December 8, 2025 • 9 mins
Psychologist and sleep specialist Dr Michael Breus joins Jonesy & Amanda to prepare for their new sleep cycle next year.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
My Heart podcasts here, more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app es
and Amanda jam Nation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, after twenty years of our alarms going off at
an ungodly hour, Brendan, yours is three twenty five minus
four am. Things are about to change dramatically next year.
We're going to have to get used to a whole
new sleep routine. What damage has been done to our
bodies over the last twenty years. Well, we thought we'd
go to the best of the best to get some
sound advice, the world renowned sleep specialist all the way
(00:42):
from California, doctor Michael Bruce. Hello, Michael, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I am wonderful Amanda, how are you? First of all,
why do you wake? Why do you get an extra
twenty minutes of sleep? And Jonesy doesn't? What is he
doing that extra time? I wonder I.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Wondered the same.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Coming here and open up the shop, I put up
the shutters, I put the fruit out on the streets.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I come in Michael, and it looks to me like
he's been watching old episodes of The Love Boat on
the camp.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Surprise me at all, wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
At a research Well, the fact that we have been
doing these hours for so long, has that done any
any damage to us? The fact that we've had that
unusual schedule.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So it's a great question, and so I want to
start off by saying probably not. So here's the good news.
Is when we look at people who are shift workers,
and let's be fair, you guys are shift workers. Right,
you get up at three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning,
You're at work by what time, twenty or thirty five o'clock.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'm here, fatheryclock.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Five o'clock, right, And so that makes you an early
bird or kind of a shift worker. It would be
much worse if, for example, you had to work throughout
the night time. So at least you're getting towards the
beginning of the morning time. So that's first of all,
number one. Number two, it's it's going to take some time.
This is not going to be a boom overnight. Everything's
(02:05):
going to feel better and I'm going to be able
to kind of rock and roll because your body has
gotten so used to waking up at that particular time.
And so a shift like this, I would argue, is
probably going to take your body somewhere between a week
to a week and a half, maybe two weeks to
completely adjust and get kind of back onto your normal
quote normal schedule. Now, there's a couple things that you
(02:28):
can do to help that out or speed that up.
Number One, when you start waking up at a halfway
decent time, make sure you get sunlight within fifteen or
thirty minutes of you waking up, because sunlight turns off
the melotone and faucet in your brain and helps you
relieve any of that brain fog you're used to waking
up when it's pitch black at night these days, And
so all I want you to do is do me
(02:49):
a favor and wake up. Let's say it's at six
thirty six forty five, walk outside and take your breakfast
outside or take your morning coffee outside. Once you're able
to do that into the new schedule, I think that
will be super duper helpful. Number One, Sunshine helps get
rid of that melotonein Number two, fifteen minutes of it
makes vitamin D in your body by them, and D
(03:09):
turns out to be a circadian pacemaker. So this is
another thing that will help your body's rhythm kind of
click back in. But the biggest, biggest thing is you've
got to pick one wake up time and stick to
it seven days a week. Consistency is super duper important
for the two of you.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And is that for everybody in everyone's lives or just
when you're shifting your rhythms like this?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So great question. So first of all, generally speaking, it
is for everybody, but it's specifically important for the two
of you because when you're making this shift, you're basically
going to have to rewrite the code in your brain
for your body, and you have to do it over
and over and over until your body gets it. Your
body has to do something for approximately twenty eight days
(03:53):
for your circadian rhythm to reset. So by having that
chosen wake up time, let's say, for example, you chose
I don't know, six forty five seven o'clock in the morning,
maybe even not that maybe even not that early. But
if you did do that early, then get up including
the weekends. That's the killer. I know it's not fun,
but if you can, what happens is it turns out
(04:14):
that your melotone in at night is directly affected by
what time you wake up in the morning. So to
be clear, if you wake up in the morning at
a variable time, then your melotone in at night becomes variable.
But if you wake up at a consistent time, then
your melotone in at night becomes consistent. Some of you
look like you got a question.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, no, I've what's your guide to hack for going
to sleep? I've heard all these things about you can't
to twenty and then you cape canting to twenty all
these things.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, So number one, go to bed when you're tired.
