatever you're doing,
Speaker 1: based on getting enough sleep and getting enough quality sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's the big thing that is important for people,
Speaker 1: you know who are listening to think about is we're
Speaker 1: not just talking about quantity of sleep, but we're actually
Speaker 1: talking about quality of sleep, right, And so while minutes
Speaker 1: or hours are important, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's what are you getting in those minutes that I
Speaker 1: would argue is probably much more important before you came along,
Speaker 1: and web MD had nothing on on sleep at all,
Speaker 1: before you became the kind of O G Sleep expert
Speaker 1: and web m d. But I think in in we
Speaker 1: talked about athletic culture and military culture, even a hard
Speaker 1: charging business culture, so many areas of of I'll just
Speaker 1: talk about men's culture, sayings like, you know, sleep is
Speaker 1: for the week. My brother heard that as a marine
Speaker 1: again and again, or I'll sleep when I'm dead. That's
Speaker 1: kind of like the frat house bro culture. Come on out.
Speaker 1: I mean, people who are just fighting the idea that
Speaker 1: the sleep was even necessary to get by, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing that lesson less nowadays. Um. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's because kids who are younger are smarter than
Speaker 1: we were, um, and they're like, hold on a second,
Speaker 1: I want my sleep, Like I feel much better, I
Speaker 1: perform better when I sleep. Um. I think they're more
Speaker 1: interested in balance in their overall lifestyle, and so I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of coming through it. But to be fair, look,
Speaker 1: I'm fifty four years old. I mean, you know, my
Speaker 1: dad walked into the room at you know, six thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning banging a punch of pots and pans
Speaker 1: to wake my ass up in high school, right, Like
Speaker 1: that's what happened back then. It was none of this,
Speaker 1: oh honey, hit the snooze button three times, you know.
Speaker 1: It was like, get your ass out of bed and
Speaker 1: do your chores. So I think generationally we're talking about
Speaker 1: very different kind of universes. But you're right, there used
Speaker 1: to be a culture where you were you were a
Speaker 1: whim if you got if you wanted to go take
Speaker 1: a nap, or you said you were too tired to
Speaker 1: do something. Yeah, nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: By the way, I love the saying that you have
Speaker 1: that that that sleep is a domino, maybe the lead
Speaker 1: domino in a bigger conversation about wellness. If you can
Speaker 1: get people to understand that that whether you're eating right,
Speaker 1: not drinking too much, not smoking, working out, getting your
Speaker 1: steps in, managing your stress, if that sleep piece of
Speaker 1: it isn't right, can you be at a well person.
Speaker 1: There's no universe. I would argue you can. You cannot
Speaker 1: do wellness without sleep. I would argue there's three big
Speaker 1: areas that you can't do wellness without You can't do
Speaker 1: wellness and without breathing properly, you can't do wellness without hydration,
Speaker 1: and you can't do wellness without sleep. I think all
Speaker 1: three of those are dominoes. But I agree that is
Speaker 1: kind of my new idea now is like I look
Speaker 1: for those things that are so basic in health and
Speaker 1: wellness that if you get that right, several other things
Speaker 1: kind of click into place. Right, And I think that's
Speaker 1: what you're referring to here is if you're interested in
Speaker 1: weight loss, there's no universe you're gonna lose weight if
Speaker 1: you're sleeping four and a half hours a night. It
Speaker 1: just isn't gonna happen, like your body, your physical body
Speaker 1: would not allow for it to happen because it's like
Speaker 1: I need to use those resources, right, So you know
Speaker 1: it wants to get make you hungry and forage for
Speaker 1: more food and all of those types of things. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, getting sleep right really it gets everything right.
Speaker 1: I mean I tell people all the time, everything you do,
Speaker 1: you do better with a good night sleep. Right. It
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily guarantee wellness if you neglect with the other
Speaker 1: things we're talking about, but you can't have it without
Speaker 1: at least addressing that. I think that's important. Um, your
Speaker 1: original book is Beauty Sleep. There the first book. We
Speaker 1: have a copy here. This is from about fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you have that, so believe
Speaker 1: it or not. That is my first book. But it
Speaker 1: was titled something different when it came out in paper
Speaker 1: in a hardcover, So in hardcover it was called good Night,
Speaker 1: the Sleep Doctor's thirty day Program to better sleep and
Speaker 1: better health. And to be honest with you, dude, it
Speaker 1: didn't sell very well, and so the publisher came back
Speaker 1: to them They're like, we want to go with your
Speaker 1: original idea, which was Beauty Sleep, because what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do was show people how you could, you know,
Speaker 1: aesthetically look better based on getting better sleep. And so
Speaker 1: they're like, absolutely, let's throw that in as the title,
Speaker 1: and the book actually performed better with the new title,
Speaker 1: same same content, like literally same pages and everything. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my first We'll get to a lot of things,
Speaker 1: the chronic types, which is something you pioneered, how you
Speaker 1: stay asleep, how you wake up in the morning, all
Speaker 1: those things, but just getting to sleep in this book,
Speaker 1: I remember reading the line I can't turn my mind off.
Speaker 1: I just cannot shut it down. It's impossible for me.
Speaker 1: And that resident at that time is before I sort
Speaker 1: of embrace meditation as an idea and stretching before bedtime.
