How to Sleep During a Pandemic with Dr. Michael Breus & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Here's your question of the day. How do you sleep better during a pandemic? This is a question we're getting a lot in our private Facebook group. People are stressed, anxiety levels are high. How do you be able to get that restorative, deep rest that your body needs now more than ever? And to answer this question, we're going to have an amazing conversation with a good And we have a returning podcast guest. He's bestselling author, he's the top sleep doctor and also a podcast host, Dr. Michael Breus. Thanks for coming back on the show.

Thanks for having me, Big Jim. I'm excited to be here.

Now, people who know, who are longtime listeners, they know they've listened to our episodes together about sleep and memory and also chronic pain. We've had you on the show multiple times and we'll put links in our podcast notes at jimkwik.com/notes. But right now, I mean, in these turbulent times, right, normal, you must be seeing what's, what's going on right now with sleep.

Well, so first of all, thanks for having me back on the show. This is one of my favorite shows to go on. I love the format. bursts of good information that can be helpful for the people. So thanks for having me. So this is the question of the day that I've been asked for the last 6 months. You know, Michael, how the heck do I sleep during a pandemic? So let's talk about it, right? So first of all, to be clear, nobody is sleeping well right now. Just, just to be honest with you. Okay. And I'll tell you why. The level of stress that we're all seeing, it's unheard of. And it's a different kind of stress than what we're used to seeing. So normal stress is, you know, I live in Los Angeles, it's traffic, right? It's, you know, so-and-so is doing something that I don't like a whole lot. Now the stress is there's a pandemic and my entire family could get sick. I could lose my job. Like, it's a whole different level of stress. And even if you're good at handling stress, even if you've got ways to reduce that stress, that doesn't mean that it's not there. It just means that it's reduced. Sometimes for me, stress is kind of like that audio engineer that's playing in the background, you know, and it's kind of firing things off at me and saying, hey, worry about this. Hey, worry about that. Right. And so, you know, one of the things that you and I have talked about is in your evening routine is you slow down and actually completely get rid of any outside media influences. Why? Because who needs that kind of stressful stuff showing up in our brains right before bed? And I love the stuff that you talk about in terms of gratitude and being grateful before bed, because that absolutely has a lot to do with things. So when we look at this level of stress, all right, what also is happening besides stress? We're falling out of our good habits, right? Nobody has to commute anymore. So guess what? Everybody's staying up later and sleeping later. And that's throwing everything off. Remember, everybody, you have a circadian rhythm. That's that internal biological clock that you want to be consistent, consistent, consistent. So if you woke up at 6:30 during the week before the pandemic, Yeah, I'm the guy that's here to tell you I want you to wake up at 6:30 during the week, during the pandemic, even on the weekends. What? What are you talking about, Dr. Bruce? Why on earth should I do that? I want to catch up on my sleep. I want to feel good. No, no, no, no, no, no. Circadian consistency turns out to be one of the best things that you could possibly do right now in terms of your wake-up time. I don't really think I care that much what time you go to bed. I prefer a consistent bedtime, let me be clear. But if you want to stay up late and watch TV or, you know, socially distanced hang out with your friends until 2 o'clock in the morning, I don't think I care. But I want your butt up at your normal wake-up time because that is the anchor to the entire program. If you can actually keep yourself waking up at the same time every day, that works really, really well. Now, another thing that's going on during this kind of stressful pandemic-y times is People are having really weird dreams, Jim. I mean, really weird dreams. We call them quarantining dreaming now because people are having super vivid, super stressful dreams. And we discovered why. So this, this idea of sleeping later— so many people don't realize it, but in the first half of the night is where you see the most physically restorative sleep. But the final third of the night, that's where you see the most dream sleep. And when you extend that period, so like normally if you woke up at 6:30, but now you're waking up at 7:30, you're getting more REM sleep, which means more dreams, which means more vivid dreams. And so people are actually giving themselves more vivid dreams. And to be honest with you, they're waking up pretty stressed out, dude. Like people are saying, like waking up and they're like, oh my gosh, I think I need a nap from my sleep. Right? I feel like everything was going, going, going, you know? And so one of my recommendations is the thing that you hit spot on, Which is gratitude before bed. So there's now been at least 2 studies to show that being positive before bed not only helps you fall asleep more quickly, but it actually makes more positive dreams. I think that's something that we could all use a little bit right now is some positive dreams. So our schedules have been off and that's definitely throwing things off, but that's not the only culprit. The second one has to do with caffeine. Now I know you're not a big caffeine guy, But there are a lot of people out there that are big, big caffeine drinkers. And the truth is, we're seeing caffeine increase in terms of consumption right now. We think that this is what's going on. It's like, you know, you're at home going on your Zoom call or whatever, and then you realize your cup is half empty, and the Zoom call ends. You're like, ah, I'll just go warm up the cup, right? You do that like 10 times in a day, and before you know it, you've actually had 8 cups of coffee. And also, people are now— they're brewing a whole pot at home as opposed to a single cup. Right. And so this, this consumption seems to go quite a bit forward. Now here's the thing, people tell me all the time, oh, come on, Michael, caffeine doesn't affect me. What are you talking about? All right, so there are different caffeine sensitivities. I got one patient, if she eats 2 chocolate kisses, she's up all night. I got another one who drinks a pot of coffee and goes right to sleep. However, if you do drink coffee after 2 PM and I put electrodes on your head, the quality of the sleep that you're getting is terrible. You might be able to fall asleep, but remember, there's a big difference between quantity of sleep and quality of sleep. And we're really pushing for quality sleep. So my recommendation during the pandemic is lower your caffeine consumption. If you can, stop caffeine by 2:00 PM. Do not go cold turkey on caffeine, off of caffeine. Don't do it. I've had 2 patients end up in the ER because of it. The caffeine withdrawal can be very significant and very serious. You want to slowly taper it down if you, if you possibly can. Also, to be clear, it's the most stressful time in our lives. Why on earth would you want to add a stimulant, right, to that?

