Dr. Michael Breus is the sleep doctor for celebrities like Paris Hilton, Carson Daily, and Steve Aoki and he dropped by the show to talk sleep and bust a few myths.
On today’s episode, The Sleep Doctor talks about:
- What are chronotypes and how they work (hint: they’re genetic and cannot be changed)
- Is marijuana good for sleep? What about CBD? And what is CBN and how powerful is its potential?
- How to be transformative as an RSA
- Is melatonin good for you and your kids (don’t miss this discussion).
Whether he is providing advice to celebrities or the mattress industry, this episode has something for everyone.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mark Kinsley
Well I love the title of this book, go from dragging ass to kicking it in 30 days the name of the book is Energized. We have Michael Breus, Ph.D., the sleep doctor in the house today. The dose Marco show begins in 60 seconds.
Mark Kinsley
I just want to get something out of the way. Right here right now. Dr. Bruce, when should the different Crono types have sex we’ve all been waiting to know.
Dr. Michael Breus
So this is always the number one question that I get is when is the best time to have sex? And so I’m going to give a generalized answer and then I’ll teach everybody a little bit more about Crono types. So it turns
Mark Quinn
it can I just answer that. Can I just shortcut you in a for most men listening to the show? It’s whenever you can. So there’s science to this. Okay, well, I’ve
Dr. Michael Breus
got the data hold tight. So here’s how it works. Alright, let’s go. Okay. And so you need five hormones to have successful intimacy, right? You need estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, adrenaline and cortisol need to be high. And melatonin, the sleep hormone needs to be low. So we did a survey where we asked people about what time do they generally like to be intimate? Most people 74% like to be intimate somewhere between 10 and 1130 at night. So question number one for the dose? Marcos, what do you think your hormone profile looks like at night?
Mark Kinsley
Well, melatonin is gonna increase.
Dr. Michael Breus
That’s right. So melatonin is high and all those other things are low. That’s his number one. Hint number two, what most men wake up with in the morning.
Mark Kinsley
erections.
Dr. Michael Breus
Right? Add hair, if that is not, if Mother Nature is not telling you when to use that thing. I don’t know what is brother, morning sex, it actually says there’s actually real data to suggest that not only do you have a better connection, but you actually physically perform better. So jumped out of bed, go throw in some mouthwash, jump back in bed, have some fun as a prescription from the sleep doctor, you should definitely try this. Now. Your question was an interesting one. So that was a general answer. Your question was, well, what about these things called chronotype. So for folks out there who may not know what a chronotype is, by the way, if you want to learn what yours is go to Crono quiz.com. We’ll put that link in the show notes for you. A Crono type. You might not have heard of the term, but you’ve actually heard of the concept. If anybody out there has ever been called an early bird or a night owl. Those are Crono types. Turns out they’re genetic, and they can’t be changed. So the real question is, Michael, if I’m an early bird, and I’m married to a night owl, when can we have sex? So if you go to the book, we actually created a matrix, put your chronotype on the top, your partner’s chronotype on the side and we give you early evening times and early morning times to try to have successful intimacy to test it out and see if it works for you. We also have charts for lesbian couples and gay couples because the hormone profiles are different.
Mark Kinsley
Quinn Are you hearing what I’m hearing the doctor has given the prescription we just need to follow it. Okay, so are you gonna I mean, he wrote the script.
Mark Quinn
What No, I you know, I’m just glad we have a professional here and for anyone listening to this show that thanks for being here. Geeky, number one we’re not this is science thing. Secondly, I would like to make for the record that Kinsley is one who brought up intimacy before I brought up intimacy, because I’m always getting pegged for Dr. Bruce, you know, me, I’m like, you know, I like to keep it like, you know, like, interesting for the audience. And so Kinsley I thought it was a very good question. I think there’s so many others. So you talk about Crona types talk about body types, too. You wrote a book, by the way, that’s so good. Mark mentioned it at the beginning of the show. How to let me say it’s called energy I getting asked to kicking,
Mark Kinsley
kicking ass. Hey, by the way, real quickly, pause pause point here, I put an ad in a trade publication that said eight hours of great sleep or eight hours of great sex. Either way, Englanders the answer. And I got calls from the East Coast, people hated it. I got calls from the West Coast, people loved it. And the lady that I talked to on the phone out on the East Coast, she got I said, Well, what happens whenever intimacy comes up on your sales floor, because there’s a retailer and she’s like, well, we’re a family business, and I got to handle it. Well, she did admit that it comes up so quick, I was I was bringing up because we know even on the selling floor in the mattress industry, sex is gonna come up, and you need to be prepared on how to handle it. And that was a very professional way to transition people, Dr. Bruce into Crono type in that conversation, and about making your life better, and making that life better on the mattress. But let’s go back to your book because the subtitle or maybe the headline, umbrella titles go from dragging ass to kicking it in 30 days, who doesn’t want that? Right.
