What is the Best Sleep Routine for Optimum Health? with Dr. Michael Breus [Episode #639]

This week’s topic is: What is the Best Sleep Routine for Optimum Health? with Dr. Michael Breus

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., who is an award-winning medical writer, a clinical psychologist and both a diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine and a Fellow of The American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Listen in as Michael shares what an Energize routine looks like and how this applies to your sleep health, which foods are affecting your sleep, and how to replace a sedentary lifestyle with an Energize routine, and so much more.

[BULLETS]

• Why the time you wake up is so important to your health…
• Intermittent fasting and your chronotype…
• Why quality is the game of sleep…
• Which foods to stop eating and at what time of day…
• Replacing a sedentary lifestyle with an Energize routine and what that looks like…
• Seasonal affective disorder and the Energized Program…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Michael J. Breus

Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., is a double board certified Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Sleep Specialist. He is one of only 168 psychologists in the world to have taken and passed the Sleep Medicine Boards without going to Medical School. He is the author of three books with the newest book (2017) The Power of When, and has been in private practice for 23 years and recently relocated to and was named the Top Sleep Doctor of Los Angeles, By Readers Digest.

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Dr. Michael Breus’s Interview

• Michael’s Website
• Michael’s Energy Quiz
• Michael’s Energize Book

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• Insomnia and Sleep Issues with Dr. Michael Breus
• How Mindfulness and Meditation Can Improve Your Sleep Health with Eve Lewis Prieto
• Sleep, Beauty and Wellness Connection
• Sleep 101

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:00 Hi Beauties, and welcome back to our Monday interview podcast. We have a very special guest for you today, who is a repeat guest, Dr. Michael Breus, who is an award-winning medical writer, a clinical psychologist, and both a diplomat of the American board of sleep medicine and a fellow of the American academy of sleep medicine. He’s been on Dr. Oz, I think like 50 times as well as Oprah, the New York times has featured him. I mean, pretty much everywhere. You can see any sort of information about sleep. Dr. Michael Breus is at the forefront. He is incredibly knowledgeable and he has a new book out called energize. I love the subtitle here, go from dragging to kicking it in 30 days. So this is his new book with a very comprehensive lifestyle program that goes along with really understanding more about individualizing our sleep needs for benefits a across her whole life.

Fan of the Week

Kimberly: 01:02 So I cannot wait to get into our podcast today and share more of Dr. Breus’s fantastic wisdom and knowledge around sleep, which of course is such an important part of our wellness. But before we get into that, I wanna give a shout out for our fan of the week. His or her name is Rochesterite And here she writes happy accident. I stumbled upon Kimberly’s podcast when looking for a new self care podcast to start, I’ve only listened to one episode so far and I’m already hooked. I love her perspective on embracing transitions well, Rochesterite, thank you so much. Welcome to the community. I am so grateful for you, and I’m so grateful that you left us this review. So sending you a big warm virtual hug wherever you are.

Leave a Review on iTunes

Kimberly: 02:10  And again, thank you so much and Beauties for your chance to get shouted out as the fan of the week for me to read your beautiful words, please leave us a review on iTunes, which is free and easy and takes, you know, 30 seconds perhaps. And also if you screenshot your review and send it over to us@reviewsatmysalluna.com, we will also send you our free seven self-love affirmations. So with this little series, this mini course about how to really reprogram some of your really negative beliefs that hold you back at all different parts of your life. This is the technique of affirmations that I work with personally, that has been very effective for me. So I am excited to share it with you. So again, send your review to, um, screenshot reviews at mysolluna.com. Please be sure to subscribe to our show and that way you don’t miss out on any of these wonderful interviews or our Thursday Q&A podcast subscription is the move because we are all so busy. And so subscription ensures that this constant flow of information and self-care as Rochester writes. So actually put it is always flowing into you.

Kimberly: 03:09 So you don’t have to spend extra effort seeking it out. Finally, I also wanna mention that my new book, you are more than you think you are. Our practical enlightenment for everyday life is pre-selling now for the next about three weeks, you can access our pre-sale bonuses, which include free access to our beyond fear course, getting invited to our live loop event, which will include meditation and Q and a. It’s gonna be wonderful. So be sure to get your copies today, anywhere books are sold, Amazon Barnes and noble, and then at mysolluna.com, you can see the page where you upload the receipts and claim all your bonuses. So I’m so excited to share this book with you. It is the best book that I have written. It just came through. It’s my full playbook for really creating your best life, how to create your best job, how to be, um, in abundance to access your deepest, most expansive levels of vitality and being magnetic and inner peace. These are the teachings and the techniques that have really, really were worked for me. And as always, my motivation is to share. What’s helped me with you. So again, from the bottom of my heart, I can’t wait for you to read this new book. All right. My loves all that being said. Let’s get into our amazing interview today with Dr. Michael Breus.

Interview with Dr. Michael Breus

Kimberly:                      00:58                Dr. Bruce. It’s so great to have you back here. It’s it’s been a little while. How’s it? How’s it going?

Dr. Breus:                     01:26                Absolutely. I’m excited to be here and talk about the book and chronotypes and sleep and how to live your best life and all that kind of fun stuff. So I’m excited.

Kimberly:                      01:36                Yeah. I, I think I haven’t seen you. Um, I’m gonna, can I call you Dr. Bruce? Or do you want me to call you Michael?