Do you see— now, do you see with the rise of caffeine consumption, do you see that also for alcohol?

I do, as a matter of fact. So we did a great survey when I was on Kelly and Ryan, and we surveyed the audience. 34% have an increase in alcohol consumption. I don't think that's particular to them. I think that's everybody. Hey, it's wine time at 3 o'clock somewhere type of thing, right? That's not the best idea. So when we look at alcohol consumption and we look at the timeframe between the consumption and when you fall asleep, that turns out to be the most critical thing. There's a really big difference between going to sleep and passing out, right? And so if you're going to have a glass of wine, which I don't have a problem with, have a glass of water with it and wait 1 hour before you go to bed. Have 2 glasses, 2 glasses of water, 2 hours. You don't really want to go over 2 glasses. The data would suggest that you can actually get energy, not a sort of a relaxing effect from alcohol. So you kind of want to keep it at a low roar, as I say, and keep that alcohol consumption down to at least 2 drinks. But if you can keep a tight schedule, lower your caffeine, and, and, you know, try to eliminate this alcohol. You're going to be moving yourself into a much, much better place. But there's one more thing I got to tell everybody about it. It's movement, right? So remember, sleep is what we call it recovery. And if you don't have anything to recover from, then your body doesn't do it very well. So you got to move. In between Zooms, I'm not filling up my cup of coffee. I'm doing, you know, 20 jumping jacks or I'm doing 10 sit-ups or push-ups or something like that. I mean, not enough to have a full sweat, but just to really Kind of get my body moving. I'm walking every morning with my dog. He seems to love it. I'm not used to it yet. And we're having a good time with it. But movement is key. I had one of my celebrities the other day tweeted out. They said, I've taken 200 steps and it's 2 o'clock. Dude, I've done like 7,000 steps by the time it's 2 o'clock, and that's not even with my run. So people need to keep moving because movement helps propagate And exercise helps give us better sleep quality and it helps lower stress as well. So my other recommendation is move, move, move. Do yourself a favor and get at least 25 minutes of doing something cardio each day.

That's pure gold, Michael. This is so actionable. I think everybody could be more consistent with their schedule. They can monitor their both caffeine and alcohol consumption, especially not just what they're ingesting, but also when they're doing it, because you're like, Also the when guy, and then movement. As your body moves, your brain grooves. So it's not only good for your brain; it's good also for optimizing your your sleep, especially now in these challenging times. So amazing. So I challenge everyone right now actually with this to take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Michael Bruce, tag myself. And post it online and share the one thing you're going to do, just one thing based on this conversation, to help you to get that higher quality of sleep even during a pandemic. And when we teach something, we get to learn it twice. So when you're sharing with your friends, your followers, your family, your community, you're going to learn it even better. And for that, I'll actually repost some of my favorites also as well. And then, Dr. Bruce, how do people find out more about you, how to stay in touch with you. You have a brand new show.

Yeah, I've got a brand new podcast. It's called Sleep Success with Dr. Michael Breus, where I interview people like the famous Jim Kwik. But we've got some great people on there. We've got Paris Hilton. I was able to interview her. Steve Aoki, who's a friend of both of ours. Lots and lots of people out there who've got really interesting sleep stories. And that's kind of what we're talking about is how did they find success within sleep? Of course, people can find me at www.thesleepdoctor.com. And if you haven't yet, take my ChronoQuiz at chronoquiz.com.

Amazing. Dr. Bruce, thank you so much for being back on our show. And everybody, sleep well.

Thanks, Jimmy. I love being on your show. This is Dr. Michael Bruce wishing all of you sweet dreams.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing, if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number.

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