Dr. Michael Breus
So what we did was we took Crono types, which will tell you based on your body’s hormonal schedule, what the right time to go to bed is wake up is several other things. We then took that information, we added it to your body type. So remember way back in high school, endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph, right back in high school biology. Turns out those are genetic as well. And we learned some really interesting things and doing this research. Looking at Crono types and body types, we discovered some very interesting things. Number one, we actually discovered when to intermittent fast. So for folks out there who may or may not know what intermittent fasting is, this is a relatively new within the last five to seven years technique that people have been using, where you only eat during a very subscribed period of time during the day. It’s called time restricted eating or intermittent fasting. There’s lots of data to suggest that number one, it helps with inflammation. But also it helps with a whole host of other things for people with autoimmune disorders actually helps with sleep a whole host of things. But here’s what we discovered is when we looked at your chronotype, I’ve been in intermittent fasting for about five years. But to be honest with you, I can’t eat shit in the morning. Like it just doesn’t happen. I just can’t get anything in me. And I’m a nighttime Crono type. I’m a night owl. So it kind of made sense. So I shifted my intermittent fasting to later in the day, and it became more effective. So then we decided to let’s run the research and see if it works. And it actually did. So that was the first thing we learned is when to actually find your fasting time. The second one was How long should you start your fast with. So we do this based on body type. So remember, endomorph is somebody who’s a little bit on the bigger side a little bit on the thicker side. mesomorph is somebody more of a V shape, so their shoulders a little bit bigger than their waist, and ectomorphs are kind of belong and lean people. Now I’ve got an easy way for folks out there to figure out which one they are, is if you take your wrist and you take your hand and you use your thumb and your second finger and you wrap it around your wrist, if you exactly like that mark. So if you can touch, then you are a mesomorph. If you don’t touch, you’re an endomorph. And if you overlap, you’re an ectomorph. So this tells us a lot about your internal metabolism. Once we discovered this, I can tell you exactly how long to fast. So if you’re an ectomorph long and lean, you really don’t want to fast for a long period of time, because we don’t want you losing weight. So you’re on a 12 hour feed 12 hour fast schedule. If you’re a mesomorph like me, you want to lose a little bit of weight, but you don’t want to lose too much. So then you would be on a 14 hour fast 10 hour feed. If you’re an endomorph you got a little bit extra body weight on you want to get rid of it, then you could have a 16 hour fast with an eight hour feed. So we give people a starting point, all based on science so that they know when to do this intermittent fasting. And then the final thing is is we have a movement programme and I want to be clear about something. It’s not an exercise programme, like you’re not going to break a sweat. You’re not going to build big muscles from this. But moving your body throughout the day keeps you with what we call a high energy profile. So you’re not drinking tonnes of caffeine, you’re getting good rest. You’re eating what you’re supposed to be eating and you’ve got all of this energy. That’s what the book does. And we’ve got the science to prove it.
Mark Quinn
So fast. So Dr. Bruce, it’s you know, we sit here we’ve known each other well. 20 years or something like that? And yeah, easily no doubt, we’ve been connected through events and personally over the years, but you’ve been on this path to really trumpet the importance of good sleep. And really, you know, you’re one of the only sleep guys out there doctors, for sure, that’s really been trying to work inside of our industry, right? So you will know that, you know, we’re all out selling the product, right? And we’re not talking about the benefit of the product, which is sleep. And we’re really not tapping into that. So can you talk to us a little bit about what do you think the role of the retailer is today? What do you think the opportunity is? Maybe in terms of education? Because the truth of it? Is, the human being the normal human? Like, I would love to get your your answer to this, because you probably know better than anyone, if you were to grade the average person, A to F on their knowledge of basic sleep, hygiene and health. Hmm, where do you think most people are today?