Speaker 1: Your work and others have have shown me the way,
Speaker 1: but so many people Michael's I just can't. So much
Speaker 1: is going maybe now more than ever. I can't shut
Speaker 1: my mind off with everything that's on my plate. Well,
Speaker 1: and and here's what I would tell you is I
Speaker 1: think you're correct. I think it is more now than
Speaker 1: it has ever been before. I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, there's a lot more crisis is crises or
Speaker 1: crisis is I'm not sure what the plural of crisis
Speaker 1: is going on now than ever before. Right We've got
Speaker 1: financial crisis, we've got pandemic crisis, we've got social media insanity,
Speaker 1: we've got an election coming up. Like, there's so many
Speaker 1: things to make people stressful right now that, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I'm surprised that anybody's getting a good
Speaker 1: night's sleep. Here's here's an interesting statistic for you. Since
Speaker 1: the pandemic, there's been a I believe it's a twenty
Speaker 1: three percent increase in sleeping pill prescriptions written. Shocking. I
Speaker 1: mean the first I was gonna ask you being short
Speaker 1: of medication, because many people's first instinct, I got a problem,
Speaker 1: take a pill, I didn't matter what it is, and
Speaker 1: something is basically getting to sleep. There's plenty of products
Speaker 1: out there that that say they're gonna do it with
Speaker 1: no side effects short of medication, which is not something
Speaker 1: I embraced in general. What what are the best ways
Speaker 1: to get us to shut our minds down and then
Speaker 1: get off to a good good night's sleep. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, but I want to start
Speaker 1: out by saying one thing to for for listeners out there,
Speaker 1: just to be super duper clear um that Chris and
Speaker 1: I are not saying that if you're currently taking a
Speaker 1: sleeping aid that that's a bad thing. That is not
Speaker 1: what we are saying. But what we are saying is
Speaker 1: is that there are alternatives out there. If you need
Speaker 1: a pill to sleep, and that's a relationship that you
Speaker 1: have with your doctor. We have tremendous respect for that,
Speaker 1: and we're not saying to change that in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. But what we are saying is is
Speaker 1: there alternative that anologies that might be healthier in the
Speaker 1: long run for some situations. If you're a bipolar, uh,
Speaker 1: you know individual and you need ambient to help you sleep,
Speaker 1: take your damn ambient. Okay, Like I want to be
Speaker 1: very clear about that. There's no pill shaming going on here,
Speaker 1: but it would be let's be fair. If I go
Speaker 1: into the sleep lab and I look at a patient there,
Speaker 1: I can actually tell by looking at their brain waves
Speaker 1: if they're on a medication. Because pharmaceutically induced sleep and
Speaker 1: natural sleep are two different animals. They just are. There's
Speaker 1: no kind of getting around it. So when we start
Speaker 1: to start to think about how do we give people
Speaker 1: a better night's sleep, there's really three different areas that
Speaker 1: I like to look at before we get into pills
Speaker 1: and prescriptions and things like that. Right, So number one
Speaker 1: is your environment. Could there be something going on in
Speaker 1: your environment that could be making your sleep worse? Absolutely
Speaker 1: believe it. So this is gonna sound crazy. There's actually
Speaker 1: a study showing that if you have your laundry laying
Speaker 1: around your room, that it's hard to turn your brain
Speaker 1: off because you look at it and you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I need to do that, or you have, you know,
Speaker 1: a laptops sitting there. So really making your room more
Speaker 1: conducive for sleep absolutely positively helps, especially for people who
Speaker 1: tell me they can't turn off their brain because they're
Speaker 1: always looking for some other piece of stimuli something along
Speaker 1: those lines. So step number one, look around your environment.
Speaker 1: Could there be something in your environment that's causing an issue?
Speaker 1: Is it too loud? Is it too light? Um? Is
Speaker 1: your bed partner disrupting you? Is there an animal in
Speaker 1: the bed whatnot? That's area number one. Area number two
Speaker 1: that I like to look at our actual physical deficiencies, right,
Speaker 1: and so I say, talk to your doctor, get some
Speaker 1: blood work. You want to look for three different things
Speaker 1: you want to look for do you have a deficiency
Speaker 1: in vitamin D, in magnesium or in any form of iron.
Speaker 1: Any one of those three will absolutely make your sleep worthless. Um.
Speaker 1: And so if you're low in those, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense they give you, you know, ashwaganda or ambien when
Speaker 1: all you need is a magnesium You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I like to really only give people the things
Speaker 1: that their body needs and requires. So number one, if
Speaker 1: you got any deficiencies, let's fix those deficiencies. Wait a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and see how your body reacts and
Speaker 1: se if it sleeps better. Right again, it just might
Speaker 1: be that you're not getting enough vitamin D. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, there's that that can definitely happen. The third area,
Speaker 1: which which really focuses in on that I can't turn
Speaker 1: off my brain, is cognitive behavioral therapy, so cognity. And
Speaker 1: I'm trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and many psychologists are um.
Speaker 1: And So what cognitive behavioral therapy is is is where
Speaker 1: we change your behaviors in terms of we tell you
Speaker 1: what time to go to bed, what time to wake up.
Speaker 1: We might even make it a shorter period of time,
Speaker 1: which would seem very counterintuitive for many of my insomniacs
Speaker 1: where I tell them to go to bit later, not earlier.
Speaker 1: But there's a technique within cognitive behavioral therapy that's very
Speaker 1: that works quite well. The other thing that we do
Speaker 1: not just looking at the behaviors. We look at your thoughts, right,
Speaker 1: and that's where the I can't turn off my brain
Speaker 1: really comes into play. So what are you thinking about
Speaker 1: when this is happening? Are you thinking about work stuff?
Speaker 1: Are you thinking about sleep? Are you? And so what
Speaker 1: we do is we address those individual thoughts and we
Speaker 1: make sure that they're real. Right. So, as an example,
Speaker 1: one very common thought that I hear from people is
Speaker 1: if I don't get X number of hours of sleep,
Speaker 1: my entire day is going to be ruined the next day.
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is you've never I mean,
Speaker 1: let's be fair, you've gotten bad sleep before many, many,
Speaker 1: many times, and your entire day wasn't toast because of it. Right,
Speaker 1: But we catastrophize, We make these things seem like they're
Speaker 1: bigger than they really are. Um And so a lot
Speaker 1: of times this cognitive behavioral therapy works very well. Now
Speaker 1: there's a problem with cognitive behavioral therapy which is there's
Speaker 1: not enough therapists. Um, there's a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there who do have a need, but not off theirs,
Speaker 1: believe it or not. They now have digital cognitive behavioral
Speaker 1: therapy which has been shown to be effective and an
Speaker 1: effective methodology of administering it, which I gotta be honest
Speaker 1: with you that I didn't think there was any universe
Speaker 1: where somebody could learn CBT from you know, uh an animation,
Speaker 1: But um, it is. Actually they have done the studies
Speaker 1: and it looks like it's working quite well, and I've
Speaker 1: had several patients use it and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: that is actually by prescription, so your doctor can write
Speaker 1: you a prescription for digital cognitive behavioral therapy that would
Speaker 1: actually be covered by your insurance. Crazy enough, so kind
Speaker 1: of cool it is. You talk a lot a lot
Speaker 1: about behaviors. When to get up, when you go to bed, consistency.
Speaker 1: You say it's important when to stop drinking caffeine? Is
Speaker 1: it eight hours before bedtime? Alcohol a few hours before.
