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3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

Released Monday, 2nd December 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

3 Wellness Fundamentals to Keep Your Baseline Strong Forever with Dr. Michael Breus

Monday, 2nd December 2024
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

Welcome to Quick Brain, bite-sized

0:02

brain for busy people who want

0:04

to learn faster and achieve more.

0:06

I'm your coach, Jim Quick. Free

0:08

your mind. Let's imagine

0:10

if we could access 100

0:12

% of our brains capacity.

0:15

I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just

0:17

clear. I knew what I needed to do

0:19

and how to do it. I know kung fu. Welcome

0:25

back, Quick Brains. I'm your host and your

0:27

brain coach, Jim Quick. As a

0:30

sleep doctor, Dr. Michael Bruce to a

0:32

multitude of health enthusiasts in

0:34

every major field and has more

0:36

or less the same conversations daily.

0:39

The latest trends say that

0:41

you must read every article

0:43

and research and try every

0:45

new technique or gadget available

0:47

in order to be well,

0:49

but often you end up

0:51

feeling lost and confused because

0:53

the suggested methods change so

0:55

fast. that you don't even know if

0:57

what you're doing is still

0:59

being recommended. Today, Dr. Bruce will

1:01

be sharing his secret to a

1:03

real long lasting wellness. And

1:05

believe it or not, it all

1:08

comes down to just three

1:10

simple things. But these are

1:12

big and impactful. Remember you major

1:14

the major things. I'm excited to

1:16

announce that Dr. Bruce will

1:18

be one of our featured speakers

1:20

at our mega, mega annual

1:22

event. joined of other brain

1:24

enthusiasts LA LA, March 6th,

1:26

7th, and 8th. It'll be the

1:28

biggest gathering we've ever done. The

1:31

faculty is amazing. The exhibits are

1:33

absolutely incredible. So So many surprises. You

1:35

meet Dr. Bruce. He'll be signing

1:37

books there also well. He's written

1:39

many of these books, some of

1:41

my favorites, limitlesslive.com. And his

1:43

latest book we're talking

1:45

about today is called

1:47

Sleep, Drink, Breathe, Simple Daily

1:50

Habits for Profound Term Health.

1:52

Welcome to the show,

1:54

Dr. Bruce. So I have a

1:56

different subtitle. I want to it right

1:58

here right now. Let's do it. it is

2:00

drink, breathe. Wellness is

2:02

too complicated. That is like

2:04

the message, right? So first of all,

2:06

as always, thank you for having me

2:08

on the pod, Jim. I certainly appreciate it.

2:10

Everybody on the pod who listens knows Jim

2:12

and I have been friends for a

2:15

very long time. time. He is an important

2:17

person in my life. I am fortunate

2:19

to be an important person in his.

2:21

and we have really had a great

2:23

journey together and we're going to have many,

2:25

many more years together. So it's always

2:27

great to hang out with a friend and

2:29

have a great conversation. So thanks, Jim. So this

2:31

is not to be scripted. You know,

2:33

you and I, I, Michael, go back way back. So I'm

2:35

I'm a client of yours also

2:37

well. You helped me through, you you know,

2:39

especially a lot of sleep issues. So So know,

2:42

into this, you share a lot

2:44

of statistics and research in

2:46

the book around what happens to

2:48

our bodies and our brain is

2:51

part of our body, Obviously, when

2:53

we are suffering from lack

2:55

of sleep, dehydration and incorrect breathing.

2:58

Let's break this down. Let's start

3:00

with sleep. So people struggle to

3:02

stay asleep through the night,

3:04

maybe waking up without knowing why.

3:06

Is Is there a a way

3:08

that you recommend that someone listening

3:10

who's struggling in this area or

3:12

as a family member or a

3:14

team member friend to and

3:16

address these subtle triggers that

3:18

disturb their sleep and

3:20

what role maybe does breathing

3:23

play in maintaining a restful night? I

3:25

keep getting asked one of the same questions.

3:27

And I think think it this issue that

3:29

we're talking about here, which is, what do

3:31

I do if I wake up in

3:33

the middle of the night? Or what can

3:35

I do to prevent waking up in

3:37

the middle of the night? And then if

3:39

I happen to wake up in the

3:42

middle of the night, what do I do

3:44

to deal with said situation? Because this is

3:46

this is the second most popular question that

3:48

I get across the board. When we look

3:50

at this, I want to explain to

3:52

everybody, this is the biology. So core body

3:54

temperature rises, rises, rises. It hits a peak,

3:56

and then it begins to drop. When

3:58

it drops, it sends a signal to your

4:01

brain to release melatonin. Remember, guys, melatonin is

4:03

that key that starts the engine for

4:05

sleep. You You to have it, but it's

4:07

not the only thing that you need. Then

4:09

your core body temperature continues to

4:12

drop, drop, drop. Then some point, your

4:14

body has to heat up. Otherwise, you

4:16

go hypothermic. When it

4:18

heats up, you automatically go into

4:20

a lighter stage of sleep

4:22

and almost everyone on on earth up.