A lot of people have a tendency to go to
bed too early and think, oh, I need to get
my eight hours. I want to be super clear. Eight
hours is a myth, especially for you guys. It's just
not something that you're probably going to be able to
get on the regular. Don't give yourself a hard time
about it. If you can, in the future start getting
(05:02):
more sleep because you've been kind of sleep deprived for
so long, I would say, absolutely do that. The biggest
hack that I can tell you is number one consistency.
Number two is in terms of falling asleep. My favorite
thing to help lower your heart rate and get you
relaxed is something called four seven eight breathing I can
teach you to you right now. I'll take you two seconds.
(05:24):
Are you ready? So you slowly breathe in through your
nose for a count of four. Your eyes are closed
and you're imagining the number. So you imagine a four,
then a three, then a two, then a one. Then
you hold for seven and you imagine that number seven six, five, four,
three two one. That's a hole. Then you push out
(05:48):
for a count of eight. Now that's a harder one
to do, right, and so you push out again thinking
about the count of eight. You do this for about
ten or fifteen cycles, and what it ends up doing
is it lowers your heart rate, which allows for you
to enter into the state of sleep. You can't enter
into sleep with the heart rate above sixty, so anything
you can to lower your heart rate is going to
(06:10):
be beneficial. This breathing technique in particular works great, but
if it's too complicated for some of the listeners, they
can do something called box breathing, which is just breathe
in for account of four, hold for account of four,
breathe out for account of four, hold for account of four. Right,
it kind of makes like a little box like that.
I find those to be some of the best things
to do in order to help people fall asleep fairly quickly. Then,
(06:34):
of course there's always alcohol, right, So let's talk about
that for half a second, right, So should you drink
yourself to sleep? The answer is categorically no, and there's
a bunch of reasons why. However, I know I'm giving
you some bad news. But you can still have one drink.
You can still have a glass of wine with dinner.
I don't have a problem with that as long as
(06:55):
it's far enough away from lights out about three hours.
So if you stop drinking about three hours before lights out,
limit yourself to one to two drinks, I think you're
going to be okay. That can make you sleepy. The
other big thing, Jonesy that I think people don't really
think about, is you got to move your body a
lot during the daytime for it to get tired enough
to sleep. Right. So people who sit around all day
(07:17):
and they just don't know anything, it's really hard for
them to sleep. I know you guys have a tendency
while on the radio, but when you're off the radio,
I know you're both active. Activity is the thing that
absolutely helps you. And so one of the things I
want to recommend after next week, when you have all
this extra time on your hands and you're doing all
this new stuff, wake up at the same time every day.
(07:38):
Go outside and get sunshine in the morning. But do
yourself a favor and be active. See if you can
get somewhere between thirty and forty five minutes of activity
every day, that will absolutely help you fall asleep in
there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Wow, you are a gun this, thank you?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And what about sex? Does that help?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah? Does what help? Sex? Absolutely? It does. But it's
interesting because when you have sex turns out to be
more important. So it turns out that most people, so
we did a survey looking at this in particular, it
turns out most people have between ten thirty and eleven
thirty at night. You want your hormone profile to be
a very particular way. If you're gonna have sex. You
(08:17):
want estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, an, adrenaline to be high, right,
and you want melotonein the sleep hormone to be love.
Most people have sex between ten thirty and eleven thirty
at night. What do you think their hormone levels look like?
The opposite? Right, melotonin is high and all those things
that you need are low. So that's hint number one
(08:37):
as to when is the best time for sex. But
hint number two is if you happen to be having
sex with somebody who was born biologically male, what do
most men wake up with in the morning? An election.
If that's not mother nature telling you when to use
that damn thing, I don't know what is. So I
recommend morning sex. Throw it, get some toothpaste, you know,
(08:59):
wash your mouth out, and hop back in bed. You'll
be surprised. When we surveyed people afterwards, they said their
connection was better, and men said that their actual erectile
function was better.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So my my wife, my my wife loves morning sex.