Speaker 1: I mean, those are some things that are very structured,
Speaker 1: and I believe I have great power for a lots
Speaker 1: of people who are struggling. M for those of us
Speaker 1: that don't embrace a regimented routine quite as enthusiastically. Um,
Speaker 1: those things are tough, but I do understand that that
Speaker 1: that all of them are important when when combined, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. And you know what I did, um, Chris
Speaker 1: was I created what I call a five step plan,
Speaker 1: which I think is super easy. If it's okay, I'll
Speaker 1: walk through it for your audience to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit more about it and to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Number one, my five step plan will not cost you
Speaker 1: a dime. Um, you don't have to give me your
Speaker 1: email for it. Um, you don't have to do anything
Speaker 1: for it. Just listen and you will see that it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Now we can get really detailed,
Speaker 1: but we're going to go through just the top part
Speaker 1: of the surface of five different things. So step number
Speaker 1: one is to choose one wake up time and stick
Speaker 1: to it. Now you notice I said wake up time
Speaker 1: and not bedtime. Okay, and I said stick to it
Speaker 1: meaning seven days a week. Okay. Now, if people get
Speaker 1: one thing from this entire conversation, do this because this
Speaker 1: will have the biggest effect on your overall sleep cycle
Speaker 1: because it will keep your circadian rhythms in line. I
Speaker 1: wake up every single day somewhere between six o eight
Speaker 1: and six thirteen. I don't know why, but that's the
Speaker 1: time that my brain clicks and wakes up. But the
Speaker 1: consistency of that allows me to actually be able to
Speaker 1: fall asleep a lot easier. Let me explain the signs
Speaker 1: behind why. When you wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: light hits your eyeball, it sends a signal to your
Speaker 1: brain to turn off the melotonin faucet in your head. Now,
Speaker 1: the good news here is that's great because then you
Speaker 1: kind of get rid of brain fog and start your day.
Speaker 1: But what people don't know is it also sets a
Speaker 1: timer for fourteen hours later to start melatonin again. Ah,
Speaker 1: so this is interesting. And here's the big aha moment.
Speaker 1: Your brain can't tell time. Now, that's gonna sound strange
Speaker 1: that I say that, but follow what happens. If you're
Speaker 1: waking up at six am six am during the week,
Speaker 1: fourteen hours later is eight pm. That's when melatonin kicks off.
Speaker 1: You're in bed by ten thirty. Everything's awesome, right, able
Speaker 1: to fall asleep pretty easily. But if you instead of
Speaker 1: waking up at six, you wake up at eight, two
Speaker 1: hours later, your brain can't tell time, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: start your melotonin until fourteen hours later, So that two
Speaker 1: hour difference in the morning is actually happens in the evening,
Speaker 1: so your your brain is not even creating melotonin at
Speaker 1: that point until ten thirty at night, which means you're
Speaker 1: not going to call asleep until almost midnight. So keeping
Speaker 1: the consistent wake up time does so much for you biologically,
Speaker 1: it's insane. Now just pick one and follow it. Now.
Speaker 1: I will have in the latter part of our conversation,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about these things called chronotypes, which is
Speaker 1: a genetic predisposition, and we'll tell you when those times
Speaker 1: should be. But for the moment, just understand that wake
Speaker 1: up at the same time every single day, seven days
Speaker 1: a week is what you want to do. Step number
Speaker 1: two is caffeine. You want to stop caffeine by two pm.
Speaker 1: Why because, as you mentioned earlier, caffeine has a half
Speaker 1: life between six and eight hours, So if you stop
Speaker 1: it two by ten, most people will have at least
Speaker 1: half of it out of their system. Awesome. Step number
Speaker 1: I'm drinking green tea, but I'm not gonna go to
Speaker 1: bed till midnight, so I don't don't scull you're shape.
Speaker 1: Now you're doing okay, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: Step number three has to do with alcohol. Um, and
Speaker 1: this is a great rule for if you want to
Speaker 1: drink and still get a decent night sleep. So I'm not,
Speaker 1: as you've already noticed, I'm not the sleep doctor to
Speaker 1: say never have a drinking caffeine, never have any alcohol. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you how to do it and still
Speaker 1: get good sleep. So you want to limit it to
Speaker 1: two drinks, and you want to stop drinking three hours
Speaker 1: before bed. So step number three is to stop alcohol
Speaker 1: three hours before bed. Let me explain why. When you
Speaker 1: get past the second drink, your body starts to feel
Speaker 1: a buzz. There's nothing wrong with feeling a buzz. But
Speaker 1: when you do that, your brain spikes this stuff called
Speaker 1: cortisol because it doesn't know what's going on. Now you're
Speaker 1: an energetic drunk. This is not ready for you to
Speaker 1: go to bed right, Because let's be fair, there's a
Speaker 1: really big difference between going to bed and passing out right,
Speaker 1: and that's what happens to a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: let's also be fair. Did you know alcohol is the
Speaker 1: number one sleep aid in the world. More people drink
Speaker 1: themselves to sleep than any single other thing. And it's
Speaker 1: why I don't like to think that I'm not passing out.
Speaker 1: But listen, all of us feel like you know, I
Speaker 1: just I just want to have a nightcap. I just
Speaker 1: gonna help me wind down. It's gonna sel my brain down,
Speaker 1: and all that one is great. I don't have a
Speaker 1: problem with one nightcap. If you want to have a
Speaker 1: bourbon um, you know, an hour before bed, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. It will cause some level of
Speaker 1: physical relaxation, but it can't be your fourth bourbon. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because when you have so much.
Speaker 1: Here's and here's the science is the when you stop
Speaker 1: drinking and when lights out are that period of time
Speaker 1: will determine how much alcohol affects your sleep. So if
Speaker 1: you stop drinking three hours before lights out, so you
Speaker 1: go to a dinner at six thirty, seven o'clock, you
Speaker 1: have a glass of wine. At seven twenty, you have
Speaker 1: your second glass of wine to finish your meal. Um,
Speaker 1: and then it's eight o'clock. You're done. You're not getting
Speaker 1: in bed till eleven. You're good to go. Like it's
Speaker 1: not going to have an effect. But if you kept
Speaker 1: drinking and got made that time frame shorter, it's gonna
Speaker 1: have a huge effect on your sleep, specifically stage three
Speaker 1: four sleep, UM, which is your physical restoration. The other
Speaker 1: thing it does is it makes you have to pee, right,
Speaker 1: because once you pee once and you're drinking, you break
Speaker 1: the seal. Right, you're peeing all night long, which is
Speaker 1: disruptive to the to your sleep as well. Right. Step
Speaker 1: number four is the area that you love, which is exercise.
Speaker 1: Exercise daily for better sleep. I'll tell you a funny story.
Speaker 1: I was on stage well actually got to meet Tony Horton.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure I know you know who Tony Horton is.
Speaker 1: Some of your listeners may not. He's the fellow that
Speaker 1: developed this awesome program called P nine X a long
Speaker 1: long time ago. And the guy's in the sickest shape
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, sixty years old. And he came. I
Speaker 1: would call him high energy time. He is high energy,
Speaker 1: And I asked him, I was. I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be in the audience and talk with him um.
Speaker 1: And then I came up and gave my lecture and
Speaker 1: I said, Tony, how many days a week should you exercise,
Speaker 1: and he turned to me and he said, Michael, how
Speaker 1: many days a week should you sleep? And I was like,
Speaker 1: got it right. And so daily exercise is really what
Speaker 1: we're shooting for. But what we don't want is core
Speaker 1: body temperature to raise too close to bedtime because we
Speaker 1: know that your body has to cool down to get
Speaker 1: to sleep. So exercise daily. But step number four is
Speaker 1: to stop X size four hours before bed. Step number
Speaker 1: five is a wake up routine. Only have to do
Speaker 1: three simple things, and I call it the three fifteens.
