Dr. Michael Breus

I'm the freaking sleep doctor.

Like, come on.

Like you can't, you can't be my doctor and having caffeine literally before you go to sleep.

And she turned to me, she says, Michael, caffeine doesn't affect me.

I'm like, BS, caffeine affects everybody.

She's like, no, really, it doesn't affect me.

I said, fine, let's put your money where your mouth is.

I want you to go get blood work done.

And I'm going to prove to you that this is going on.

She said, okay.

she doesn't make the metabolite for caffeine.

So she is literally genetically one of these people that doesn't have the enzyme, her body doesn't, caffeine just flows right through her, it never gets absorbed.

So yes, there are some people

who maybe your wife could be one of them.

Or there are also some people that have different caffeine sensitivities.

So as an example, my wife, if she eats chocolate every day, and if she eats a chocolate kiss and it's past eight o'clock at night, she won't be able to fall asleep.

And that's this big, right?

So she has a high sensitivity for caffeine, whereas your wife may have a low sensitivity for caffeine.

So there are differences, but generally speaking, if somebody has a cup of coffee a couple hours before bed, they may be able to fall asleep just fine, but the quality of that sleep, they're gonna stay in stage one, stage two.

Caffeine really has a big effect on REM sleep in particular.