4:25

up. Here's the difference. Some of

4:27

our listeners, when they wake up, they roll

4:29

over and they go back to sleep with them 30

4:31

seconds. Unfortunately, a a large portion

4:33

do not, Right. so number one, I

4:35

want everybody to know and understand

4:37

this is a natural occurrence. You did

4:39

not do anything wrong to make

4:41

yourself wake up in the middle of

4:44

the night. Now, if you

4:46

drink about you know, 30 ounces of water right

4:48

before you go to bed, well, then

4:50

I think it probably is your fault

4:52

for waking up in the middle of

4:54

the night. uh, you're drinking caffeine past 2

4:56

2PM, well, then you might be having

4:58

some reasons why it's waking you up.

5:00

If, for example, you drink alcohol within

5:02

two to three hours of bedtime, well,

5:04

then that's also probably on you, right,

5:07

for knowing and understanding how some of

5:09

these environmental factors can affect your sleep. But

5:11

if you didn't do those things, you're gonna wake

5:13

up anyway. The real issue is what do

5:15

I do to get back to sleep? So

5:18

the book we actually address this very issue but

5:20

I'm gonna give everybody some simple tips now but

5:22

there's a lot of good stuff in the book

5:24

for you to understand. The first thing I tell

5:26

people to do is if you can avoid it it, don't

5:28

pee. Now I want to be clear. If you

5:30

got to go, please go to the bathroom. But a

5:32

lot of people, they wake up and they don't

5:35

actually have to go. But when they go from

5:37

a lying position to a a seated position to a

5:39

standing position and they walk across the room, it

5:41

elevates their heart rate. And what

5:43

most people don't know is in order to enter

5:45

into a state of unconsciousness, you need a a

5:47

heart rate of 60 or below. So what

5:49

I have people do, and this is getting

5:51

to the breathing part for you, is I

5:53

have people help put themselves back to sleep.

5:55

So if you got to go to the bathroom,

5:58

go to the bathroom. But when you come back,

6:00

you got to lower your heart rate. My

6:02

favorite way to do that is something called 4-7-8 breathing.

6:07

This is an important aspect

6:09

to understanding how can breathing help

6:11

relax our body and allow

6:13

us to fall back asleep. The

6:15

thing about 478 that I like so much

6:17

is actually does two things at the same

6:19

time. Number one, you're counting So you

6:21

count 1-2-3-4 to two, three, four to

6:24

breathe in. in, You count to hold

6:26

until 7, and you count to eight

6:28

to push your breath out. But

6:30

while you're counting, you can't think

6:32

of anything else, right? And what

6:34

ends up happening for a lot

6:37

of people is they get what I

6:39

call monkey mind. And you can't

6:41

stop your brain. But if you're counting,

6:43

you can't think of those things. Also,

6:45

if you're breathing while you're counting, that's

6:47

lowering your heart rate. So you're kind of

6:49

getting a combo platter of things to

6:51

help you out in the middle of

6:53

the night, distracting your brain and lowering

6:55

your heart rate. And if you can

6:57

get to to 12 to 12 cycles of

6:59

this, it works fantastic. Then you just

7:01

kind of come with the breath. and

7:03

And then a sudden before know it, the natural

7:05

sleep cycle is taking over and you

7:07

fall right to sleep. Let's go into hydration

7:09

a little bit more. So brain

7:12

is mostly water. We We know

7:14

that even being a little

7:16

bit dehydrated could affect your reaction

7:18

time, your thinking speed, so much

7:20

in terms of cognitive performance. Two

7:22

questions. How do you

7:24

detect if you're dehydrated before the

7:27

obvious symptoms kick in? then, is water

7:29

water? Right? There's all kinds

7:31

of water. You go to the stores and there's

7:33

alkaline water and then there's a osmosis water. Yeah.