Dr. Michael Breus
So I’m going to do one better. So I think most people are probably at an F. But I will do better. I would argue that most doctors, like MD professionals are probably at a D, at best. Wow. So it’s not people’s fault that they don’t really know about this information, because it’s not being disseminated in ways shapes and forms that I think have been helpful for folks. And that’s really answer number one, I want to say thank you, Mark, because you know, I’ve been on this quest, and Kinsey, I’ve been on this quest for a long time to get people to understand the importance of sleep. And and I do believe that there is a massive opportunity at retail, because quite frankly, people like to know what they’re spending their money on. Right. And so when you look at the purchase of a bed, in some cases, it could be one of the biggest purchases a person makes right other than a house and a car, a mattress could be from an expense standpoint could be quite large. And so being able to justify that expense is is kind of an open door opportunity to educate people on sleep a lot of the time. Now, to be fair, unfortunately, the mattress industry hasn’t done a great job of making this an inviting, fun scenario, right? It’s like into being at a used car lot and things of that nature. When I walk into a mattress store or furniture store or bedding store, the very first thing I would love somebody to ask me is how do you sleep last night? Not how much do you want to spend? Right. And so I think that’s really where we have to make some some further advances. And to be clear, it turns into a different type of relationship, it’s more of a consultative relationship, which then leads to a consultative sale. And I’ll be honest with you consultative sales, they make a lot more money, you put on a lot more accessories, a lot more attachments. I mean, there’s a lot of ways to increase that sale, when you really understand your customer. And you can give them what they really need. As opposed to hey, I can sell you this bed for you know, three grand, and it’s now it’s on sale for 18, you know, 1800 type of thing as opposed to, hey, let’s really talk about your sleep for a second here. What’s going on? How can we find a product that can actually help you because I would argue that we’re not in the mattress business, we’re in the healthcare business, right? Every single entrepreneur that’s out there is a health care professional, right, you are selling a medical device to people. And to be fair, it’s the device, it’s the most effective device on every single person out there, because it’s just the sheer time that you spend on it. So I want people to flip that script I want I want to see RSA is become empowered with knowledge about sleep, and be able to educate and be excited to turn to somebody and say, You know what you said you didn’t get a great sleep last night, let’s talk about that for a second, I might have some solutions that could really help you out. That’s what I want to see happen.
Mark Kinsley
One of the things we talk about a lot in this industry, especially Quinn and I is this idea that the sale should be the beginning of the relationship because it’s not about a transaction. It’s about transformation. And sleep is one way you can transform somebody’s life. And I take this very seriously, if I get to have one conversation with you, Michael, every 10 years, I would take that very seriously, if I got to talk to my family member once every 10 years, I’m going to make sure the most important stuff is at the surface. So you get to talk to somebody as an RSA once every 10 years about something that can absolutely transform their life. But if you treat it like a transaction, that’s the end of it. I mean, I take your money you take off and that’s the end of it. How can people look at this as the beginning? And how can you manage this because it can be very clunky. Number one, you got to be knowledgeable, but how can you manage creating the beginning of a relationship whenever somebody comes in to get better sleep and they buy a mattress?
Dr. Michael Breus
So I think one of the things that a lot of our essays are hesitant to do is to call after the sale, right? Because they’re like, what if it didn’t go well? What if they want to return it? What if there’s a problem and so a lot of our essays will be like once we get them out the door I want that relationship to end. Because I don’t want to deal with those kinds of issues. I think we have to really talk with consumers. And RSA is about this is a process. This is not a one time thing, because quite frankly, I’ve got a patient who like, so sometimes I’ll go mattress shopping with people Surprise, surprise, right? They have me come in, and they’re like, Michael, help us, you know. And so when we go in, we have a very different objective, we’re trying multiple things, sometimes we go in more than once. Sometimes we’ll even work with different RSA depending on who’s got expertise in certain areas. But what I want our essays to think through as an idea of is that it’s not just a one time visit, and you can continue to offer value after the sale, I think that’s the other big thing is people don’t think that they’re going to be able to offer value. So like, as an example, if, let’s say somebody sells them a bed, and they call them up, and they say, Hey, how’s it going? You know, how’s it going? Like, don’t worry so much. If somebody says, Oh, I didn’t sleep so well, you know, the first few nights like, okay, that makes sense, like, validate their feeling, understand where they’re at, and see if you can provide solutions for them, right. In many cases, we know that the human body has to adjust to a new surface, right, and it takes a little while to do something like that. Generally speaking, we’re looking at somewhere between 14 and 21 days for the body to actually kind of like if your bed used to look like a taco, and I stick you on something that’s like a nice really thought, your that your body’s gonna react. And we have to educate people about that. So maybe it’s the phone call afterwards. Or maybe during the sale, it’s like, hey, I want to let you know something. I’m here for you. Like, if this isn’t working for you, or you feel like something is going wrong, like, here’s my cell phone, like I want you to call me or swing by the store, let’s figure it out. But letting people know that you’re going to continue to be there. If problems come up to help them solve them. I think nine times out of 10 that quells that stress or anxiety and lowers that return rate pretty dramatically because they know you’re going to work with them in it. Because a lot of people think oh shit, I just spent 2500 bucks on a mattress. I didn’t sleep so well for the last week. I’m sending that sucker back before the trial period is over. And I really think we can we can do a lot of work with that period of time.
