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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