Dr. Breus:                     01:41                Michael works best. Okay. <laugh>

Kimberly:                      01:43                Michael. I haven’t seen you. I think since before COVID and obviously it’s been this, you know, we get a little tired of people saying, oh, it’s been such a crazy time. It’s such a crazy time. We know it’s a crazy time, but I imagine, um, this aspect of sleep, especially over the past few years with all the uncertainty and people, not really knowing what’s going on. Yeah. I imagine people sleep has been very adverse.

Dr. Breus:                     02:08                Oh, there’s no question about it. We’re calling it Corona Somnia. Um, it’s, uh, it’s kind of crazy, but you know, when people started, when everybody kind of got sheltered, everything went a little cuckoo. Um, people started staying up late and watching Netflix, people started drinking more alcohol, drinking, more caffeine. I mean, it was like somebody took the training wheels off and everybody just went crazy. People went bananas,

Kimberly:                      02:33                People were eating more. They were

Dr. Breus:                     02:36                <laugh>. I mean, people were gaining weight left and right. I mean, which isn’t great, you know, like, I mean, so what I think ended up happening is when the rules kind of came off, right. And people weren’t having to commute and go to work and get up at a particular time rhythm. Yes. They get their kids to school every day. You know, there was a routine that I think was very valuable for people. And now when that routine kind of flew out the window, our sleep was dramatically dramatically affected. I mean, honestly, Kim, I’ve got more people now coming to me for sleep problems than I did before the pandemic, because they’re not just worried about their health. They’re worried about their family’s health, their friends’ health, you know, this level of stress. And I’m sure you’ve seen it in your tribe as well. It’s, it’s getting greater and greater and we gotta find stuff for people to number one, energize themselves. That’s why we’ve got the new book coming out. But number two, to just take a break yeah. You know, and slow down and understand how to reduce their stress. Um, because quite frankly, it’s gonna kill ’em if they don’t

Kimberly:                      03:38                Exactly. I’ve feel like people are always taking more aids. There’s all this stuff about, you know, coffee and what to put in coffee and where people are just jacking themselves up during the day. And then on the, on the flip end there isn’t that, that, that part of the cycle, the rejuvenative part, the restful part isn’t always there. So, um, Dr. Bruce, I love that you call this book energized because you know, talking about restfulness and sleep, which it obviously is a missing part of the equation. So was this book born out of what you saw in COVID or what was the, um, inspiration for this book? Because the last time we talked, um, it was for, you know, your, your book that came out, I believe, you know, a few years ago in 27. Yep.

Dr. Breus:                     04:14                The power of when yep.

Kimberly:                      04:15                Yes. And the CRO top. So where did this, you know, where did this come from this idea?

Where the idea for his new book, Energize, came from

Dr. Breus:                     04:20                So it was kind of interesting. So my, uh, co-author is Stacy Griffith. And so for folks who don’t know, and I can’t believe anybody doesn’t know who she is, she is one of the founding trainers of that company, soul cycle, you know, the indoor bicycle company know. And so she’s one of their top trainers, one of the first ones, crazy energy in her class. And we’ve been friends for a long. And, um, you know, I was talking with her one day about my clients and I said, you know, it’s really weird. I’ve got clients who get enough sleep, but they’re still exhausted during the day. And then she said to me, Michael, I’ve got clients that work out like themes, but are still exhausted during the day. And I said, there’s gotta be a way that we can take these two worlds and bring them together and get people not exhausted, but get people energized.

Dr. Breus:                     05:06                Um, believe it or not, the, the, the working title of the book before it was energized was exhausted because that was, I like energized more <laugh> I know I do too. Everybody likes energized more. It’s more positive. Yeah. This is what we want. Right, exactly. But, but originally the name of the book was called to exhausted because we had so many people in our lives that we were trying to help that were exhausted. And so we decided to look at body types. So for folks, if you don’t remember body types, you go back to your high school biology. Right. We learned about these things called endomorph mesomorph and ectomorph, so I’m gonna review those real quick for people if that’s okay. Is that okay to it is please.

Kimberly:                      05:42                Do I, I love the, um, in like how you individualize your program so much, Dr. Bruce, I think that’s, you know, that’s one of the most powerful parts, so yeah. Please explain to us. So

Dr. Breus:                     05:52                What we did was we looked at body types. So if you remember back to high school biology, there was the endomorph, which was kind of the little bit bigger person carried their weight around the middle or on their hips. There was a, mesomorph more of a, V-shaped kind of more of a muscular type of situation, shoulders, a little bit broader hips, a little bit smaller. Then we had the ectomorph. These were kind of the long and lean people. Um, usually a little bit on the ear side of things. What that really is, is that tells us a lot about metabolism, right? So the long and lean have a fast metabolism, the medium, or mesomorphs have got a medium metabolism. And the endomorphs who are a little bit bigger appear to have a slower metabolism. So that’s something to kind of stick into the back of your brain. Now, remember we did talk before about chronotypes, but I figure I should probably go over them once again, for people just really quickly, by the way, if you want a really depth discussion of it, you should view our previous podcast. You should go back in the archives and check those out. By the way, a lot of the shows that are in the archives are really pretty amazing. So you should go back and check those out anyway. <laugh> well,

Kimberly:                      06:57                I’ll do, Michael will definitely link to that beauties in the show notes. So it’s, it’s easy to find. Oh, perfect. Real. When you’re talking about EC more, all this stuff, have you ever, um, has anyone ever said to you Dr. Bruce, that it kind of lays on top of the VEIC DOHAS

Dr. Breus:                     07:10                It does. Absolutely.