Speaker 1: So you do fifteen minutes of deep breathing, right, So
Speaker 1: fifteen deep breaths just to wake up your respiratory system
Speaker 1: kind of bring you present. You want to have fifteen
Speaker 1: ounces of water. You want to hydrate before you caffeine.
Speaker 1: Eate please, much better for you. And then you want
Speaker 1: to have fifteen minutes in the sunshine because that turns
Speaker 1: off that melatonin faucet and it gives you exactly the
Speaker 1: right amount of vitamin D that you're probably gonna need. So,
Speaker 1: as as a quick summary, step number one wake up
Speaker 1: at the same time every single day. Step number two
Speaker 1: stop caffeine by two pm. Step number three stop alcohol.
Speaker 1: Three hours before bed. Step number four exercise daily, but
Speaker 1: stop exercise four hours before bed. And step number five
Speaker 1: is the three fifteen fifteen breaths, fifteen ounces of water,
Speaker 1: and fifteen minutes in the sun. I feel okay about
Speaker 1: that check list. The last part to wake up. That's
Speaker 1: very much in line with what I like to do.
Speaker 1: Stretching and exercise would be the fourth thing for me.
Speaker 1: Arety consistent of the other stuff too. You've got me
Speaker 1: scared though, because and they're not too distant future, I
Speaker 1: and the tennis team at ESPN A're gonna be broadcasting
Speaker 1: the Australian Open, but from Connecticut, so it's sixteen time
Speaker 1: zones away. I've done this two years now. What you
Speaker 1: just ran through is daunting because people who are operating
Speaker 1: the third shift, the overnight shift, I don't know how
Speaker 1: they do it. It's incredibly disruptive. So you're going to
Speaker 1: bed whenever you're getting up. The matches began about three
Speaker 1: thirty am here on the East Coast. They might end
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock, I mean, and then you try to
Speaker 1: get sort yourself out and get back on a normal
Speaker 1: schedule on your off days, and it's it's rough. I mean,
Speaker 1: for people who are who are working those night shifts.
Speaker 1: Is there a quick way to feel like you're still
Speaker 1: part of the human race even though you're out of
Speaker 1: step with a lot of people. So here's the good
Speaker 1: news is if you ask me this exact same question
Speaker 1: like three or five years ago, I wouldn't have a
Speaker 1: great answer for you. I give you a couple of
Speaker 1: websites to go to and I tell you, hey, download
Speaker 1: a little bit information about this or that. Ship work
Speaker 1: has really started. We've done a lot more research about
Speaker 1: this in the last five years because we're seven manufacturing economy.
Speaker 1: The Internet is always on blah blah blah, bitcoin, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Something's going seven and so shift work has
Speaker 1: become quite an interesting environment. So Number one is there's
Speaker 1: an app for that. Believe it or not. It's called
Speaker 1: time shifter t I M E S H I F
Speaker 1: T E R. We can put it into the show
Speaker 1: notes for people UM and full disclosure, I am an
Speaker 1: investor and I helped design time shifter UM. But this
Speaker 1: is actually where you put in your shift and it
Speaker 1: will tell you, using four different things, how to shift
Speaker 1: on and off almost seamlessly. So you'll use light caffeine napping,
Speaker 1: and melatonin in very particular order based on your shift
Speaker 1: or your travel UM and what you're doing. So, as
Speaker 1: an example, if you're gonna be doing the Australian Open,
Speaker 1: I would shift you to Australian time and I'd leave
Speaker 1: you there for the number of days that you needed
Speaker 1: to be on Australian time, and then if you had
Speaker 1: like a two day or three day off weekend, I
Speaker 1: would rotate you to your you know, normal time, and
Speaker 1: then I would rotate you back Tom Sunday. UM. If
Speaker 1: that's kind of what if that's what you're doing UM.
Speaker 1: And we do that with people all the time, athletes, UM,
Speaker 1: at journalists quite a bit because you guys are here,
Speaker 1: there and everywhere also UM, and and you're doing it
Speaker 1: from a completely different universe. You're not even there on
Speaker 1: you know, you're in Connecticut while you're doing the Australian Open.
Speaker 1: So I would actually use time shifter for you, UM
Speaker 1: to shift you UM. But those are the four things
Speaker 1: that you need. There's hope I never heard about that.
Speaker 1: I will I will definitely put that in the show
Speaker 1: notes and check it out and share with my colleagues.
Speaker 1: What you said is important because the quality of sleep,
Speaker 1: no matter what shift you're on, is so challenged because
Speaker 1: I'm holding on my phone here, but but devices and
Speaker 1: the expectation that you are to be looking at your
Speaker 1: email at midnight and aware of what's coming in at
Speaker 1: five thirty and you're never off on so many people
Speaker 1: are not in their heads saying, yeah, that's how I
Speaker 1: made to feel that way by my employer. I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed mental downtime, right and so and and that's that's
Speaker 1: a big one. So let's let's let's break that apart,
Speaker 1: because there's at least two, maybe three different things that
Speaker 1: are disruptive of your sleep in that scenario. Right, So
Speaker 1: number one is you get an email at five o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. So first of all, that's completely inappropriate
Speaker 1: for anybody to be sent even let's just be very
Speaker 1: very clear unless you're on and that's like part of
Speaker 1: your job description. Here's what's happening is an early bird,
Speaker 1: what I call a lion, is your boss and they're
Speaker 1: up at four thirty in the morning. So they're just
Speaker 1: pounding things away, and you've got to stop that feeling
Speaker 1: to say, I want my boss to think I am
Speaker 1: Johnny on the spot and I'm gonna be able to
Speaker 1: answer that email, and I'm a great employee. Relax, Okay,
Speaker 1: Number one, negotiate that with your boss. Hey, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna send me emails at five am, I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with it, but I need to be clear
Speaker 1: with you. I'm not gonna start looking at them until
Speaker 1: eight fifteen or eight thirty or whatever time is that
Speaker 1: we negotiate and come throue. So number one, pull the
Speaker 1: pressure off of yourself, right, because there's definitely pressure to
Speaker 1: be felt. Okay. Number two, the proximity of the device
Speaker 1: is going to be a problem, right, And so what
Speaker 1: do I mean by that? Do not sleep with your
Speaker 1: phone next to your head? Okay? Like this is this
Speaker 1: is sleep one oh one guys. Okay. And and if
Speaker 1: one person out there is thinking in their head, oh
Speaker 1: but my phone is my alarm clock and it's the
Speaker 1: only way I can wake up. Bullshit. Okay, go to
Speaker 1: Target and buy an analog alarm clock that you can
Speaker 1: put right next to your bed. It'll be six bucks,
Speaker 1: I guarantee it. You say, put the phone across the room, Michael,
Speaker 1: You say, I am, I wanted to a night stand?