7:35

So the first thing is is water

7:37

water? That's a great question. And

7:39

so one of the things that

7:41

we do in the book is we

7:43

go through the different types of

7:45

water that are out there. I

7:47

know that sounds like a crazy

7:49

thing to say, but there's a

7:51

difference between mineral water, spring water,

7:53

tap water, something

7:55

called hydrogen water. Then

7:57

these additives that you can

7:59

add to water. water, things like LMNT,

8:01

liquid IV, what we call

8:03

hydration multipliers. let's break some of

8:06

this stuff down so that people

8:08

can understand it. So the first

8:10

thing let's talk about is these

8:12

hydration multipliers. So what does that

8:14

mean? What these are is these

8:16

are powders that people pour into

8:18

their water that are usually

8:20

salt and different minerals. Now magnesium,

8:23

potassium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, vitamin C,

8:25

absolutely. So question becomes, is this

8:27

a good idea? or is this

8:29

a bad idea. Number one, always look

8:31

on the label and you want to

8:33

look at the sodium count. before you

8:36

look at anything else. Because a lot

8:38

of these are loaded with sodium

8:40

and that's how they get you to

8:42

retain water. Hydration is all based

8:44

on your salt water balance within your

8:46

system. And so when your system

8:48

gets saltier, your system holds water and

8:50

when it doesn't have as much

8:53

salt, it releases water. So that's one

8:55

of the ways you can also

8:57

know, by the way, that you're hydrated

8:59

or dehydrated. As an example, look

9:01

at the color of your urine. You

9:03

want your urine to be very light

9:05

if at all, almost kind of like

9:07

a buttery color. If it gets more concentrated,

9:09

that's a sign that, hey, I might

9:12

be dehydrated. Now, there's also this thing called

9:14

the Skin Tugger test where you take

9:16

your hand and you pinch skin like this,

9:18

and then you drop it. And if

9:20

it expands back in less

9:22

than two seconds, then that means

9:24

that you're probably well hydrated.

9:26

And also notice you're thirsty. A

9:29

lot of people just brush it off

9:31

and they're like, ah, my mouth's a little

9:33

dry, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm

9:35

thirsty. Your brain is trying to tell you,

9:37

hey, something's going on here. When

9:39

we talk about brain health in

9:42

particular, and we talk about hydration,

9:44

I'm so glad you brought up

9:46

the fact that the brain is

9:48

actually mostly water. So when our

9:50

body becomes dehydrated, believe it or

9:52

not, your brain shrinks, Okay. Like

9:55

it physically shrinks. And when it

9:57

does that, the matter wraps around

9:59

the nerves, and that's when migraine

10:01

start and that's when cluster headaches start,

10:03

right? So Hydration turns out to be

10:05

a huge problem in a a lot of

10:07

people and they don't even know it. They're

10:09

like, oh, I got a a headache again. Drink

10:12

some water. Again, all that is doing is

10:14

your brain is trying to tell you, it

10:16

it hurts up here, I need some more

10:18

space. I will tell you this, getting back

10:20

to the different types of waters. Tap

10:22

water, unfortunately. is

10:24

not a great idea anymore. know,

10:26

the government puts fluoride in the

10:28

main water systems for people's teeth, which

10:30

now we know the data is that is

10:33

a great idea. So at the very,

10:35

very minimum, one of the things I

10:37

did was I went through all

10:39

of the different types of water filtration

10:41

systems out there so people can

10:43

understand from a cost perspective and then

10:46

from a filtering perspective. What

10:48

do you want? Me personally, I I

10:50

went to Target I bought one of

10:52

those Brita filters, Britta pictures with the

10:54

filter and I put tap water in that

10:56

and that's where I get my tap water

10:58

from. The rest of my water I get

11:00

from bottled water. Let's talk about

11:02

bottles for a half a second because,

11:04

man, nano plastics are everywhere. So

11:06

really want be drinking your water

11:08

if at all possible from steel

11:10

or from glass. Try to

11:12

avoid plastics and especially to avoid

11:15

water that's been contained in plastics,

11:17

right? So So you

11:19

look for water that's in bottles

11:21

and preferably colored bottles. You

11:23

might have noticed there's like these big

11:25

green bottles that say something that Mountain Valley

11:27

spring water. Those are some of the

11:29

best types of water that you can

11:31

possibly put your body. right? Now, again, you you

11:33

don't have to spend a ton of money.

