Something You Should Know
The New Science of Sleeping, Breathing and Drinking & Where Did Dinosaurs Go?
02 Dec 2024
Chapter 1: What is schadenfreude and why do we experience it?
Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
Hi, welcome. Glad you're here. And I want to start with something today that's a little weird. And here's the question. Have you ever laughed or felt the urge to laugh at someone's misfortune when they trip or fall down or make a fool of themselves? While it seems like that would be a cruel thing to do, it's actually a perfectly normal reaction. It's a phenomenon known as schadenfreude.
That's a German compound word meaning damage and joy. Research from Princeton University found that from time to time, most of us feel a sudden mix of emotions at the misfortune of others. It's a reaction triggered by a sudden boost of self-esteem or victory at someone else's expense. So doesn't that make you a bit evil if you giggle at someone else's blunder or fall or failure? Not necessarily.
Blame schadenfreude. That simultaneous feeling of superiority and concern can manifest itself in the form of seemingly inappropriate laughter. And that is something you should know. Three things you do every day. Sleep, drink, and breathe. You can't not do them. You have to do them. And maybe you could do them a little better, according to my guest, Dr. Michael Bruce.
Michael's name has popped up on other episodes of Something You Should Know. He's been a guest, but even other guests have referenced him or quoted him. He's considered one of the top experts on sleep anywhere. And he is about to explain how small improvements in how you sleep, breathe, and hydrate yourself can have extraordinary results.
Michael is a double board certified clinical psychologist and clinical sleep specialist. He's the author of numerous bestselling books, and his latest is called Sleep, Drink, Breathe, Simple Daily Habits for Profound Long-Term Health. Hi, Michael. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here.
So why, I'm thinking people are wondering, why would I need advice on how to sleep, breathe, and hydrate myself?
Such a great question. So I get this all the time. Like, Michael, we already do that next. Here's the thing. When you think about the fundamentals, like what is the DNA of wellness? What can you stack all that on if you're deciding to optimize your health or start a new health program or any of that?
If you're not sleeping well, if you're not hydrated and you don't breathe appropriately, you're not going to be able to accomplish any of those goals. So Why not start with the basics? And you kind of have to do them every single day. So if I give you a couple of tips that you can just kind of smooth on into your routine and it doesn't take a lot of energy or effort, why not?
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Chapter 2: How can breathing, sleeping, and hydration improve your health?
And so when you wake up, we want you obviously drinking water and clearly you're dehydrated. So what a lot of people will do is they'll they'll go and then they'll drink water. 30 ounces right in the morning, right? Like right before a workout. This is not a great idea. Let me explain.
So when you walk out in the morning to your kitchen and walk over to your sink, usually there's a dried up sponge that's lying there somewhere. You are that dried up sponge every single morning. If you took that dried up sponge and you stuck it under your faucet and you open up the faucet full blast as though you were gulping water, what happens to the sponge? Right.
The water hits it and it runs right off it. But if you actually had it at a slower rate, right, like sipping water and you let it absorb into the sponge, soon the sponge regenerates and now you have a useful tool. You are the sponge. And so the better you can sip, the better it will absorb.
Well, one of the other things that I have heard about hydration is, yes, you should drink water, but the other fluids and the foods with fluids count.
Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely. One of the big recommendations that we have is making sure that each one of your meals has water filled vegetables in it. Right. And the good news is most vegetables are got a lot of water in it. But having that decent sized serving of it, you can actually count towards your water. Absolutely. And also, I want to be clear, you can actually count coffee towards your water.
Let me explain. So coffee is coffee in and of itself is a diuretic. But it doesn't really have that great of a diuretic properties until you get about three cups into you. So to be clear, and I am the sleep doctor, I'm telling you that if you want to have your coffee in the morning, one to two cups, you can actually count those cups towards your hydration.
Now, as a quick tip, in order for you to get the biggest bang out of your buck from caffeine, now I'm becoming the sleep doctor once again, is what you want to do is you want to drink your caffeine 90 minutes after. After you wake up, you want to hydrate before you caffeinate, because once again, your body is very dehydrated.
And while the two cups of coffee do count towards water, you don't want to mix it up with the caffeine right away. If you do wait 90 minutes, here's what ends up happening is the adrenaline and cortisol that your brain needed to wake you up finally starts to slow down. And when you add caffeine, you actually get a bigger bang for your buck just by waiting 90 minutes after you wake up.
The only other thing about caffeine that I think is important to think through is when should you stop? And so caffeine becomes important from a hydration standpoint, because again, once you hit the third cup, that's when it starts pulling water out of your body. So you want to be careful for that. But you also probably want to stop around 2 p.m.
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Chapter 3: What are the latest discoveries about dinosaurs?
Chapter 4: How does drowsy driving impact road safety?
Let me explain. So coffee is coffee in and of itself is a diuretic. But it doesn't really have that great of a diuretic properties until you get about three cups into you. So to be clear, and I am the sleep doctor, I'm telling you that if you want to have your coffee in the morning, one to two cups, you can actually count those cups towards your hydration.
Now, as a quick tip, in order for you to get the biggest bang out of your buck from caffeine, now I'm becoming the sleep doctor once again, is what you want to do is you want to drink your caffeine 90 minutes after. After you wake up, you want to hydrate before you caffeinate, because once again, your body is very dehydrated.
And while the two cups of coffee do count towards water, you don't want to mix it up with the caffeine right away. If you do wait 90 minutes, here's what ends up happening is the adrenaline and cortisol that your brain needed to wake you up finally starts to slow down. And when you add caffeine, you actually get a bigger bang for your buck just by waiting 90 minutes after you wake up.
The only other thing about caffeine that I think is important to think through is when should you stop? And so caffeine becomes important from a hydration standpoint, because again, once you hit the third cup, that's when it starts pulling water out of your body. So you want to be careful for that. But you also probably want to stop around 2 p.m.
in the afternoon because caffeine has a half-life of between six and eight hours. And so if you stop at two, then half of the caffeine is out of your system by 10. And that means you've got a far greater likelihood of getting some sleep.
so let's talk about breathing because i you know i breathe i breathe all the time i seem to do it pretty well because i'm still alive i'm not dead well i don't think that's the right way to think about it to be fair like are you in great shape if you uh you know don't exercise no of course not right same kind of concept here is i do it could i do it a little bit better and is the juice worth the squeeze i think that's actually the more important question is
okay, Michael, you've come up with all these cool ideas to maybe make my breathing better or make my hydration better, but is it really worth it? Like, am I going to get something out of this? So I think we will. And breathing is actually kind of an interesting one. And to be fair, it was the one that I was the least familiar with, but actually had the most experience with. Let me explain.
So most sleep doctors work in pulmonary offices because pulmonary doctors or lung doctors usually own most of the sleep labs here in the United States. And so we end up dealing with patients that have got asthma, COPD. all kinds of breathing related issues. And so understanding how the lungs function becomes very, very important.
Also, sleep apnea is arguably the number one diagnosis in terms of sleep labs. So certainly something that I've had a lot of experience with. But thinking about breathing differently, not on the medical side, but thinking about it on the, hey, could I do it better side? And what good would that do me?
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