Speaker 1: Isn't good enough? I don't put it next to my
Speaker 1: head on the pillow. But a night stands bad idea.
Speaker 1: Night stands a terrible idea. Why because here's what happens
Speaker 1: when you wake up between two and three thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning, which, by the way, a lot of people do.
Speaker 1: It's the first thing that you do. You grab your
Speaker 1: phone and you want to know what time it is.
Speaker 1: That is not information that you need to know in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. It's all the way cross
Speaker 1: the room, or better yet, in a different part of
Speaker 1: the house. You're going to be in much better shape. Now.
Speaker 1: Somebody out there is gonna say, oh, I can't put
Speaker 1: it in a different part of the house. What if
Speaker 1: my child calls me in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Okay, Number one, if you have a
Speaker 1: land line, then your child will call on the land line. Okay.
Speaker 1: Number two, When was the last time that that actually occurred? Never?
Speaker 1: Okay never? So I imagine I can assure you if
Speaker 1: people need to get in touch with you in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, there will be a way that
Speaker 1: they can do it. But you don't have to have
Speaker 1: phone sitting next to your head. That's super duper tempting.
Speaker 1: But here's the bigger problem is the engagement with the phone. Now,
Speaker 1: you were probably thinking I was gonna say, oh, the
Speaker 1: blue light from the phone is having an effect on
Speaker 1: your melotone and bla blah, right, which is true. But
Speaker 1: I want to be clear about something. Blue light isn't
Speaker 1: as big a deal as a lot of people make
Speaker 1: it out to be. Okay, Here's what's really interesting is
Speaker 1: the amount of blue light that you're exposed to during
Speaker 1: the day directly determines how much blue light changes your
Speaker 1: melotone in production at night. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know that, okay, And and there are lots and
Speaker 1: lots of different solutions, but I want to be clear.
Speaker 1: It's not just the light, it's the engagement. So as
Speaker 1: an example, if you're hanging out on your phone, scrolling
Speaker 1: away before bed um, trying to get your high score
Speaker 1: on candy Crush or something like that, I got a
Speaker 1: news flash for you. You ain't trying to go to sleep, Okay,
Speaker 1: So what I and and so here's what I'll tell
Speaker 1: you though. But let's say you want something to distract
Speaker 1: you turn on the TV. Yes you heard it here, folks,
Speaker 1: The sleep doctor said you can fall asleep with the
Speaker 1: television on. Yep, I'm going to repeat myself one more time.
Speaker 1: You can fall asleep with the television on. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why. I have to say this, Chris, because my
Speaker 1: wife falls asleep with the TV on every single nime
Speaker 1: just TV. Okay, phone bad though, right, Okay, right, Well
Speaker 1: i'll tell you why. There's there's two reasons why. Number one,
Speaker 1: the lights all the way across the room, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: the engagement. When my wife is watching TV, she's not
Speaker 1: watching it, she's listening to it. She watches with her
Speaker 1: eyes closed, right, and she's all she's doing is listening
Speaker 1: to just enough of an old episode of Seinfeld or
Speaker 1: something like that to be a distraction to turn off
Speaker 1: her brain. Which was kind of where we started this conversation, right,
Speaker 1: was talking about people who can turn off their brain
Speaker 1: at night. So using different distraction techniques are perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: Here's the good news. The TVs have got a time
Speaker 1: are built into the software. If you can't figure it out,
Speaker 1: ask your kid. That's what I did, and my son
Speaker 1: showed me exactly where it was, and we turned it on.
Speaker 1: And you can even turn the brightness levels down, so
Speaker 1: you don't have, like you know, lit up like crazy
Speaker 1: in your bedroom. You can be very accommodating and still
Speaker 1: be able to handle that. Um. So we talked about
Speaker 1: the blue light, we talked about the engagement, and we
Speaker 1: talked about moving the phone across the room. All of
Speaker 1: that are distractions, I would argue to your sleep. Um.
Speaker 1: And so if you can remove electronics, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: overall a great thing. I get it. If it causes
Speaker 1: you more stressed to do that, start with it across
Speaker 1: the room, do that for two or three weeks. Then
Speaker 1: put it out right outside your door. Do that for
Speaker 1: two or three weeks, and then kind of walking down
Speaker 1: the hall. I'm not gonna lie. I'd have to be
Speaker 1: having a sleep emergency to put the phone in another room.
Speaker 1: I get it. You're not supposed to tap it to
Speaker 1: see what time it is, but you know I do.
Speaker 1: I do sometimes want to figure out if I got
Speaker 1: an hour more to sleep, if we got two hours
Speaker 1: more to sleep. But I don't have that kind of
Speaker 1: internal alarm clock that's as well defined as yours is
Speaker 1: getting up at the exact same time. I need that
Speaker 1: alarm sometimes. So yeah, yeah, no, Well, let's well let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. So Number one, if you got up
Speaker 1: at the same time every day, you wouldn't you you
Speaker 1: would be completely finely tuned. Just as an f y
Speaker 1: I for everybody out there listening, it takes somewhere between
Speaker 1: three and five weeks of getting up very close to
Speaker 1: the same time and then your body just starts to
Speaker 1: naturally do it. It will self adjust. So just for
Speaker 1: your own edification, it is possible right to do okay.
Speaker 1: Number two, Um, when you've got an alarm, Um, if
Speaker 1: you have a bed partner, you maybe it want to
Speaker 1: be pretty careful because if you get up at a
Speaker 1: different time than your bed partner, your alarm goes off.
Speaker 1: Your be pissing somebody off pretty much every single morning. Right.
Speaker 1: If you've got people who get up at different times,
Speaker 1: that can that can certainly be an issue as well. Right,
Speaker 1: So thinking through some of the some of the logic
Speaker 1: driven stuff and just sort of the housekeeping of it
Speaker 1: all can definitely be a factor as well. You have
Speaker 1: a lot in your book energize about relationships, relationships involving
Speaker 1: people of the different chronus types. So let's get to
Speaker 1: the different chronus types. Um. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of you mentioned lions, that's the early birds because lions
Speaker 1: hunted first light, and I get that. And then there's
Speaker 1: the wolves, who are a nocturnal right, you said you
Speaker 1: were a wolf I saw in one interview. I thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna be a wolf when I went to
Speaker 1: the Sleep doctor dot com and took the test, ended
Speaker 1: up being a bear, which is sort of the middle
Speaker 1: of the bell curve. Right, that's like the most people.
