The Dwayne Kerrigan Podcast
143: Sleep Smarter: The Science of When with Dr. Michael Breus
10 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I think entrepreneurs actually sleep differently than most of the mainstream universe, right? When they wake up in the middle of the night, entrepreneurs have a different thing going on than everybody else. When people wake up in the middle of the night who are not entrepreneurial, they usually think about things that are relevant to their life.
Grocery list, kids, spouse, what did I talk about with my boss or what should I have said to my friend or things like that. Entrepreneurs, they wake up and they've solved the problem in their business.
Welcome to the Duane Kerrigan Podcast, and I'm your host, Duane Kerrigan. With 35 years in business and close to 30 ventures across 12 industries, I've seen a lot.
Chapter 2: What are the four chronotypes and how do they affect sleep?
Amid the celebrity allure of entrepreneurship, many exceptional entrepreneurs remain shadowed. Here, I team up with these hidden talents to unveil their challenges and successes. Dive in with me to unearth entrepreneurial gems, learn from our experiences, and get educated. I'm super appreciative of you being on the show. And actually, I noticed that you've spoke at one of Tony Robbins' events.
I did. I spoke at Unleash the Power, believe it or not. As a matter of fact, I created the video that most people watch before Unleash the Power. He has a section for all newcomers where they can watch a video about sleep. Remember, it used to be that you'd all go to one place, you'd be up for like three days.
So I actually created, I taught people how to sleep during Unleash the Power because a lot of people weren't sleeping and then they weren't getting the value.
And I get it because I was a platinum partner for two years. Then I traveled with him for like another 10 years. Part of the psychology is fatigue the conscious mind so that it opens up your ability to break down your, you know, all the things that we delete and distort and filter out when our limiting beliefs.
Which is one of the reasons actually why I started this podcast actually, because I was so involved with them. When 2020 hit and COVID, my wife and I were catching content and I realized like I'd be listening to whatever, Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos, whatever it
on a documentary and I could feel myself distorting and deleting some information going, well, yeah, but those guys are billionaires and I've got these businesses and they're way smaller. I just felt myself doing it. I made a comment to my wife.
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Chapter 3: What happens during the 1:00-3:00 AM wake-up window?
What they need to do is a podcast where they put on guys that are just still grinding it out on a day-to-day basis so that business owners who are our average listeners or could be solopreneur up to like a $50 million business.
I mean, we have a couple of guys that I know that listen that have in the hundred plus million, but I wanted to really create something where you could listen to somebody and go, okay, like I can relate to that. And I find we learn through stories. And so that's why we created the podcast.
Chapter 4: How can breathing techniques improve sleep?
So I really understand that deprivation piece that he's trying to accomplish. But also, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast to just talk about sleep because I've experienced my own issues with it, which maybe we'll talk about on the podcast. Let's go.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've got Dr. Michael Bruce, aka The Sleep Doctor, on the show today and super, super gracious for you to spend your time with us. Just to give you guys a little bit of background, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, clinical psychologist, board-certified sleep specialist, done lots of keynotes, lots of speaking, YPO.
Actually, I'm a member of YPO as well, and with Tony Robbins' organization. I don't know. I wouldn't want to say you're most famous, but I really found it really interesting. You built a mainstream framework on sleep, I guess, chronotype, you'd call it?
Yep.
That is what I'm most famous for.
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Chapter 5: How does alcohol consumption affect deep sleep?
Yeah.
So the bear, the wolf, the lion, the dolphin. Yeah. I got on your website, which I think is amazing.
Chapter 6: How does caffeine impact sleep quality?
I did take a quiz on that. Well, I'll talk about it, but you've written five books. First book, Good Night. Sleep Doctors, Diet Plan, The Power of When, Energize, and your most recent book, Sleep, Drink, and Breathe. Your website, I think, is awesome, sleepdoctor.com. I was on it actually today. By the way, side note, well, I guess this is promoting you, but
$49 an hour to have a consultation with a sleep expert. Dude, that's amazing value. So congratulations to you.
Chapter 7: What are the limitations of sleep tracking devices?
My own lived experience, sleep is probably something I did really wrong growing up and trying to build my businesses. And I'm probably the poster child for that. How do you make yourself stupid through lack of sleep?