Kimberly:                      07:12                Yes. Sava is the skinny, the bigger one is Kafa its the V-shape. Wow. And

Dr. Breus:                     07:17                It’s all it’s, it’s amazing how similar this is. Also, if you look at the chronotypes those also fall into, um, that ive universe as well. So early bird, I it’s crazy. Right? So early birds. So just to back up, what is a chronotype? So a chronotype for folks who may not have heard the term, you’ve actually heard of the, of the situation before, if you’ve ever been called an early bird or a night owl, those are chronotypes.

Kimberly:                      07:43                I love how it goes back to animals.

Dr. Breus:                     07:45                Oh yes. It always goes back to animals. So we used to call people early bird, hummingbird and night owl, to be honest with you, I’m a, Mamal not a bird. So I wanted to change the, the, the categories to animal names and I wanted to choose animals that actually had those chronotypes mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but here’s the weird part. Nobody wants to be a porcupine. You know what I’m saying?

Kimberly:                      08:08                Nobody wants to be known as, as prickly

Dr. Breus:                     08:11                And exactly, exactly. Punching

Kimberly:                      08:13                Holes in the couches everywhere. I

Dr. Breus:                     08:14                Know. Exactly. So the goal here was to find animals that really fit the, the chronotype that people wanted to be. So early bird turns into a lion, right? And so who doesn’t want to be a lion, right? King of the jungle queen of the jungle, like kind of get out there with your power. So lions are my early risers. They have a tendency to wake up, you know, between four 30 and five 30 and the morning, the time of day that I hate the most. Okay. You, the only thing I hate more than mornings are morning people, you guys are too chipper. I can’t man. Stand

Kimberly:                      08:46                It. Oh, Dr. Bruce don’t come over here because I’m, I’m sort of a forced, uh, early bird with our baby. Yeah. I bet. Or, or lion. I’m a lion. You’re a forced

Dr. Breus:                     08:55                Lion with the baby. Absolutely. So, but lions are great. People love to be a lion. People even have lion envy. Like they wish they could wake up that early and get stuff done. But here’s the, here’s the problem with being a lion social. You’ve been up since four 30 in the morning. You don’t wanna go to dinner in a movie. You wanna go to bed, right. That’s

Kimberly:                      09:14                True. That’s me. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna read and go to bed.

Dr. Breus:                     09:17                <laugh> exactly right. I totally understand that. So that’s, that’s the lines of what we call the early birds. The people in the middle that we used to call hummingbirds, we call them bears. Um, and 55, 0% of the population are made up of bears. So these are people that like to go to bed around 10. They like to wake up seven. They have kind of a medium sleep drive, but these are the people that get work done during the days. These are the people that really make it happen for us. What was that?

Kimberly:                      09:44                Kim is that true? 50% of people get up at seven. I can’t even seven getting up that late these days with the kids, but just in general, that feels like, oh my God, seven o’clock

Dr. Breus:                     09:55                I absolutely. No, it’s crazy. But here’s the thing is many people don’t wake up at the time that they should, many people are forced to wake up earlier than they should. And that throws off their chronotype a little bit. So not 50% of people don’t wake up at seven, but 50% of people should wake up. Oh, at

Kimberly:                      10:12                Seven. So you were saying they should, these, this bear type is getting nine hours of sleep. If they’re going to bed

Dr. Breus:                     10:18                At 10. Well, what I’m saying is, is they’re getting in bed. It takes ’em a half an hour to fall asleep. They probably wake up around six 30 and they kind of chill out in bed. So they’re, they’re the ones who get the closest to eight hours out of all of the prototypes, the, um, the next prototype, the night owl, what I call a Wolf, that’s me. Um, we are not great sleepers. I never go to bed before midnight ever if I can avoid it. Um, it just doesn’t work for me cuz I just lie there. Looking at the ceiling, being off that I’m lying there. Looking at the ceiling, being off well

Kimberly:                      10:47                Midnight, no matter what you do. If, if you turn off screens, if you’re wearing blue light glasses, really,

Dr. Breus:                     10:54                It’s just my it’s my chronotype and this. So this is the, this is really important. And I’m so glad that you just made that comment because you can’t change your chronotype <laugh>

Kimberly:                      11:06                So is, is midnight something across the, that just seems so late. Dr. Bruce, what if, what if you have a routine? What if you meditate, take a shower. There’s no way to alter it. Midnight.

Dr. Breus:                     11:15                All of that stuff can go in there. And again, this is only for the wolfs, which only make up by the way, 10% of the population. So we’re only talking about one in 10 of your listeners is probably a Wolf, but we are the people that never go to bed before midnight. But we do all the stuff that you said. We have a Mor evening routine. We have a morning routine. It’s just later in the evening. And later in the morning I personally have got my sleep so well optimized that I only sleep for about six hours and 15 minutes. So I go to bed at midnight and I wake up without an alarm every single day by six 15, like it never

Kimberly:                      11:51                Changes. That’s that’s enough sleep for your body.