Speaker 1: And then there's the dolphin, who the people who should
Speaker 1: come see you who have serious insomnia problems. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so what you did was, yes, you correctly identified. So
Speaker 1: what I did was let me just give everybody the
Speaker 1: kind of the cheat code here, right, And so if
Speaker 1: you've ever been called an early bird or an eyed owl,
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about. Those are chronotypes. Those are
Speaker 1: actually genetic predispositions for your sleep and sleep schedule. Sorry,
Speaker 1: there's a siren going on if you can hear that. Um.
Speaker 1: So these are predispositions for your sleep schedule, and it's
Speaker 1: genetic so you can't change it. Right. And so some
Speaker 1: people say, oh, I want to be an early bird.
Speaker 1: I want to wake up every morning at four thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning and kick the day's ass. Bad idea,
Speaker 1: unless you are genetically an early bird. Otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 1: do this for a couple of weeks. So that's right
Speaker 1: in there, along with hair color, eye color. It is
Speaker 1: just some part of your DNA that can't really be
Speaker 1: modified or worked around. No, you can. You could modify it,
Speaker 1: but you'd have to modify it every single day. You'd
Speaker 1: have to take melotone and then use light to shift
Speaker 1: your circadian rhythm every single day. And by the way,
Speaker 1: people do that UM all the time, but it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily recommended. Right, So a lion is the earliest form.
Speaker 1: Wolf is the late form in between we call a bear.
Speaker 1: That's you, which is what I wish I was UM,
Speaker 1: and the problem children or the insomniac we call a dolphin.
Speaker 1: Now let me explain to you why I wish I
Speaker 1: was a bear. So, first of all, fifty of people
Speaker 1: are bears, so one and two people is a bear.
Speaker 1: But here's why um. Bears have the perfect schedule because
Speaker 1: everything out there works on a bear schedule, the nine
Speaker 1: to five work schedule. It's perfect for a bear, right,
Speaker 1: get up around seven seven thirty, go to bed around
Speaker 1: ten o'clock. Work from nine to five. Everything works great
Speaker 1: if you're a wolf like me. I don't even like
Speaker 1: to get up before seven thirty eight o'clock most of
Speaker 1: the time, right, whereas a bear can get up significantly
Speaker 1: early and a lion can get up much much earlier.
Speaker 1: So kind of understanding all of those things. And by
Speaker 1: the way, we've had almost two million people take the
Speaker 1: quiz now and we've learned that there are early bears
Speaker 1: and there are late bears. I saw that there. There's
Speaker 1: glad glad you said that intergestion. Yeah, the late So
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I can't. I can say I do
Speaker 1: my best work. I have to function at midnight. I
Speaker 1: have to be at my sharpest at the end of
Speaker 1: a football game at midnight Eastern time. So it's very
Speaker 1: hard to to think of myself when someone's got to
Speaker 1: shut it down again. But I'm glad that you You
Speaker 1: got very specific in the book, and I would definitely
Speaker 1: encourage people to pick it up and then figure out
Speaker 1: how how a bear is going to coexist with a
Speaker 1: lion or a or a dolphin or something, because that's
Speaker 1: when you're living with you said, You're sleeping right next
Speaker 1: to somebody and you love them more than anybody else.
Speaker 1: And but there's that sort of potential collision. Well, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and look, let's be fair, like not everybody ends up
Speaker 1: in bed with somebody that's the same chronotype. Now, I'll
Speaker 1: be fair. I was lucky. Um we didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: But both my wife and I are nighttime chronotypes. And
Speaker 1: and we know this now because when I remember when
Speaker 1: we were dating, uh, twenty four years ago, Um, I
Speaker 1: would pick her up at eight, we'd have dinner reservations
Speaker 1: at eight thirty. We finished dinner by like ten. We'd
Speaker 1: go to the movies from ten thirty to twelve thirty.
Speaker 1: Then we go off for a drink or dessert afterwards,
Speaker 1: we get home at two, right, and that was perfectly
Speaker 1: normal for us. I went out with another girl, not
Speaker 1: since then, but wore then. Who wasn't There's no universe
Speaker 1: where she could stay out until two o'clock in the morning. Right,
Speaker 1: But I you know, I didn't think about I mean,
Speaker 1: you're young and dating, you don't think about it. But
Speaker 1: now when you're married, like life sets in. Like there's
Speaker 1: some interesting aspects to this. And I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: The big question that everybody asks, intimacy when if if
Speaker 1: I'm an early bird and my pronotype as a night owl,
Speaker 1: when do we have sex? So, if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: I'll do a little bit of information about that because
Speaker 1: I have a feeling your listeners who want to know.
Speaker 1: Is that cool? I'm not going to object to you
Speaker 1: talking about sex now, Okay. So so here's what's interesting.
Speaker 1: And by the way, take the chrono quiz so you
Speaker 1: know what you are so that this information can be
Speaker 1: valuable to you. So you need five hormones to successfully
Speaker 1: be intimate. You need estrogen, progesterone two stopsterone, adrenaline, and cortisol.
Speaker 1: I'll need to be elevated and melatonin, the sleep hormone
Speaker 1: needs to be lowered. Okay, So seventy four of people
Speaker 1: like to be intimate somewhere between ten and eleven thirty
Speaker 1: at night, and there's polls and things like that. What
Speaker 1: do you think their horn profile looks like? It's the opposite, right,
Speaker 1: Melotonin is high and all those other things are low.
Speaker 1: That is hint number one. Um, if you are in
Speaker 1: bed with somebody who is biologically male, okay, Hint number
Speaker 1: two what a most men wake up within the morning
Speaker 1: an erection If that's not Mother nature telling you when
Speaker 1: to use that thing. I don't know what is, Okay,
Speaker 1: So what we look at is testosterone levels. So here's
Speaker 1: what happens. Men wake up in the morning with their
Speaker 1: highest level of testosterone of the entire day. Okay, So
Speaker 1: it makes intuitive sense. That would make more sense to
Speaker 1: be able to be intimate early in the morning. Here's
Speaker 1: what we discovered after giving this information to a lot
Speaker 1: of different chronotypes is UM, connection is better. UM. And
Speaker 1: so when people now to be fair, wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning, go brush your teeth, throw in some mouthwash,
Speaker 1: then come back into bed with your partner and right
Speaker 1: and then sort of see how it works. Performance is
Speaker 1: better for men across the board. Erectile function is better, um,
Speaker 1: Ejaculatory function is better. But also connection is better. And
Speaker 1: so it's very very interesting looking at women, m orgasm
Speaker 1: actually occurs more in the morning time than it does
Speaker 1: in the evening time. Again, very very interesting. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you the funniest aspect of the entire study
Speaker 1: is we did we when we were surveying people and
Speaker 1: getting all this data, we did a different male versus
Speaker 1: female and women had very specific times based on their
Speaker 1: chronotype of when they wanted to be intimate for men.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, it was whenever it's offered, I'm
Speaker 1: down and and not surprising, right, but but actually data driven,
Speaker 1: right and so but if you think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: there's it's very interesting. So in the book, what we
Speaker 1: did was we created a matrices so you can put
Speaker 1: your chronotype across one and your partner's chronotype across the other.