I'm not here.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That Jesus with a tube of two.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Doctor Michael Priests, this has been great.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I could talk to you all day.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
This has been brilliant.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Thank you always a pleasure. If people want to learn more,
swing on over to sleep doctor dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There it is. Thank you very much,
My Heart podcasts here, more Gold one on one point
seven podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app es
and Amanda jam Nation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, after twenty years of our alarms going off at
an ungodly hour, Brendan, yours is three twenty five minus
four am. Things are about to change dramatically next year.
We're going to have to get used to a whole
new sleep routine. What damage has been done to our
bodies over the last twenty years. Well, we thought we'd
go to the best of the best to get some
sound advice, the world renowned sleep specialist all the way
(00:42):
from California, doctor Michael Bruce. Hello, Michael, how are you?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I am wonderful Amanda, how are you? First of all,
why do you wake? Why do you get an extra
twenty minutes of sleep? And Jonesy doesn't? What is he
doing that extra time? I wonder I.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Wondered the same.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Coming here and open up the shop, I put up
the shutters, I put the fruit out on the streets.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I come in Michael, and it looks to me like
he's been watching old episodes of The Love Boat on
the camp.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Surprise me at all, wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
At a research Well, the fact that we have been
doing these hours for so long, has that done any
any damage to us? The fact that we've had that
unusual schedule.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So it's a great question, and so I want to
start off by saying probably not. So here's the good news.
Is when we look at people who are shift workers,
and let's be fair, you guys are shift workers. Right,
you get up at three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning,
You're at work by what time, twenty or thirty five o'clock.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I'm here, fatheryclock.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Five o'clock, right, And so that makes you an early
bird or kind of a shift worker. It would be
much worse if, for example, you had to work throughout
the night time. So at least you're getting towards the
beginning of the morning time. So that's first of all,
number one. Number two, it's it's going to take some time.
This is not going to be a boom overnight. Everything's
(02:05):
going to feel better and I'm going to be able
to kind of rock and roll because your body has
gotten so used to waking up at that particular time.
And so a shift like this, I would argue, is
probably going to take your body somewhere between a week
to a week and a half, maybe two weeks to
completely adjust and get kind of back onto your normal
quote normal schedule. Now, there's a couple things that you
(02:28):
can do to help that out or speed that up.
Number One, when you start waking up at a halfway
decent time, make sure you get sunlight within fifteen or
thirty minutes of you waking up, because sunlight turns off
the melotone and faucet in your brain and helps you
relieve any of that brain fog you're used to waking
up when it's pitch black at night these days, And
so all I want you to do is do me
(02:49):
a favor and wake up. Let's say it's at six
thirty six forty five, walk outside and take your breakfast
outside or take your morning coffee outside. Once you're able
to do that into the new schedule, I think that
will be super duper helpful. Number One, Sunshine helps get
rid of that melotonein Number two, fifteen minutes of it
makes vitamin D in your body by them, and D
(03:09):
turns out to be a circadian pacemaker. So this is
another thing that will help your body's rhythm kind of
click back in. But the biggest, biggest thing is you've
got to pick one wake up time and stick to
it seven days a week. Consistency is super duper important
for the two of you.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And is that for everybody in everyone's lives or just
when you're shifting your rhythms like this?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
So great question. So first of all, generally speaking, it
is for everybody, but it's specifically important for the two
of you because when you're making this shift, you're basically
going to have to rewrite the code in your brain
for your body, and you have to do it over
and over and over until your body gets it. Your
body has to do something for approximately twenty eight days
(03:53):
for your circadian rhythm to reset. So by having that
chosen wake up time, let's say, for example, you chose
I don't know, six forty five seven o'clock in the morning,
maybe even not that maybe even not that early. But
if you did do that early, then get up including
the weekends. That's the killer. I know it's not fun,
but if you can, what happens is it turns out
(04:14):
that your melotone in at night is directly affected by
what time you wake up in the morning. So to
be clear, if you wake up in the morning at
a variable time, then your melotone in at night becomes variable.
But if you wake up at a consistent time, then
your melotone in at night becomes consistent. Some of you
look like you got a question.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, no, I've what's your guide to hack for going
to sleep? I've heard all these things about you can't
to twenty and then you cape canting to twenty all
these things.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, So number one, go to bed when you're tired.
