Sleep Expert: 80% of Sleep Problems Come From THIS

Michael Breus (0:00)

There's only three things that the body needs to do in order to fall asleep. It's to lower its temperature, it needs to lower its heart rate, and it's to lower its anxiety. That's it. If I can get somebody to do those three things, I don't care who the fuck you are, I can probably get you to sleep.

Dave Asprey (0:12)

He's a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, so we're gonna go deep on sleep.

Michael Breus (0:17)

I believe that 75 to 80% of all sleep disorders are fear-based. When you get woken up at three o'clock in the morning, you're not thinking in a positive way. Has anybody walked into three o'clock in the morning and said, happy birthday, you got a fucking raise? No, at three o'clock in the morning, it's negative. Getting up increases your heart rate, and most people actually don't have to pee. They turn to their doctor and say, I want a sleeping pill. And by the way, you know what all sleeping pills are, right? They're just anxiety pills. I'm gonna go to the thermostat, I'm gonna crank it to 68, everything's gonna be fine. Here's the problem, when you put it under the covers, you form a tent and now you have a sauna. So what I tell people to do is get a plastic water ball, two of them, freeze them. There's a fairly recent study talking about increasing dose of creatine in order to overcome sleep deprivation. It does totally work. Here's the problem, it's dangerous. When you have people who say, I'm just gonna sleep five hours and then I'm just gonna load up on creatine every day, that becomes problematic. Sleep is a lot like love, the less you look for it, the more it shows up. When you have this anticipatory desire to sleep, you ain't gonna sleep, brother.

Dave Asprey (1:18)

You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

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This episode is recorded at Jim Quick's Limitless Conference here, which is a fantastic conference on brain and human performance in general. Jim Quick's been on the show many times, dear friend. And I'm endorsed his most recent book Limitless Daily. So thanks, Jim, for hosting us.

Michael Breus (3:58)

Yeah.

Dave Asprey (3:59)

Our guest today is Dr. Michael Breus, who's been on the show, what, I think a couple of times so far? Yeah. And he's a clinical psychologist and a sleep specialist. So we're gonna go deep on sleep.