Dr. Breus:                     11:53                Yeah. And I’m 53 years old. Um, and so different people have different sleep needs as they age. So one thing that could happen is as I get older, I could require more sleep. So as an example, if I become more medically frail, like I have a disease or a disorder, God for forbid get into a car accident, the, all of those types of things would require me to have more sleep because of the healing process or what might be going on in my body. Right. But as of right now, my body’s great. I mean, I’m in great shape. I’m I’m working out, I’m

Kimberly:                      12:26                Fit. Let’s just intend, you know, let’s just say positively that’ll that’ll never happen. You’re never gonna be medically frail. Dr. Russo, right? Conceivably, you could continue on this six hours and 15 minutes easily for, you know

Dr. Breus:                     12:38                Yeah. Really for, for most of my life, believe it or not because of the consistency of my sleep and the consistency can really layers in on the wake up time. Not necessarily the go to bedtime. So people wanna vary their go to bedtime because they want to, they do wanna have dinner in a movie one night with their spouse or they or the kids have got a babysitter and you do get to go and hang out with somebody else for a change. That’s okay. But it’s the wake up time. That is so, so, so critical seven days a week, including the weekends. And I know that stinks, but you gotta do it. Okay. You gotta, why,

Kimberly:                      13:13                Why is wake up time so important.

Why the time you wake up is so important to your health

Dr. Breus:                     13:15                All right. So this is a, this is such a good question, Kim. I’m so glad that you asked it. So a lot of people don’t realize it, but when you wake up and you open your eyes in the morning, sunlight comes in and there you have a very special cell in your eye called a melanopsin cell. And this turns off the melatonin faucet in your brain. So melatonin’s going, helping you sleep. And then light comes in. SHK turns it off. This is the reason why we don’t like using our devices before bed because that can, that blue light really affects our ability to have melatonin. But there’s a second thing that happens that most people don’t know about. And this is why you have to do the same time. Every single morning is when the Mela faucet turns off. It sets a timer from that moment on, for about 16 hours to when melatonin should start again. So think about it like this. If I wake up at six 30 during the week, and then Saturday, I wake up at eight 30, my melatonin is gonna be off by two hours that night. I’m not gonna get sleepy until two hours later than I normally would have. Does

Kimberly:                      14:22                That make sense? Oh, so the consistency of waking up guarantees

Dr. Breus:                     14:26                The consistency of going to bed. Exactly. No, you’re, even

Kimberly:                      14:29                If you’re a little tired, let’s say usually go to bed, you know, like me, like, I, I love to go to bed at nine, but let’s say it’s 11. Like you said, there’s another big deal. I still wake up. I mean, I have to wake up anytime, you know, five 30 to six with a baby anyway, but that it’s better to be a little bit tired than wake up later. And then you’re dragging you’re a little bit slothful, you’re energized. You’re not as energized.

Dr. Breus:                     14:51                Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, you hit the nail on the head. So waking up based on your chronotype is the most important thing you can do. So for folks who are listening, um, if you wanna learn what your chronotype is, you can go to the book website, which is energize myself.com, um, or my energy quiz.com. Either one will tee you how to figure out what your body type is and how to figure out what your chronotype is. And then you start to really layer it in. Um, so one of the biggest discoveries that we had, um, which I’d love to talk a little bit about is something called intermittent fasting. Is that something that you’ve talked about with your audience before

Kimberly:                      15:28                It is we had, uh, Dr. Will Cole on here of course focuses on it as

Intermittent fasting and your chronotype

Dr. Breus:                     15:32                Well. Yeah, absolutely. So intermittent fasting for folks, just as a quick reminder, this is what we call time restricted feeding. So you only eat during certain times during a 24 hour cycle. Hmm here’s what’s so fascinating in the book energized. What we discovered was, so I’ve been an intermittent faster for like five years and I’ve decided a while back that I was gonna do intermittent fasting based on my chronotype. Um, so remember I’m a night owl chronotype. And to be honest with you, Kim, I can’t eat breakfast. I just can’t, it makes me sick now to be clear, I love breakfast food. Like I love eggs and all of that good stuff, but I can’t eat ’em in the morning. Like just nothing seems to want to go in, twist it back later in the day. Right. And so when you think about like, when you should be eating, I start my feeding time.

Dr. Breus:                     16:22                If you will. Sometimes at about one o’clock in the afternoon. So a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, you don’t eat anything all day. How do you have any energy what’s going on here? So the, the, the trick behind intermittent fasting is a process called a top. So a topee is a situation where your body burns through all the carbs. And then, and by the way, when it burns through the carbs, it’s not giving you pure good energy for your body. It’s burning through the material that you put in it, which unfortunately, sometimes it’s got processed food in, it’s got sugar in it, things that are not really not so, so good, but when your body burns through that and starts to burn fat, that is the purest form of energy that your body can have. And it gives you the most in terms of your motivation in terms of your energy and things like that. So we like intermittent fasting, but we wanna do it at a time when our bodies and our microbiome are ready to accept this process. And that’s based on your chronotype. So what’s cool about that is now we know when to fast, but there’s more so wait,

Kimberly:                      17:23                Wait, so hold on, Dr. Bruce. Yeah. So you’re a Wolf, so you’re starting to eat at one. And when do you stop

Dr. Breus:                     17:28                Eating? So I stop eating since I’m a mesomorph I feed for about 10 hours. So I go from one to about 11. So I stop eating about an hour or so before bed. And to be honest with you, I don’t eat up up until 11. Like I

Kimberly:                      17:41                Should be hungry at 11 at night, but what about, what about me, Dr. Bruce? I think I’m a, um, um,

Dr. Breus:                     17:47                You’re probably an ectomorph cuz you’re mean, right. So if you were to do intermittent fasting

Kimberly:                      17:53                And I’m a lion, I’m an, you’re

Dr. Breus:                     17:55                Definitely a lion. So you’re what we would call a fast lion. So you’re the type of person who probably does eat breakfast in the mornings. Am I correct? You like to eat breakfast?