11:35

Go to Target for 20 bucks. You can get

11:37

a Brita filter then some extra filters. You drop

11:39

one in every three months and you're good to

11:41

go. If you If you want to go the

11:43

extra step, you can get some fancy water as

11:45

well. Back to the hydration multipliers,

11:47

looking at the salt. You really don't

11:49

want more than about 500 milligrams of

11:51

sodium. Some of them

11:53

have a thousand that can be actually kind

11:55

of damaging Also your your pressure. So

11:57

the first thing I do is I

12:00

to at the types of sodium or the

12:02

amounts of sodium and choose one that's a

12:04

little bit lower. Then I looking at things

12:06

like what you're talking about. So is

12:08

a good hydration multiplier from the

12:10

standpoint of we sweat out most

12:12

of our magnesium. So So is

12:14

another good idea in terms of

12:16

replenishment. the final thing I wanna

12:18

talk about in terms of hydration

12:20

multipliers is not something you would

12:22

ever use every day, right? So you

12:25

would pick times where it would make

12:27

intuitive sense. So I'm a runner. And

12:29

so if I run three miles during

12:31

my normal day, I'm not gonna

12:33

use a hydration multiplier for that.

12:35

But if I have a long

12:37

run on Saturday and I'm gonna

12:39

try to do 10 miles, you

12:41

bet I'm gonna load up in half

12:43

that LMNT the liquid IV or

12:46

something like that in my water

12:48

bottle. So know there's some critical elements

12:50

for good brain health. Obviously Obviously sleep,

12:52

where you're out the beta-lamyloid plaque, the sewage system

12:54

kicks in. Yes. Yes. can solid You

12:56

consolidate long -term memory. Sleep is is

12:58

very important. You You dream. You know, it's that

13:00

of slow brain wave state. We We

13:02

about hydration for the brain that

13:04

if you're dehydrated, just boosting, it could

13:07

staying hydrated could boost reaction time, your speed, thinking

13:09

speed, all that. But the other

13:11

important key is oxygen. I Yeah,

13:13

it's just going to say anything, right? Right, So

13:16

what's fuel for the brain,

13:18

right? And so so we

13:20

age, our our functionality, it

13:22

decreases. As I

13:25

saw as much as 40%, what

13:27

What we do daily to

13:29

make sure we maintain our

13:31

lung capacity and maybe even

13:33

train ourselves out of the

13:36

shallow breathing? What are

13:38

we talking about when we're talking

13:40

about breathing lung capacity and functionality?

13:43

Well, so we get older, our lung

13:45

capacity and our lung functionality begins to

13:47

deteriorate. It's just kind of how

13:49

it is. And so you're absolutely right

13:51

in identifying this. Now Now, some cases,

13:53

the deterioration ends up in called emphysema,

13:57

COPD. Usually has

13:59

to do with smoking. things like that.

14:01

but that, of course, affects function. Sometimes, as

14:03

we age, lung function changes due to

14:05

something called sleep apnea. You and

14:07

I have had many discussions about what is sleep

14:09

apnea, how does sleep apnea work. But when

14:12

people are just kind of thinking about

14:14

generalized, like how do I keep my lungs

14:16

in shape? You're absolutely right. Most people

14:19

are shallow breathers. So in the book, Sleep, Drink,

14:21

Breathe, we actually have a plan. And

14:23

so what I have people do is

14:25

they pull out their phone and they

14:27

set an alarm on their phone at different times

14:29

throughout the day. At each one of

14:31

these times when the alarm goes off,

14:33

number one, I I ask you to drink some

14:36

water so that way I can start

14:38

you on your hydration journey, no problem.

14:40

But another thing I do is I

14:42

introduce a new breathing technique. All

14:44

of these techniques that you'll learn across the

14:46

three weeks are all designed to help

14:48

maintain or increase your overall lung capacity.

14:51

So again, now, and I want to be

14:53

super duper clear, it's not like these

14:55

are hard. All I'm going to ask

14:57

you to do are things like, you

14:59

know, take 15 deep belly breaths in,

15:01

right? So when you breathe, you don't

15:03

want your shoulders to rise when you

15:06

breathe. You want your body to expand

15:08

when you breathe, right? And that's what

15:10

a belly breath is. So we teach

15:12

people about things like that. So it's

15:14

really actually kind of fun. And by

15:16

the way, it's super easy to do.

15:18

And once you start doing it these

15:21

five times a day, your body sort

15:23

of gets into this rhythm and starts

15:25

to do it for you. You need the

15:27

alarm system anymore. You're just not, it's

15:29

become part of you. And now you

15:31

really can be limitless because got all

15:33

the different componentry that you need to

15:36

get your brain to function appropriately. As

15:38

you just said, sleep is so, so,

15:40

so critical for brain function between REM

15:42

sleep, between deep sleep, where we see

15:44

the glymphatic system out all the proteins, REM

15:46

sleep, where we move information, short -term memory

15:48

to to -term memory, dreaming where we get

15:51

a lot of our creativity. I

15:53

mean, it's just so essential Hydration, of

15:55

of course, brain shrinking and relaxing. And then of

15:57

course, the of breathing aspect, that's how it.