Well, you know something, Dwayne, I'll tell you. I think entrepreneurs, because you're a real entrepreneur, I think entrepreneurs actually sleep differently than most of the mainstream universe, right? So let me give you an example, if you don't mind me just jumping in. As an example, the number one problem that people come to me with is this. They say, hey, Dr. Bruce.
I fall asleep fine, but somewhere between one and three o'clock in the morning, I wake up and either takes me 30 minutes to fall back asleep, or three hours, or sometimes I don't even fall back asleep, what should I do about that problem, right? So that is the number one question that I get asked.
Here's what's interesting is when they wake up in the middle of the night, entrepreneurs have a different thing going on than everybody else. So when people wake up in the middle of the night who are not entrepreneurial, they usually think about things that are relevant to their life, like grocery lists, like kids, spouse? What did I talk about with my boss?
Or what should I have said to my friend or things like that? Entrepreneurs, they wake up and they've solved the problem in their business. And they're so excited. They've either dreamt it or they come to a vision or something happens. They wake up and they're like, holy cow, this is what I need to do. And then they go and they write it down and they get all excited and they get on the computer.
It's the middle of the night. But Again, very different mindset than a lot of my people who wake up in the middle of the night who are worriers or who have problems or things like that. And that's just one example of how entrepreneurs sleep differently, I would argue, than most of the universe.
I'd love for you to break that down a little bit in regards to what I find really interesting about that comment is, you know, I do think like entrepreneurs think differently just by sheer force of what's going on in their lives. But then it's like, well, what is the potential solution for that for entrepreneurs to
When you say that, I actually don't, that doesn't happen to me too often, but I know a lot of friends that actually have. Now, maybe it's just because I'm old and worn, like an old worn shoe. I've just like become accustomed to it, but I do have some friends that are like, I have a buddy that is like instantly popping in my brain right now. It's like three o'clock every night.
he's up and can't get back to sleep. His solution was, okay, I'll go, I'll move from 10 o'clock to nine o'clock to eight o'clock. And like, I think he goes to bed around seven, seven 30, eight o'clock. And now he's got this pattern.
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Chapter 8: What is the relationship between sleep and sex timing?
That's the third book. of when to do things, right? And so here's where it gets interesting is this chronotype works for every activity you do awake or asleep because it's based on hormones. As an example, if you're an early person, like you said that you are, here's what has a tendency to happen.
As you're sleeping, your core body temperature begins to rise earlier than people who are a night owl. I'm a night owl. So as an example, your core body temperature would rise up around 435 o'clock in the morning and you would wake up. My core body temperature as a night owl or what I call a wolf, my core body temperature doesn't rise until seven o'clock.
So if I'm trying to wake up at 630 and my melatonin is still going until seven, that makes it really hard to wake up. That's the rub is once you know your chronotype, if you sleep within your chronotypical timeframe, you actually require less sleep and the quality of your sleep improves. So we could discover with your friend that, hey, if you sleep during this particular timeframe, guess what?
You actually need less sleep and you wake up feeling more refreshed.
Okay. So if you're the early bird, which is the lion, like, can we frame out all four? Because there's the bear, the wolf, the lion, and the dolphin.
Yeah. Let's talk about it. Uh-huh. Absolutely. So early birds are now lions. And the reason I chose lions is because, like I said, we wouldn't want to be the king or queen of the jungle. But we've learned a lot about lions, by the way. So lions have a very interesting personality characteristic. These are usually my COOs of a company, right? Not the CEO, not usually the founder, but the operator.
Okay, why operator? Because these are the people that like to make a list
every morning and go from step one to step two to step three to step four right they're very organized in their thinking you know if you have a lion in your life if you get an email at 6 a.m right that was sent from somebody who's a lion now if you're the person who's sending the emails at 6 a.m well we may have just figured out which chronotype you are as well now i want to be fair
Being a lion isn't always the best. So many of my patients are like, Michael, I want to become a lion. I want to change my chronotype. I'm going to be honest with you. Dinner and a movie is out for a lion. They've been up since 4.30 in the freaking morning, right? Like they're not going out and seeing a movie. So again, pros and cons in either direction here for being a lion.
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