Speaker 1: And I give you an early evening time and an
Speaker 1: early morning time to run the experiment for yourself, right
Speaker 1: and say, hey, hon, you know, buddy, let's figure it out.
Speaker 1: And so there you go, like, just give it a shot,
Speaker 1: and so to see what happens. You might be surprise
Speaker 1: at number one, it gives a little variety to your
Speaker 1: sex life. But number two you may actually perform better. Also,
Speaker 1: just as an edification, in the book, we have two
Speaker 1: other matrices, one for lesbian couples and one for gay couples.
Speaker 1: Because the hormone profiles are different chronotypes and circadian rhythms,
Speaker 1: which is just now beginning to be explored adequately. It
Speaker 1: hasn't been. I mean you say that there is not
Speaker 1: just the best time to wake up or go to
Speaker 1: sleep or have a drinker, have sex. But virtually any
Speaker 1: sort of activity, you can tell someone based on their
Speaker 1: chronotype and the detailed chronotype, what's what's the best time
Speaker 1: to do that most efficiently or optimally. There's no question
Speaker 1: about it, and the data is really consistent. We had
Speaker 1: over two d and twenty studies in the book about
Speaker 1: every I mean, I can tell you the best time
Speaker 1: to day to write a book. I can tell you
Speaker 1: the best time and day to have a conversation with
Speaker 1: your child. I can tell you the best kind of
Speaker 1: conversation to have a difficult conversation with your spouse. Um,
Speaker 1: there's really because what we do is we because it's
Speaker 1: all about hormones, right, And so here's what happens is
Speaker 1: if you're a lion and you wake up at five
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, guess what your meltonin turns off.
Speaker 1: All your other hormones turn on, and it's very predictable
Speaker 1: within the next twenty four hours. If you're a wolf,
Speaker 1: the exact same predictability happens. It's just like three hours later, right.
Speaker 1: And so once you start to know what the hormone
Speaker 1: schedule is, all you do is plan your activities when
Speaker 1: your hormones will naturally be hid. So people tell me
Speaker 1: all the time. I do this with athletes constantly, right,
Speaker 1: And so if I've got an athlete who's ready to
Speaker 1: perform um, the first thing that we try to figure
Speaker 1: out is when what time of day are you competing? Right,
Speaker 1: because it could be very different depending upon what time
Speaker 1: zone you're in, what what sport you're playing. Right, If
Speaker 1: you're a golfer, you might be playing on the dawn patrol,
Speaker 1: whereas if you're an n c A football player, you
Speaker 1: may not start until six o'clock at night on East
Speaker 1: Coast time, right, And so there are very different performance
Speaker 1: times that can go through there for for particular athletes,
Speaker 1: and depends upon the sport and things like that. But
Speaker 1: it's super cool. Yeah. The book Energize You, you co
Speaker 1: wrote with Stacey Griboth, is one of the gurus of
Speaker 1: soul cycle, and it talks just about which an energy
Speaker 1: and lack of it and the need forward and the
Speaker 1: desire to optimize It is such a huge topic right now,
Speaker 1: and sleep is a component of it. But other than
Speaker 1: getting quality and quantity of sleep, what kinds of things
Speaker 1: should people be focusing on to sort of maximize their energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's interesting. So there's a couple of different things.
Speaker 1: If you start to look in the literature, I would
Speaker 1: say within the last five to seven years, intermittent fasting
Speaker 1: has really become significantly more popular and certainly something that
Speaker 1: people can learn from and getting good. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: that's bad. Please, please don't tell me that's bad. It's great.
Speaker 1: It's great. In fact, in the new book Energized, we
Speaker 1: dedicate almost a third of the book to intermittent fasting,
Speaker 1: and we've talked to people about how to fast, and
Speaker 1: believe it or not, you can fast based on your chronotype. Um,
Speaker 1: and it actually makes it more effective. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool. Um. So I think intermittent fasting is absolutely
Speaker 1: one of those great ways to number one, have more energy.
Speaker 1: People don't realize this, but food kind of slows you down.
Speaker 1: Um um. It really kind of makes you a little
Speaker 1: logi and a little slow and things like that, whereas
Speaker 1: not having food for prescribed periods of time can be
Speaker 1: very beneficial. I just want to be super clear about
Speaker 1: one thing though, for any listeners out there. If you're
Speaker 1: interested in trying intermittent fasting and you've been diagnosed with
Speaker 1: an eating disorder. That's a terrible idea. You need to
Speaker 1: speak with your doctor who is treating your eating disorder.
Speaker 1: Intermittent fasting is not for people with anorexia, bulimia, or
Speaker 1: any types of eating disorders. That's a whole different conversation
Speaker 1: that you need to have with your doctor. Yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: for clarifying and explaining. I don't generally address to things
Speaker 1: to people who are struggling. If you're struggling with something
Speaker 1: like that you mentioned earlier, folks who might be struggling
Speaker 1: in various ways and mental health issues, obviously, deal with
Speaker 1: the doctor. Get that get that stuff sorted out before
Speaker 1: listening to advice. It's for for everybody because it's doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't work across the board. So absolutely so regulating food in,
Speaker 1: take sleep, what else, movement um. And so that's what
Speaker 1: Stacy helped me with. So, as you mentioned Stacy Griffith,
Speaker 1: she is one of the founding trainers at Soul Cycle. Awesome.
Speaker 1: Like you want to talk about energy, Holy crap, this
Speaker 1: woman has got more energy than anybody I think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. And if you ever tried taking one of
Speaker 1: her classes, She's still instructs all over the country. But
Speaker 1: she's based, I believe in New York. Her classes sellout
Speaker 1: in like two minutes, UM. And I've been to some
Speaker 1: of her classes. It's like a disco dance party, but
Speaker 1: you're sweating and cycling and all this kind of crazy
Speaker 1: fun and so and so, when Stacy and I got together,
Speaker 1: we started talking about it and I said to her,
Speaker 1: I said, well, tell me what the problem is for
Speaker 1: most of your patients. And she said, most of my
Speaker 1: patients tell me they're exhausted. Like are they sleeping? She's like, well,
Speaker 1: kind of sort of, maybe we need to talk about that.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, a lot of my patients
Speaker 1: tell me that they're exhausted, but they are sleeping. Well,
Speaker 1: and she's like, well are they moving? You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. And so like, I'm gonna ask your patients questions,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna ask my patients questions, and now we're
Speaker 1: gonna start to figure it out. And so we did.