Kimberly:                      18:04                Yes. I’m hungry in the morning. I do eat.

Dr. Breus:                     18:06                Yeah. You wake up hungry would be my, I do like, but then by about 2 30, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, you probably aren’t very hungry anymore. And you probably kind of snack a little here, snack a little there. My guess is lunch is probably one of your bigger meals of the day.

Kimberly:                      18:21                Yes. And then, you know, again, my schedule is sort of crazy and then we have family dinner really early at like five or five 30 before the

Dr. Breus:                     18:29                Makes perfect sense. Cuz you’re lion and you’re probably the one that’s making the dinner, making

Kimberly:                      18:33                The dinner, like making sure everybody’s eating the kids hub, you know? So, um, so, so you were saying, oh yeah. So sorry to answer. So what would be my ideal intermittent fasting if you were saying, so your layer, your body type and chronotype together. Exactly.

Dr. Breus:                     18:47                So we already know your chronotype is the early bird, the lion. So we know that you would be feeding in the morning time, but the question is how long. So if you’re an ecto Mor, which is the, the lean person you don’t wanna fast for too long because you’ll start losing more weight. So you use the 12 and 12 schedule, 12 hours of feeding, 12 hours of fasting. If you’re the meso Mor you might wanna drop a little bit of weight, then what you would do is you would do 10 hours of feeding, 14 hours of fasting. So notice how it went from 12, 12 to 10 and 14, but

Kimberly:                      19:22                You can start at seven. You can start it any time. It could like seven to seven or seven to exactly five.

Dr. Breus:                     19:28                Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative> based on your yes. Remember based on your chronotype. So there’s two factors when tells you your chronotype and then how, how long to fast is based on your body type. So the final one is your endo more so that’s the little bit bigger people. We want them to actually feed the smallest amount of time because they wanna lose the weight. So they will fast for 16 hours and for eight. So what happens is, is based on your body type, we know the length of your fast and based on your chronotype, we know when you should fast, these are rules or guidelines that nobody has ever presented before. I mean, there are so many people out there who are like, Hey, I’d love to try this intermittent fasting thing, but when do I start? And how long do I do it? These are some guidelines for your listeners to be able to figure out in the book energize. And we’ve got all kinds of crazy good information in there to teach people how to be more energetic. Intermittent fasting is only one component of the book. We teach you how to sleep based on your chronotype and how to move based on your body type. That’s also unique.

Kimberly:                      20:32                Well, I, I wanna get into that next, Dr. Bruce, but what I, what I love about this as well is, you know, there are these blanket terms like intermittent fasting, and then there’s kind of these, you know, rules are these ways of doing it, which are sort of, um, you know, generic, it doesn’t always apply. So for someone like me who is very hungry in the morning, um, and I’m not breastfeeding anymore, but when I was, I was even more hungry, um, it just doesn’t really work. So we need this, this layer of certain information to give us the guidance. And I love the body type part because everything you’re saying, isn’t alignment with data. And as an Ava practitioner, I love when you know, these, um, ancient sciences are, you know, supported by modern medicine and what’s going on. So then it feels like, oh, like this makes sense on many levels and a, an AIC level, a Western science level. So, um, so I really, you know, I love this, Dr. Bruce, this is

Dr. Breus:                     21:25                Amazing. Well, thank you. I appreciate you noting. It’s all about balance, right? Yes. And, and ive is about balance. Yes. And the book energizes about balance. So it’s always, always about balance. And speaking of balance movement is a big part.

Why quality is the game of sleep

Kimberly:                      21:41                Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about, um, oh, but first I had one question before I forget Dr. Bruce, you were talking, talking about hours when you were talking about body types and chronotypes, but we didn’t talk about quality of sleep. Yeah. So has your research showed like how much screen time, how much those blue lights are affecting the quality of sleep or, you know, let’s say you wake up a lot, something on your mind, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> how does quality factor in, if you’re you’re, you know, a bad sleeper, you wake up a lot. Do you need more of

Dr. Breus:                     22:08                Hours? Quality is everything okay? Okay. Quality is the game. The name of the game here and quantity is not okay. So it’s really smart that you identified that because we oftentimes talk about quantity. How many minutes did you sleep? How many hours did you sleep? Blah, blah, blah. That do almost doesn’t matter. As long as the quality of the sleep is good. So one of the things that I know you’re a big fan of is avoiding processed foods, avoiding sugars, um, having more raw foods, healthy foods, things like that, all of that leads to better sleep. No question about it. So number one, access foods into your system, absolutely positive lowers, sleep quality. There’s lots of data to suggest this other things, lower sleep quality. Caffeine is a biggie, right? And now, and to be fair, stop

Which foods to stop eating and at what time of day

Kimberly:                      23:01                Drinking caffeine. I hear different things. Dr. Bruce, what do you say? You’re the sleep doctor?

