Michael Breus

Then you get older like me and you turn 55, 56, and your chronotype actually starts to go backwards.

So as an example, if any of the listeners out there ask their parents, for example, hey, mom, dad, you want to meet for dinner?

What time do you want to meet?

More times than not, if you're talking to a 65 or 70 year old, they're saying, hey, let's have dinner at 530.

Well, that's because their chronotype is going backwards and their melatonin production and their temperature changes.

This is all based on when your core body temperature rises and falls.

So that's really where chronotypes come from.

Now, one little caveat that I think is interesting is if people said to me, hey, Michael, I don't want to wake up based on my chronotype, I would turn to them and say, OK, do me the favor and then just wake up at the same time seven days a week.

You're not going to get all of the benefit of the higher quality sleep, but you will get some of the benefit of the consistency of the wake up time.

Is it just a problem you have to live with or what?

Absolutely not.

I will tell you this, Mike, I've actually saved more marriages as a sleep doctor than I ever would have as a marital therapist just by working on snoring.

And I agree with you, it is a big issue.

So let's go through it fairly quickly.

Number one, drop some weight.

You know, I'm trying not to be offensive to people, and I'm not saying that everybody who's a snorer is heavy, but the data would suggest that a 5% weight loss, so in a 200-pound person, that's 10 pounds, should reduce the snoring decibel level by about 25 to 30 decibels.

That's massive.

So number one, it won't be as loud if you or your bed partner loses a little bit of weight.

The second thing I tell people is you want to decongest for better rest.

So the way I think about this is, Mike, have you ever been out in the garden and you're watering the plants and you stick your thumb over the hose and the water squirts out faster?