Speaker 1: We developed a movement program. I should say Stacy really
Speaker 1: developed a movement program. UM. And and I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, this is an exercise. This is movement. So
Speaker 1: what it is is when you use your phone, UM,
Speaker 1: you take uh five times a day an alarm would
Speaker 1: go off very small and you're gonna stop what you're
Speaker 1: doing for five minutes. That's it. I'm not and this
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. This is not an exercise routine.
Speaker 1: Nobody should be breaking a sweat. This is literally about
Speaker 1: moving your body right. So one of the things we
Speaker 1: know is when we sit for too long, um, we
Speaker 1: swell and inflammation sets in and then we get stiff
Speaker 1: and then we feel like crap and we don't want
Speaker 1: to move around. I mean, let's be fair, sitting is
Speaker 1: the new smoking. Guys. We want to stay up and down,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to be moving quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And so it Stacy taught me was five different types
Speaker 1: of movements that you can be done throughout the day.
Speaker 1: So there's a bounce, there's a shape, there's a stretch,
Speaker 1: there's a balance, and there's a build and there are
Speaker 1: different times for different prototypes. But again, what we're having
Speaker 1: people do is just you know, stand up and shake.
Speaker 1: You know, like you ever seen a dog when they
Speaker 1: get up after they've been lying from the I remember
Speaker 1: when they do that whole shaky thing and they're immediately
Speaker 1: awakened lots of I mean, I kind of feel energetic
Speaker 1: when I just did it right, and so like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that we're talking about. But it's
Speaker 1: a movement schedule and it's super easy to do. You
Speaker 1: got me fired up? Are you? And we'll we'll close here.
Speaker 1: Are you optimistic about the future of sleep and being
Speaker 1: able to spread the word and and having people increase
Speaker 1: their wellness at a time when I think, unfortunately, when
Speaker 1: you look around on several fronts, America is not getting healthier.
Speaker 1: It's getting less healthy almost by the month in so
Speaker 1: many ways. And it's never too late. But how sleep
Speaker 1: fits into this this whole component of fitness, wellness, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately longevity because we'd like to live not just longer,
Speaker 1: but high quality years. Yeah. Absolutely, so I think sleep
Speaker 1: is critical, critical, critical for all of that. And I
Speaker 1: think if you don't um well, let's let's mol me
Speaker 1: back up. If you think you're not sleeping well from
Speaker 1: a quality standpoint, talk to your doctor, you mean, dately,
Speaker 1: maybe do a sleep test. Number one, we need to
Speaker 1: rule out do you have sleep apnea, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: eighteen percent of the population, I mean, that's one in
Speaker 1: five people has that. Do you have NARCALYPSI do you
Speaker 1: have restless leg syndrome? Do you have insomnia? I mean,
Speaker 1: if if all we did was take the percentages of
Speaker 1: the population of those four things, that's like six of
Speaker 1: the population. Okay, right, So number one, if your sleep
Speaker 1: isn't great, talk with your doctor about it. That you
Speaker 1: could have a sleep disorder which could be easy to fix,
Speaker 1: and then you're back on the road to recovery. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say that that's not the case. You don't have
Speaker 1: a sleep disorder, but you have what I call disordered sleep. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's not apnea, an arcalypsy, restless leg syndrome. It's
Speaker 1: hold on a second, bro, I got six and a
Speaker 1: half hours last night, and I feel like crap, what's
Speaker 1: that all about. That's the quality side of things. And
Speaker 1: if we've already ruled out things like sleep apnia, then
Speaker 1: we start to look at like we're talking about before,
Speaker 1: environmental issues, UM bed partner issues. If you've got a
Speaker 1: snoring bed partner, or if you snore, that could be
Speaker 1: something that you want to tell packle. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different things that we need to do. But
Speaker 1: if you don't really focus in on sleep, here's what
Speaker 1: I can tell you is going to occur. You're certainly
Speaker 1: gonna die earlier, You're certainly gonna die less healthy. Um.
Speaker 1: And and that that trip along the way, it's going
Speaker 1: to be a nightmare. And I'm not using that as
Speaker 1: a pun or the fact that it's Halloween today, um,
Speaker 1: but the fact that nightmare is the right word to use,
Speaker 1: because here's what happens when people don't sleep well. What
Speaker 1: we start to see is cardiovascular changes, pretty dramatic ones,
Speaker 1: very very quickly early on. So if you're waking up
Speaker 1: falling asleep, waking up falling asleep, your heart rate is
Speaker 1: going up and down, which causes an irregular heartbeat, which
Speaker 1: can lead to something called atrial fibrilation, which can lead
Speaker 1: to heart attack, stroke, death. Not fun stuff. Stuff we
Speaker 1: don't want anybody to have. So if you're thinking about, okay,
Speaker 1: I got a lot of things I gotta do. I
Speaker 1: gotta lose weight, I gotta reduce my pain, I gotta
Speaker 1: get my mood, and better sleep will do all of
Speaker 1: it for you. Again, it's a fundamental domino of health,
Speaker 1: of illness, of longevity, of sanity. I would argue with you, know,
Speaker 1: um And and here's the thing. If you're out there listening,
Speaker 1: and at any point in this conversation you said, you know,
Speaker 1: I really do need to do something about my sleep.
Speaker 1: You do, Okay, you do. Don't blow it off, because
Speaker 1: here's the thing. People use sleep as the shock absorber
Speaker 1: of their life all the time right there, Like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm having a crappy day at work, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: stay up longer and work more. You know, Oh, I
Speaker 1: got into a fight with my spouse. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go to bed early so I don't have to deal
Speaker 1: with them. That's not how you use sleep. Okay. Sleep
Speaker 1: is a biological function. I swear to you, if you
Speaker 1: use it right, it will be the biggest gold mine
Speaker 1: you have ever found for your overall health and wellness.
Speaker 1: I promise. Now. That was a strong exclamation point to
Speaker 1: our conversation. I'm so grateful for Michael's time and his
Speaker 1: wisdom and passion for improving our health through sleep. I
Speaker 1: suggest you check out his instagram at the Sleep Doctor,
Speaker 1: also his best selling books, and his website, The sleep
Speaker 1: doctor dot com is all kinds of good stuff. They're
Speaker 1: including ratings on things that impact our sleep, like mattresses, pillows,
Speaker 1: and sheets. After the interview, Michael gave me one last
Speaker 1: tip for travelers that I never would have thought of.
Speaker 1: At hotels, choose queen beds, not rooms with kings. Most
Speaker 1: hotel mattresses aren't great, right, He says, smaller queen beds
Speaker 1: sag less and hold up better than kings. And also
Speaker 1: art is popular, so they're slept on less. Told you
Speaker 1: his ideas are comprehensive. I'm gonna try that one as always.
Speaker 1: Thanks of a co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and the
Speaker 1: team and Octagon for editing the episode. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you soon. Moore season five follower