Dr. Breus:                     23:05                So I’m gonna give you three separate recommendations for caffeine because now everybody drinks the same amount or has the same amount that they, you know, want to drink. So number one, absolutely positively. You gotta stop by 2:00 PM. Why 2:00 PM? OK. I’ll tell you why 2:00 PM is most caffeine has a halflife of eight hours. Um, that’s gonna depend upon a person’s metabolism. So eight hours after 2:00 PM is 10. When most people are going to sleep, that’s when 50%, that’s it. Only 50% of the caffeine is out of your system. So if you have four cups of coffee, you’ve onboarded about 450 milligrams of caffeine. If you stop at two o’clock, there’s still 225 milligrams of caffeine. That’s on board. That’s not helping your sleep. My second recommendation would be to stop by noon, if you possibly can. Why noon? Because noon represents a little bit past, um, our two o’clock stay age. We get a little bit, two hours further that gives us roughly 10 hours to get caffeine out of our system. About 35% is left at that point. So we’ve got more than 50, but not quite a quarter. My final recommendation is, oh my God. Just have caffeine and stop by nine o’clock in the morning. If you,

Kimberly:                      24:25                That is very, very early, Dr. Ruth,

Dr. Breus:                     24:28                It’s a challenge. It’s a cha look, you wake up at five 30. You can stop by nine. You know, you could, right. I’m having a, I’m

Kimberly:                      24:34                Having my, my ma tea right now. Still what time is it? See,

Dr. Breus:                     24:37                There you go. So, oh, 10 o’clock <laugh> so, so here’s the fascinating data is the quarter life 25% of caffeine is still in your system. 12 hours later. 12 hours. Yeah. So if you stop at nine 25% of that, caffeine is still on board at nine o’clock at night. Yeah. The reason that I’m I pull people back. So two o’clock, 12 o’clock and nine o’clock. The reason I do that is pick your poison. All right. Pick your place where you want start don’t jump to nine o’clock. If you are used drinking six cups of coffee throughout the day, you’re just gonna hate your life. At that point, work on the two o’clock one for a couple of months. I like that, right? It does like it’s slow and steady wins this race. It’s not annihilate all caffeine consumption because I’m gonna tell you something. I’m the sleep doctor. I like caffeine. I have a cup of coffee every once in a while. How much caffeine do

Kimberly:                      25:29                You have? Do you have an every day Dr.

Dr. Breus:                     25:31                Bruce? I don’t, I don’t actually, uh, drink or use caffeine every day. Um, I just don’t feel the need for it. I mean, I wake up and I feel really good. Um, I will say that I do like, um, really good black coffee. So when people send me coffee, I do have a tendency to enjoy it in the morning time, the taste for the taste. Um, and to bear, like, I don’t mind having a slight caffeine boost, but kind of Kim I’ve got enough energy as it is. Like, could you imagine me on free cups of coffee at this point? Like it would not be pretty girl. It would not be

Kimberly:                      26:03                Pretty, no, you’d, you’d be

Dr. Breus:                     26:04                Telling like 90, I know like a million miles an hour. Exactly. All

Kimberly:                      26:07                The facts, like all the numbers. Just,

Movement versus exercise based on your body type

Dr. Breus:                     26:10                Yeah, that wouldn’t be that wouldn’t be good. Um, oh, so getting back to movement. Yes. So, um, so in the book we talk about a new movement schedule, which I really think is very, very unique. And I wanna preface this by saying, we’re not talking about exercise here. We’re talking about movement. Those are two very different things.

Kimberly:                      26:28                Explain the difference as you’re, as

Dr. Breus:                     26:30                You’re defining it. Yep. So my co-author Stacy Griffith is the founder of, uh, one of the founding trainers of SoulCycle. Right? So that’s the indoor bicycle, uh, place

Kimberly:                      26:41                That, yeah, we, we had Ruth Zuckerman on here. She’s one of the co-founders as well. Yep.

Dr. Breus:                     26:45                Yep. So, so what Stacy did was she brought so much expertise to the, to the front forefront talking about movement. And she said to me, she said, you know, Michael, you know, based on people’s body type, there’s certain movements I have them do. And there’s certain movements. I don’t. I was like, what do you need? She said, well, look, if I’ve got an endo more, if who’s a little bit on the bigger side, if I tell them that they need to go run a mile, they’re never gonna come back. Right. They’re never gonna do it. They’re never, they’re never gonna be motivated because I Cho, I MIS chose, uh, exercise for their body type. But if I turn to somebody who’s a little bit thicker and bigger, and I said, Hey, here’s in something different. What? I want you to stretch a little and maybe do some bench press. That’s something that, that body type can do easily and still get some movement out of it. So, okay. Working with Stacy, we found exercises based on your body type. And we actually have people do it five times a day for only five minutes. So interesting. Yeah. It’s it’s to, to replace

Kimberly:                      27:42                Like, no,

Replacing a sedentary lifestyle with an Energize routine and what that looks like

Dr. Breus:                     27:44                No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re not replacing exercise, but what you are doing is replacing a sedentary lifestyle. So, oh, here’s the thing to remember. And I think you’ve actually said this before, like sitting is the new smoking, right? So like that

Kimberly:                      27:58                Was one of my books.

Dr. Breus:                     28:00                Yeah. We need to get out there. We need to be moving. Right. So this is a program where five times throughout the day, you’re gonna move your body for only five minutes and it will give you energy, not take it away. Hmm. So the, the first kind of makes sense. Everybody’s been asleep. So in the morning time, we want people to wake up the muscles, do a little stretching thing. We give you all kinds of different stretches that you can do and see your, and that sounds like a, yeah. I, I know, right? It’s like, Hey, this feels good. Might as well.