A lot of people have a tendency to go to
bed too early and think, oh, I need to get
my eight hours. I want to be super clear. Eight
hours is a myth, especially for you guys. It's just
not something that you're probably going to be able to
get on the regular. Don't give yourself a hard time
about it. If you can, in the future start getting
(05:02):
more sleep because you've been kind of sleep deprived for
so long, I would say, absolutely do that. The biggest
hack that I can tell you is number one consistency.
Number two is in terms of falling asleep. My favorite
thing to help lower your heart rate and get you
relaxed is something called four seven eight breathing I can
teach you to you right now. I'll take you two seconds.
(05:24):
Are you ready? So you slowly breathe in through your
nose for a count of four. Your eyes are closed
and you're imagining the number. So you imagine a four,
then a three, then a two, then a one. Then
you hold for seven and you imagine that number seven six, five, four,
three two one. That's a hole. Then you push out
(05:48):
for a count of eight. Now that's a harder one
to do, right, and so you push out again thinking
about the count of eight. You do this for about
ten or fifteen cycles, and what it ends up doing
is it lowers your heart rate, which allows for you
to enter into the state of sleep. You can't enter
into sleep with the heart rate above sixty, so anything
you can to lower your heart rate is going to
(06:10):
be beneficial. This breathing technique in particular works great, but
if it's too complicated for some of the listeners, they
can do something called box breathing, which is just breathe
in for account of four, hold for account of four,
breathe out for account of four, hold for account of four. Right,
it kind of makes like a little box like that.
I find those to be some of the best things
to do in order to help people fall asleep fairly quickly. Then,
(06:34):
of course there's always alcohol, right, So let's talk about
that for half a second, right, So should you drink
yourself to sleep? The answer is categorically no, and there's
a bunch of reasons why. However, I know I'm giving
you some bad news. But you can still have one drink.
You can still have a glass of wine with dinner.
I don't have a problem with that as long as
(06:55):
it's far enough away from lights out about three hours.
So if you stop drinking about three hours before lights out,
limit yourself to one to two drinks, I think you're
going to be okay. That can make you sleepy. The
other big thing, Jonesy that I think people don't really
think about, is you got to move your body a
lot during the daytime for it to get tired enough
to sleep. Right. So people who sit around all day
(07:17):
and they just don't know anything, it's really hard for
them to sleep. I know you guys have a tendency
while on the radio, but when you're off the radio,
I know you're both active. Activity is the thing that
absolutely helps you. And so one of the things I
want to recommend after next week, when you have all
this extra time on your hands and you're doing all
this new stuff, wake up at the same time every day.
(07:38):
Go outside and get sunshine in the morning. But do
yourself a favor and be active. See if you can
get somewhere between thirty and forty five minutes of activity
every day, that will absolutely help you fall asleep in
there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Wow, you are a gun this, thank you?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And what about sex? Does that help?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah? Does what help? Sex? Absolutely? It does. But it's
interesting because when you have sex turns out to be
more important. So it turns out that most people, so
we did a survey looking at this in particular, it
turns out most people have between ten thirty and eleven
thirty at night. You want your hormone profile to be
a very particular way. If you're gonna have sex. You
(08:17):
want estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, an, adrenaline to be high, right,
and you want melotonein the sleep hormone to be love.
Most people have sex between ten thirty and eleven thirty
at night. What do you think their hormone levels look like?
The opposite? Right, melotonin is high and all those things
that you need are low. So that's hint number one
(08:37):
as to when is the best time for sex. But
hint number two is if you happen to be having
sex with somebody who was born biologically male, what do
most men wake up with in the morning? An election.
If that's not mother nature telling you when to use
that damn thing, I don't know what is. So I
recommend morning sex. Throw it, get some toothpaste, you know,
(08:59):
wash your mouth out, and hop back in bed. You'll
be surprised. When we surveyed people afterwards, they said their
connection was better, and men said that their actual erectile
function was better.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So my my wife, my my wife loves morning sex.
I'm not here.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That Jesus with a tube of two.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Doctor Michael Priests, this has been great.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I could talk to you all day.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
This has been brilliant.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Thank you always a pleasure. If people want to learn more,
swing on over to sleep doctor dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
There it is. Thank you very much,
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