Mark Quinn
Couple my understanding differently. You’re the viewer, the original thinker around the concept of the Napa Chino I white, so we still love that. So Dr. Bruce would always say Okay, guys, you want to take a nap go ahead and drink a cup of coffee, get your 20 minute power nap don’t go longer you get into REM sleep am i doing so far? Perfect. Good. And then when you get done, you wake up and you got the bus from the caffeine so the nap but you know, but let’s talk about sleeping pills. Number one, I think people are overdosing on melatonin these days. Talk to us a little bit about that. But then also talk to us a little bit about food in your book. You get into this in great detail. I love by the way your book that concept is so movement, body type Chronotypes there’s you’re putting you’re connecting a lot of dots here in the book. So talk to us about the sleeping pills that the band aid solutions, if you will, and then about the food and how food can impact your sleep.
Dr. Michael Breus
Absolutely, absolutely. So the biggest thing that people out there seem to like to take is melatonin. Right? So let’s let’s talk about that really briefly for just a moment. So number one, Melatonin is a hormone. Most people don’t know that. It’s like testosterone or oestrogen. You can’t just walk down to the local GNC and buy those and there’s kind of a reason for that. Melatonin, and also, by the way, 99% of people have enough melatonin on board. So taking melatonin exogenously or as in a pill form isn’t necessarily necessary unless you got jetlag. Right. So if you’re flying intercontinental Lee, that’s a perfect time to use melatonin. By the way a study was done about a year ago where they pulled 15 different brands of melatonin off the shelf, tested them to see what was inside them. Not one of them had to had the dose that was on the label inside the pill, not one. Some of it was over some of it was under so I want to be very clear to our listeners. The appropriate dose of melatonin is somewhere between a half and one and a half milligrammes 95% of it is sold in an overdosage format in threes, fives and 10s. That’s not appropriate and you know, you’ve overdosed on melatonin when you have super vivid dreams, and you wake up feeling exhausted from the melatonin. Two other important things to know melatonin is by prescription only in Europe. So you can’t just walk into a local store to get it and the reason is at high dosages, it’s a contraceptive. Yes, you heard me say that correctly. It is birth control at high dosages. So I cannot understand why paediatricians are recommending to parents to give children melatonin I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. There is no child that I will ever see that under the age of 18 that will that will ever be placed on melatonin There is however one group of children that can use at a higher dosage and I want to be very clear about it. These are children on the autism spectrum. Um, there’s some significant data to show that three to five milligrammes of melatonin at night for those kids can be extremely helpful. But generally speaking, most people are using melatonin incorrectly. They take it right before bed, by the way, it takes 90 minutes for it to take effect. So it’s not really doing for you what you kind of think it should be doing. I would personally rather when I have somebody who comes to me and they say, Michael, I’m not sleeping, I do, I do a blood test. And I want to look at their magnesium, I want to look at their vitamin D, I want to look at their melatonin and I want to look at their iron. Those four things, if they’re not at par levels, like levels where your body is not deficient. We really don’t know where to start, right. And so let’s get the natural shit up to read supposed to be burst and then see how you sleep then we can move forward with a valerian on ashwagandha, a magnolia bark, things that have got data on them that could be helpful in certain situations. But I’m always about the body first and making sure we get there. The second part of the question where we look at these things called OTC so over the counter, sleep aids like the PMs, if you will, you know, the analgesic plus PM. So there’s utility for them for short periods of time. But there’s now data and this is conclusive data that there is a we were almost 100% positive, there’s a causative effect between diphenhydramine which is Benadryl and early onset Alzheimer’s. So to be clear, you do not want to be taking these on a very regular basis because of this potential Association. Plus, if you’re taking an OTC every night, maybe you should be talking to your doctor about what else you should be doing. Or there’s, you could have an underlying sleep disorder, or maybe there’s something better for you to be taking out there. That moves us into the medication universe, which I want to be clear about. There’s nothing wrong with taking a sleeping pill. If you and your doctor have come to this conclusion, and that is a requirement for your medical situation. You should feel no shame, you should feel no problems with it. That is what goes on. To be clear. I have a patient who’s a paranoid schizophrenic. Newsflash, they need Ambien every night to sleep, right? I mean, this isn’t hard to figure out. So there are some people in this universe absolutely positively 100% appropriate to have a pill to sleep. But if it’s something that you’re not comfortable doing, or you’ve been on a medication for a period of time, and you’re and you’re thinking that this isn’t how you want to continue, talk with your doctor, do not yank your profit by yourself. Go ahead.