Kimberly:                      28:29                It feels like, you know, circulation going. I feel like, I think more clearly

Dr. Breus:                     28:32                When you move you’re right. That’s why we’ve got the movements in the book. We I’m telling you something, your tribe is gonna love this book. Love it. The, the second one is called a shake. Right. So you ever notice what animals do when they wake remember? Right. They do that whole shaky thing. I think I’ve seen our dog do that. Exactly. So what is he doing? Energetically. He’s waking himself up, right? So I have people shake. So you can shake your arms, the ear hands, you can shake your legs, but it feels good. And it a break from whatever it is that you’re thinking about. <affirmative> this is all about taking a break and moving. Yeah. So that would happen around 11 o’clock ish. After lunch, we would come back and we’d have you do a bounce. So what is a bounce could be jumping jacks could be a mini tramp that you have, um, could just be doing some squats, but some thing to get the body up and down and moving again. Notice the theme here every, at two hours or so, we’re having, you do some form of movement again, only for five minutes. And this does not replace your exercise routine. This is your energized routine. Okay. So this

Kimberly:                      29:37                Is something you could do, you know, if you’re in an office, a cubicle a hundred percent.

Dr. Breus:                     29:41                Okay. Yep. And that’s the goal, right? Is because here’s the thing. If you’re stuck in a cube doing zoom meeting after zoom meeting, um, you know, you’ve gotta do something to get your energy back. Oh,

Kimberly:                      29:52                The, the, the zoom meetings Michael had just taken over, I mean, it’s terrible when there was in-person meetings, there’s a little bit of, you know, walking to the meeting, walking back now. I mean, I have these days where I have a lot of zooms too, and you just, you’re just glued to your chair.

Dr. Breus:                     30:07                It’s tough. It is tough. The fourth one is called a build. So this is where you use a major muscle group, like chest or glutes. So you might do some pushups. You might do some sit ups. You might do some squats again, not to the point of sweating, but just to the point of getting that body keeping going, and then the final movement that you do right before bed is a balance. So maybe it’s a tree pose. Maybe it’s something like that. Maybe it’s a downward dog, but it’s something to help you keep your balance and keep your mind focused on calm, centered balance work. So we intermittent fasting based on your body type and your chronotype. We’ve got sleeping based on your chronotype. And now we’ve got moving based on your body type. So it’s, it’s really a unique program to give you consist all day long.

Seasonal affective disorder and the Energized Program

Kimberly:                      30:56                Oh, wow. So I <laugh>, well, Dr. Bruce is just a, you know, I love that. You’ve thought about all these different aspects of lifestyle, because one of the things we talk about here is when things aren’t holistic, when it’s just, you know, you’re just looking at the sleep or you’re just looking at the diet, it doesn’t make sense because all the different parts aren’t speaking to each other. Right. So, um, a question I have for you, because I love again, this individuality. Talk to me a little bit about seasonal, um, shifts. So let’s say, you know, obviously in winter, people suffer from seasonal effective disorder there’s light. So how does that figure in with this, you know, the energized program?

Dr. Breus:                     31:32                Absolutely. So we actually have an entire chapter on energy throughout the year to look at this in particular, because two different things happen during the winter time, we have less light exposure. There’s more cloud cover. And of course the earth is further away from the sun and it’s colder. And so people aren’t going outside and aren’t as active as they once were two big, big factors for this program, energized that I want people to recognize. So number one, it, winter is coming up, right? I mean, let’s be honest. It’s the middle of December. The book is launch today. It’s exciting. I’m super stoked about it, but it’s cold outside and people. So the movement you stuff that you can do inside, don’t forgo your cardio. You can find a gym or you can create a gym in your home. Um, you can do some fun exercises that won’t cost you any money if that’s kind of a thing for you.

Dr. Breus:                     32:22                So don’t forget your cardio at all, but the other one is get light. Um, light is medicine. I tell people this all the time and people don’t really think about it. So make sure that number one, you’re getting sunlight. If you can get 15 minutes of sunlight every day, hopefully at the beginning of the day, it will change your entire perspective. Number one 15 minutes is all you need in order for your body to generate vitamin D. Remember folks, vitamin D is critical, critical, critical to your overall health. Um, it’s important for skin it’s important for circadian rhythms. It’s important for energy by the way. Go ahead. Sorry.

Kimberly:                      33:00                Dr. Bruce, did you say get outside in the light or what if it’s just coming into the windows? Does it actually have to saturate your skin?

Dr. Breus:                     33:05                So great question, Kim. So here’s I know you did, so here’s the deal. It’s better if you get the natural sun on your skin, most of the windows that are created are, have got a, a lens on them that polarized the light so that it doesn’t come in and heat up the home too much. So you’re not actually getting the true benefits of light unless you’re outside. Plus it’s nice to get some fresh air, right? I mean, I get it. It’s chill, but if you can go outside for 10 minutes, but if you can’t, because it’s just too cold, I’m not, but go next to a window and really make sure to get some of that sunlight in, I mean, keep your eyes closed and just look out into the sun and enjoy the warmth because it will still produce that vitamin D, which can be very helpful for you.

Kimberly:                      33:53                Well, what if it’s like right now, it’s a rare day in, um, LA Dr. Bruce. I’m looking out

Dr. Breus:                     33:57                The window. It’s I know it’s raining in LA

Kimberly:                      33:59                It’s right now. So what do we do? What if you live in a place? Oh my gosh, what if you’re from like Finland or something? And there’s this I know, right months of like darkness, then what do we

Dr. Breus:                     34:07                Do? So then we actually buy light boxes. So they make these commercially available light boxes. You can get ’em on Amazon for less than a hundred bucks. Um, my favorite one is called the go light. G O L I T E. I use it all the time when I travel. Um, I just keep it in my bag. It’s about this big it’s like, you know, maybe the size of, I don’t know, like a paperback book and, um, it, it’s great because you can use that to give you energy and help you wake up from that deep sleep, especially when there’s no sun outside. Mm.