15:59

we get our fuel. Let's talk

16:01

for a second about air quality for for a

16:03

because I think that's something that's worthwhile

16:05

and important. In the book, one In things

16:07

we do is we look at air filters

16:09

to give people an idea. If you

16:11

want to buy a small home unit for

16:13

your bedroom in particular, we talked about

16:15

some of those. Me personally, I bought like

16:17

a unit unit off of Amazon just for

16:19

the bedroom. lot of people don't realize it,

16:21

but that's the room you spend about seven

16:23

or eight hours in. And so the

16:25

quality of that air needs to be good.

16:27

There's so much to talk to you

16:29

about this. What I also

16:31

love is your book, your

16:34

book, you also have a sleep,

16:36

drink, breathe plan, a three week

16:38

plan so that everyone who gets

16:40

a copy can benefit step

16:42

step. So really make it super simple.

16:45

To end the episode, I I a to

16:47

ask our guests, is there one

16:49

thing that you are currently studying

16:51

or learning about that you are

16:53

particularly excited about? There's a lot

16:56

of things. You know me,

16:58

I know a lot of things cooking on the

17:00

plate. Right now, I'm excited about the book to

17:02

be able to help people kind of find the

17:04

starting line for wellness. So really the

17:06

push for probably the next three

17:08

to four months, maybe even a year.

17:10

But I'm starting to look into

17:12

things like plant medicine. One

17:14

of the areas that I think is very

17:16

interesting is cannabis, psilocybin. How do they have

17:18

effects on sleep? So I'm going to be

17:20

doing deep dives in the next coming

17:22

years. Might be my next book, I'm not

17:24

sure just yet. Also, Also,

17:27

as I'm getting older, I'm 56 years

17:29

old, I'm starting to really look at

17:31

sleep in people my age and older.

17:33

So that's been fun. I'm

17:35

trying to think of anything else. You

17:38

know, I get to hang out with you in

17:40

March. I'm pretty excited about that. That's gonna be

17:42

fun, dude. We're gonna have a great time. So

17:44

I think that's another thing on my list that

17:46

I'm excited about. Amazing. Yeah, Yeah, love

17:48

for people to come and meet

17:51

Dr. Bruce in in person. We'll be doing

17:53

book signings. We'll have his books

17:55

there also well. Again, Again, gonna .com

17:57

for all the details. And

18:00

where do people get a a

18:02

copy of their book of Sleep

18:04

Drink? Breathe. So if you head on

18:06

over to my website, thesleepdoctor.com or

18:08

just sleepdoctor.com forward book. You'll

18:10

see it. And if you if you a chance to

18:13

get it before it comes out December 3rd, there's

18:15

all kinds of fun pre -orders and fun

18:17

stuff for people to check out, and

18:19

you'll enjoy it. promise. Awesome. Well,

18:22

I can't recommend your work enough. It's

18:24

helped me. I've sent you so

18:26

many clients. You help my family. So I I really

18:28

appreciate that. And I just want everyone

18:30

to remember that that brain

18:32

health or health in general

18:34

doesn't have to be super

18:36

complicated by focusing on these

18:38

three fundamental, you know, bio

18:41

behaviors, right? Sleep, hydration, breathing.

18:43

You could take significant steps

18:45

towards optimizing your health and

18:48

your overall longevity. So

18:50

always, you can find out more on

18:52

how to fuel your brain's potential on

18:54

our YouTube channel where post the extended versions.

18:56

This is definitely longer, so definitely join

18:58

us there. Join our

19:00

1 .7 million subscribers and

19:02

make sure you follow Dr. Bruce

19:06

on social media. We'll put

19:08

the links in the show notes

19:10

again at jimquick.com forward slash notes. You also tag

19:12

me at Jim Quick. Let us know what you

19:14

think about this episode. Make sure you

19:16

hit the subscribe button and leave a

19:18

comment under the episode. I read

19:20

every single one. So let us know

19:23

your thoughts. I your wanted to just add

19:25

something in if I'm allowed to. I just

19:27

started using your quick brain supplement and I'm

19:29

finding it to be extremely helpful. So

19:31

So be don't know if folks out there have had the

19:33

opportunity to check it out, but I've checked it out

19:36

and I've actually started giving it to my family. So

19:38

I wanted to let you

19:40

know. Thank you. People go

19:42

to quickmind.com, k -w -i -k -mind.com

19:45

and this is your brain coach Jim Quick. Until

19:47

next time. be limitless.

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