Mark Quinn
I’m going to turn this over to Kinsey, because I can see he’s got a great question I think is percolating and this I don’t want him to ask it. But the only thing I would say about the doctor if most doctors most physicians are at a D, in you’re listening to this, I’d be really careful. Make sure the doctor you’re talking to then has some serious understanding of sleep because guys like you are not that common. Right. And if a normal MD they may have some proceedings anyway. So I just want to make that I think that’s actually a sleep doctor is different than a normal. Yeah, I
Dr. Michael Breus
think that’s a great point. So let’s add the caveat of talk with a sleep specialist about sleeping pill use. Most sleep specialist if they even if they’re a pulmonologist versus a psychiatrist, but they’ve been boarded in sleep like I have. They’ve got a good understanding of it. So I agree with you, Mark. I think that’s a great point. Thank you for bringing that up. Kinsey
Mark Kinsley
tell you how many people I can’t tell you how many people have warned about the Benadryl problem. I can’t tell how many people have mentioned that, hey, Melatonin is a hormone. It is not over the counter available in Europe. There’s their reasons for these things. They’re naturally occurring in your body. How do you convince somebody that’s convinced that it works to not take it?
Dr. Michael Breus
So it’s? So it’s a great question. And so it depends upon what it is. And so usually with the PMs, all I have to do is talk about Alzheimer’s and people are like, I’m out, you know, like, I don’t want to get near that Melatonin is a bit different because it’s not. Melatonin is not necessarily harmful in an overdosage format, like you’ll just piss it out. Now, one question that people always ask me is like, Well, Michael, if I’m taking melatonin in a pill, will my brain stop producing it over time? This is an important question to answer. And the answer is no, it will not your brain will not stop producing melatonin over time. 80% of your melatonin is made in your gut, about 10 to 15% is made in your brain and that brain melatonin is actually different than gut melatonin. And that’s what kind of runs your circadian rhythms. Taking a pill can affect that but not in a tremendous tremendous way so you don’t have to worry about your brain stopping production God forbid.
Mark Kinsley
Okay, so if you’re just hopping in for some reason, we’re talking with Dr. Bruce the sleep doctor. His book is energised going from dragging ass to kicking it in 30 days and I know you help some people Celebrities. Okay, so let’s talk about Paris Hilton. Let’s talk about Carson Daly. Maybe Stevie Okay, let’s start with Paris. So do these celebrities come to you and say, Dr. Bruce, I can’t sleep help me or what are those conversations look like and what are you doing with these folks?