Synergizing chronotypes as families

Kimberly:                      34:39                So, um, thank you for that, Dr. Bruce it’s it’s, it’s just good to know how we, you know, continue to absolutely evolve it Fe seasonally. So I have another question for you, you know, talking about this program, and again, I love the individuality of it because I think it just creates that self-awareness is there something to this that’s hereditary? Or can we say in a family? Oh, this family’s mostly wolves because I just think practically as a mom, you know what, if everyone in your family’s a different chronotype, so you’re trying to figure out dinner. You’re trying to figure out morning routine. Oh yes. How do we synergize as families?

Dr. Breus:                     35:12                Okay. So this is the question of all questions. So number one, the good news is you don’t have to have your partner be the same chronotype. You can have different chronotypes

Kimberly:                      35:22                Date in between.

Dr. Breus:                     35:23                Yes, you can. It is, it is perfectly fine thing to do. Although I will tell you that my wife and I are both wolves and we never realized it. Um, but when we, when we say, Hey, what time do you want me to pick you up? She’d say eight o’clock. So then we’d go to dinner at eight 30 till like 9 30, 10. We’d go to the movies from 10 till 12. Then we’d go out and have a drink. Perfect. Get some dessert afterwards. We’d get home at one 30. Oh my God. It never bothered either. One of you’d be asleep halfway through the salad. I’d be asleep before dinner, like knocking on the door, asleep on the couch. You’d be out. You’d be like, Michael, we’re done where there’s no dating going on on this will never work. So I didn’t even realize it, but she was a perfect match for me because she’s a Wolf as well.

Dr. Breus:                     36:09                But you don’t have to date somebody that is the exact same prototype as you are. That’s number one, number two in the book, we actually give people schedules to help with this. But one thing I wanted to talk about, cuz you mentioned kids, all kids go through all of the chronotypes. So when you think about it, so you’ve got an itty bitty baby, right? Itty bitty babies or lions. Well, no, I know when you had an itty bitty baby, when, when they, when he was lion, guess what? When to bed early, woke up early now, now in the toddler stage, going to bed a little bit later, waking up a little bit later when they hit adolescence or teenagers. Oh, it’s rough. I’m gonna warn you right now. I’m not there yet. I’m not there yet. You’re so lucky. It sucks. I’m just telling you, there’s nothing easy about teenagers and their sleep is even worse because they want to stay up late and sleep late, like a Wolf.

Dr. Breus:                     36:59                Right? So you’re in that now. Hot, hot, Dr. Bruce, you have a team. Yeah. So I have a, I have a, almost 20 year old and I just turned 18 year old, both in college. And so they’re, they love the late nights. My daughter almost never goes to bed before 1231 o’clock so the point I’m bringing up here is number one, CRO types are genetic. So since both my wife and I are late night people, it’s not a big surprise that my daughter and my son are late night people, even though they’re in that age, I have a feeling that that might be the prototype that sticks around for them. So to be clear when you’re an it bitty baby, you’re a lion, then you move on to a bear in adolescence, you become a Wolf. Then it sets for about 30 years and then it can change again when you get older.

Dr. Breus:                     37:47                So I’m 53 years old. And my, what we’re starting to see is my melatonin production is starting to, to change a little bit, which is making me start to wake up earlier and earlier. So it will absolutely affect your O overall timing of when you’re going to bed and when you’re waking up. Um, but it is a genetic thing with families all the time. It’s certainly something that I talk about with families, um, to be aware of, but yep. Understanding and using the, uh, the power of when is a communication tool works out really, really well for most people. And for folks who are interested in learning what their chronotype is or their body type is, if you go to www dot, energize myself.com or www.myenergyquiz.com, you can learn about it all there and pick up the book.

Dr. Breus:                     38:58                So for folks, if you wanna learn more about me, go to www.sleepdoctor.com and for folks who wanna take the energize quiz, go to energizemyself.com or my energyquiz.com. Thanks again, and wishing you sweet dreams.

Kimberly: 04:40 Well, Dr. Breus, I could talk to you forever. You have so much information, but thank you so much for being here with us today and for sharing a snapshot of all this incredible wisdom and information that you’ve compiled for us in your new book energized. I love the subtitle. I’m gonna say it again from D dragging to kicking it in 30 days. So again, thank you so much. And thank you beauties for tuning in with us today as always. It is a pleasure to share the journey to be here with you. Be sure to check out Dr. Breus at new book energize, we will have direct links over in the show notes mysolluna.com as well as linking to my prior interview with Dr. Breus, which is also full of great information and other podcasts, I think you would enjoy. So this book is out now.

Kimberly: 05:36 Be sure to get your copy today. And I will be back here Thursday for our next Q&A podcast to then take great care, embrace this beautiful time of year, which is exciting and also cozy. It’s also great chance to go deeper into our self connection and into our meditations. Please also be sure to, pre-order a copy of my new book. You are more than you think you are practical enlightenment for everyday life. There’s about three more weeks to, to claim your pre-sale bonuses. I’m so excited to share this one with you. I will see you back here in a few days, sending you so much love now. Must stay peace and love.

The post What is the Best Sleep Routine for Optimum Health? with Dr. Michael Breus [Episode #639] appeared first on Solluna by Kimberly Snyder.