Dr. Michael Breus
So it’s interesting because Paris and Steve Aoki actually had the same issues. And so Paris is the DJ. at late night, DJ people may or may not remember that she still does quite a bit of that. And for folks out there who don’t know my friend, Steve Aoki, he is an electronic dance music guy, he does stadium shows and all this kind of fun, funky stuff. And so the biggest problem with being a DJ, you don’t go on until 12, one o’clock in the morning, right. So it’s like being a shift worker. So and with Steve in particular, he does almost 200 shows a year. And they’re rarely in the same place twice. So he, like he’ll do a show in Miami, get on a plane, and then that evening, do a show in Vegas. And that’s nothing for him to do something like that. So you can imagine his circadian rhythms were a mess. So I created we created a very specific schedule to help him avoid jetlag. And the one of the other things that we did is we created this thing called the sleeping bag. And so it’s a duffle bag that travels with Steve and it has his pillow, his topper, his sheets, his alarm clock. So it’s all it all smells the same. It all feels the same. We take all the uncontrollables out right? So I was watching the Olympics the other night, and one of the one of the athletes said you control the controllables. And that’s exactly what we do with somebody like Steve is we say what environmental cues are going to mess this guy up, let’s let’s get rid of those because we need to down asleep for a certain period of time, because now we have to have him up and get on stage and do his thing. same holds true with Paris, Paris, his schedule isn’t quite as, as crazy as Steve’s is. But she has a tremendous business in Europe. And so she’s constantly going back and forth to Europe and or telephone calls in the middle of the night type of thing. So we had to do that stuff with her. Carson Daly was an interesting case, because you know, he’s by coastal, right. So he does work after today’s show. And then he’s on I think it’s the voice right or something like that. So he’s back and forth, literally every week. And so we really wanted to take a look at that circadian rhythmicity and how to work with him on that. Also, it turned out he had sleep apnea, and we talked about it live on the show. And just to be clear, I’m not diluting anybody’s confidences here, all of these people have given me permission to be able to speak generally about their cases, as an exemplary case for people to learn more and hopefully help themselves.
Mark Kinsley
I love what you did with Steve, I love that you took environmental cues, and you put them and you control the controllable I mean, even when I travel, I have my sleep masks that I always use. I have the same noisemaker that I use my bedroom. I make sure I’m black everything out. I have blackout curtains in my bedroom. So yeah, I love that. Like just hey, you’re you’re on the craziest schedule any of us could possibly imagine. So what can you control? That’s such a great tip. That’s a good hack.
Mark Quinn
Yeah, actually, remember interview with Chris Cassidy and Dr. Bruce. We had Chris Cassidy. He’s an astronaut. He was matter of fact, Disney just did a great special with him lately. But anyway, he was. Yeah, we had him on our show. And we were asking him about sleep. And to this exact point, he said, a lot of guys bring to the space station. They bring a neck pillow. We don’t need a neck pillow because there’s no gravity, right? There’s no gravity, but they bring the pillow just because it’s part of the routine. And they can feel it. It makes them feel like him. And I’m like, wow. And it’s kind of sounds like what we’re talking about here.
Dr. Michael Breus
Yeah, absolutely. And as a matter of fact, sleeping space is actually quite fascinating. I had the good fortune of interviewing an astronaut about sleeping space. And it’s fascinating. You know, they don’t just float around asleep. They actually stick them in sleeping bags, and they velcro onto the side of the fuselage. Because they need to have some type of pressure feeling on their body for their body to relax. It’s called proprioception. But it’s an interesting phenomenon for sure.
Mark Kinsley
I just got back from space camp. I was a camp counsellor. That’s also Yeah, actually one of the kids I was camp counsellor. You know, my wife teaches this home school pod. One of the kids said, I need some more melatonin. I’m like, where did you get you have melatonin here and I’m like, Just sleep, you’re gonna be fine. But I got to go through the different spaces where the astronauts actually sleep and I got to see a replica of those pods. And just what you described, I mean, you strap yourself in. It’s a little bitty cocoon. And they had computer screens, which I had problems with that I’m like, they shouldn’t have screens in their bedroom, but that’s okay. But it was really fascinating to think like what happens when you remove all gravity basically from your body? And how do you even like find those pressures and that relaxation, but in our industry, we try to find zero G exactly the adjustable base.
Dr. Michael Breus
Exactly and to the end to argue with it. I don’t really think true zero Gravity is what we’re shooting for here, what we’re shooting for is putting the body in a in a way, shape and position where we can pull any excess pressure off of the spine and allow for that spinal alignment to occur. But you know, a lot of people in the industry like to say, Oh, we get you to zero gravity and you don’t get anybody to zero shit, right? Like, let’s be clear, what you do is you live people out and you got to kind of figure it out and start to work with them. But at the end of the day, having an adjustable base, I personally think because I’ve been sleeping on one for 20 years is incredible, because if we even just a slight increase in the head, you can actually lower gastro esophageal reflux, you can lower snoring and you can pull all that pressure off of your lower part of your back and your pelvis which is good, especially for women if they’re pregnant, or going through menopause.
Mark Quinn
Mr. Kinsley, the question I thought you’re going to ask earlier was about CBD Mark and I have had these conversations about CBD. There’s a lot of stuff out there right now. Dr. Bruce, about CBD. Talk to us a little bit about that. Is it horseshit? Is it real? Like what what kind of guidance would you give the audience?
Dr. Michael Breus
Absolutely. So it is total horseshit. So to be clear, there’s and this is based on the data so so for people who are listening, who may be using a CBD product, and if it’s working for you, I want to be clear about something I’m not saying that you need to stop it. I’m going to tell you what the science is behind CBD and sleep right now, right now. And by the way, this science is changing very rapidly because so many people are getting interested in it. There’s only one study that I found where you needed 120 milligrammes of CBD to make any type of sleepiness occur. 120 milligrammes guys, I mean, that’s literally almost a full bottle of CBD to start to see anything. That being said, I want to want to break that down a bit. We do know that CBD does help with pain, and it does help with anxiety. Now, if anxiety and pain are affecting your sleep, and you take CBD that could tangentially affect your sleep. But I want to be clear, taking a CBD gummy to fall asleep is not making you fall asleep. That being said, I don’t think anybody’s got the answer just yet. I’ve written extensively about cannabis and sleep on my website. So folks are interested, go to the sleep doctor.com on my blog type in cannabis, you’re going to learn more about weed than you ever imagined. And really, it’s kind of the science behind it. But here’s what I believe in the future. I believe that we’ve got enough people out there who are starting to do the science. Now we’re going to get there. It’s going to take a little while but we’re going to find out how to help people sleep better. And I’ll tell you why. I think that really interesting study out of the out of the University of Colorado. So as many people know Colorado is a recreational marijuana state as well as medicinal marijuana state. They found one county that didn’t have a dispensary in it. And they monitored the over the counter sleep aids that were being sold in that county all the local drugstores. Right then a dispensary opened up. Guess what happened to the amount of OTCs that were being sold. Went straight down. Second dispensary opened up in the same county even bigger flow down of people buying OTCs so people are searching for an answer. And we’ve as scientists and people in the field, it’s really our duty to figure this out quickly because lots of people are using lots of stuff that may or may not be helpful for their sleep. There is one component within the marijuana or cannabis plant. That’s called CB n. And that has been shown to actually make people feel sleepy. And it turns out this is oxidised THC, and can be very, very helpful for folks. So if you’re out there in a dispensary in a state where it’s legal, and you’re looking for something, you really want to have a low level of THC because remember folks THC will increase your heart rate and decrease REM sleep, but a higher level of CBN that should be somewhat helpful in terms of guiding you but right now, I really haven’t even seen a sleep focused product from a company that’s only about sleep, or almost everybody seems to have a tangential oh, we’re just gonna throw sleep in with pain and anxiety and things like that and kind of call it for what it is. I think there’s more out there
Mark Kinsley
with CBN is this something that people can go out and find right now if they’re in a state that has recreational or medicinal medicinal marijuana? They can go talk to their What do you call them a sound bartender it’s a bud tender, right?
Dr. Michael Breus
Tender so So to be fair, I wouldn’t necessarily like I’m not saying anything against bud tenders. But you want to have a good amount of knowledge before you walk into the store. That’s the reason that I actually wrote the blogs. So I would recommend people go to my website and read about CBN so you have some knowledge base first, then walk in and also to be fair, I really necessarily talk to just one person behind the counter. Talk to asked if you can speak to the buyer, because the buyer has actually spoken to the the people who are selling them the material, they may know a little bit more about what they’re buying, because like when I go into a dispensary and I talked to a buyer, they’ll be like, Oh, we just got something new in that’s got an it’s got more CBN in it. Your patients might like this, Michael. And so then I’m learning something new. So there’s new products coming out all the time, but I would educate yourself before you walk in for sure.
Mark Kinsley
Wow, the amount of misinformation that’s out there. And just the school we went to today on the show with you Dr. Bruce is mind blowing. So number one, we got to have you back on the show. Number two, grab Dr. Bruce’s book energise and definitely go to the sleep doctor.com Is that where people can get connected to you?
Dr. Michael Breus
Yep, absolutely.
Mark Kinsley
What did we not ask that you think people need to know? before?
Dr. Michael Breus
I will say one area that I think a lot of people are interested in is technology and and specifically sleep tracking. There’s a lot of people who want to know about should I track my sleep? Should I not track my sleep? Is that good is that bad things like that. Full disclosure, I work with aura ring, I’m on their advisory board, they have the most accurate tracker in on the market and they’ve proven it in the literature. So I always tell people, there’s been a head to head study, Fitbit and aura are the two that are at the top in terms of accuracy. So if you’re going to track your sleep, I think it’s probably worthwhile to look into something like that. I do want to be careful to have people be a little bit careful though, sometimes people can get kind of obsessive about this stuff. And like they’re dragging their sleep all the time. And they’re looking at their day to like chill out guys like it’s sleep, okay, like you don’t have to worry about it every single day, you know of your life, it will continue to occur, just making small improvements to get better, I think is really where it’s at. And then the final thing I want to tell people out there if you’re struggling with sleep or sleep issue is number one, there are quite a few board certified sleep specialists similar to myself. They’re in every city in every state in almost every hospital. So I want to make sure people know hey, there are resources out there for you if you if you’re thinking you need to see a sleep specialist, talk with your general practitioner, your PCP, your primary care physician or your your general doctor, they will have a specialist that they can refer you to if you’re if you’re concerned. And then I did want to say one more thing mark you had mentioned that the Napa Chino so I just started working with a company that has an a souped up Napa Chino they call it Napa jitsu. Okay, so no shit. It’s called def jitsu. And so it isn’t like fam. So what you have is you have small sleeping tablets for people if they’re having a hard time falling asleep with a little bit of Magnolia bark and a little bit of Valerian in it, you sleep for 25 minutes, and it’s got time released caffeine, but here’s the key. It’s got 600 milligrammes of nootropics. So you don’t just wake up with energy, you wake up with energy and focused, which is really interesting. So like L theanine, ashwagandha. There’s a whole list of things, gingko biloba, it’s really pretty fascinating. I’ve been playing around with it and using it myself. And it’s pretty awesome. So if you’re looking for like the latest, greatest in technology, I would say the aura ring is certainly something people want to check out. If you’re interested in kind of that fun napping thing that we talked about, there’s some new products out there about that. So keep your eyes peeled because there’s nothing about sleep at Standing still anymore. We are moving forward, and lots and lots of interesting new products and accessories are available.
Mark Kinsley
And maybe next time we have you on the show Dr. Bruce, we could talk about magnets and how they affect the parasympathetic nervous system, because I’ve seen some products around that that are very fascinating.
Dr. Michael Breus
So there’s a there’s a an interesting product called hep B, that came out fairly recently that actually uses electromagnetic frequency to actually create frequencies inside your body. It’s very fascinating. There’s also some other frequency related technologies that are pretty cool as well. There’s something called the Apollo, which can actually help shape your sympathetic nervous system. I’m actually working with them and love their science. So I mean, we could honestly do, we could do a whole thing on just all the new crazy tech that’s out in sleep that people may want to find interesting or could even utilise it, maybe their showrooms.
Mark Kinsley
And I think tech is such an area of fascination for me, and I think we’ll I mean, we’ll wrap it up today. But I think you’re gonna get into one of these phases eventually, where, you know, sleep becomes predictive for medicine. And then ultimately, I think you’re gonna have companies that have so much data, they’re going to begin harvesting and selling that data and probably making more money off the sale of the data, then they will off the products that they’re making. So I think we’re going to enter that phase at some point and may hate next time you come back, bring your crystal ball, we’ll do the same and let’s talk about the future of sleep and the future of the mattress industry. How’s that sound?
Dr. Michael Breus
Easy, easy. That’s one of my favourite topics. Oh,
Mark Quinn
Dr. Bruce, we love you, man. We appreciate you a lot. We love your advocacy for sleep and the category in general. If you’re listening to this, I hope one of the takeaways for you is take it seriously. What Mark Kinsley said earlier, every time someone walks into your store, look at as an opportunity to share to help educate them. Those consumers, Dr. Bruce says are at an F about their understanding of sleep. Take it as your opportunity every single time you can to educate them, give them a little bit, shed a little bit of light. And I think there’s a lot of people out there mostly since COVID, that are struggling and sleep is a big thing as it relates to physical health and mental health. It’s foundational to everything. So take that really seriously. Dr. Bruce, thank you appreciate you so much. If you’re listening to this show, take it, share it with your friends. We want to build an audience around the campfire, and go ahead and rate us anywhere. Mr. Kinsley, on behalf of you and myself. Dr. Bruce, thank you so much. You are a rock star. We’ll see you next time.
Dr. Michael Breus
Thanks, boys. I appreciate it. wishing everybody out there sweet dreams.
