 Very exciting what we're going to be talking about today because we're bringing you a world authority and really like a specialist. So welcome to this life. Welcome also if you were watching the recorded version. So welcome from Zurich. I'm here home. No, this is not the Swiss line office. Don't worry. We are not that crazy. We are just creative. It's me who has all these tough birds and skeletons and old books from biology, collections of toys. This is not Swiss line, but we're going to be talking Swiss line, of course. Most of you, you come here from the Swiss line side. And I want to introduce you Dr. Michael Bruce. So I think he should be already here. It's morning. Morning to Dr. Michael Bruce if he's able to join us. Otherwise I will send another invitation. Yes, here he is. Hello, Dr. Michael. How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm in my bedroom. I thought that would be the most appropriate place for us to have our conversation. Well, let's explain, of course, that you were Dr. Sleep, right? So that's your office. That's your office. Absolutely. So just to let everybody know from Swiss line why Dr. Bruce is here. We reached out to him last year because we've been quite trying to understand also in terms of our product development, the relevance of circadian rhythm, sleeping patterns. And of course, he's the world authority. So I guess that's the first question. How does one become Dr. Sleep? Absolutely. So first of all, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk with the Swiss line community. And I've actually had a chance to play around with a lot of your products and they're pretty amazing products. The science behind these is insane guys. So I want you all to know that. But today we're going to talk a lot about sleep and what does sleep mean and how does sleep work for all of us. And so the big question, how did I become the sleep guy, the sleep doctor himself? So I have a PhD in clinical psychology and I'm medically board certified in clinical sleep disorders. So here in the United States, we take a medical board in order to pass in order to become a doctor. Now, I did not to go to medical school, but I actually took the medical boards without going to medical school and passed. I'm one of 168 people who have ever done something crazy like that. And I've spent my entire career looking at sleep and sleep disorders. You know, the big idea for me was being able to focus in on an area where I knew I could help people almost immediately. It was, you know, I've been in sleep for almost 23 years now. And it's so fascinating to me because every month we learn something new. There's some new piece of research that comes aboard. We learn about a new sleep disorder or how to sleep affect our health or our wellness in a new and unique way. And so for me, it's been a great journey being able to learn more. I've been very fortunate. I've written several books, three different books as a matter of fact. Yep, there's one of them right there, The Power of When. Absolutely. And so I took my notes. I took my notes. I'm gonna prove you that I read your books through, through the heads to toes. And one thing that really comes out of the book, by the way, guys, everybody here, stay till the very end, regardless how boring the live chat will be, but stay till the end because there will be some surprises for you coming regarding the book. One thing that's really fascinating about the book, it's this idea of the chronotypes and you make it, there is a quiz. Can you a little bit enlighten us? This is super interesting. Yeah, so about, oh gosh, now six or seven years ago, I had a patient come to me and I couldn't help her. She had terrible insomnia and no matter what I did, it didn't work. So we really dug in and we discovered that it turns out that she didn't have insomnia, that she was an extreme night owl. You ever been called an early bird or a night owl before? You know, some people like the daytime early, some people like the night. So I started to explore that research more. And what I discovered was is there was actually a genetic sleep schedule programmed inside of our genes for all of us. And so I created a quiz, it's called chronoquiz.com. And it's from that book that you just And the quiz is also here, so you can either do it here or online if people want it. Online is much more interesting, yeah. Yeah, but what's interesting about it is it tells you if you're an early bird, a night owl, somebody in between or somebody within insomnia. And so what's interesting is that we have this internal rhythm, what we call our circadian rhythm. And circadian rhythms turn out to be incredibly, incredibly important. I talk to people all the times about them and sometimes people don't know exactly what they are. So let's use an example of what a circadian rhythm is. So if you're hungry, right, you get hungry around breakfast time, around lunchtime and around dinner time. That is a circadian rhythm for hunger. It turns out, and this is something that I learned fairly recently through the folks at Swissline, that your skin has a circadian rhythm as well. And we started digging into the science on this. And let me tell you something, the science on this, and this whole thing, it's amazing. I was very impressed, very impressed with the science. Yeah, because it's also these modulating leading master hormones, right? So there is something more in the AM, more in the PM, but still with the chronotypes before you go there, because I think we need to really tease the curiosity of everybody, because I thought it's also here in your book, you mentioned that before you, it was a bit more simplistic. So it's exactly that early birds and the night owls. That's correct. If you don't really fancy birds so much, you see that you're in the wrong place here. That's right. You shift it and you fine tune it from the two extreme birds to four mammals, right? So you don't want birds. So you have the wolf. Well, so, you know, you're not a bird. I'm not a bird. We're mammals, right? That's fine. So we said, so we said, let's have something that's a little bit more like us. Relatable. And you added one. Exactly. And so what was interesting is we chose animals that actually have these rhythms. So lions who turn out to be early birds actually wake up at dawn before, you know, for a kill. Bears who are kind of people in the middle, they are people who wake up when the sun comes up and go to bed when the sun goes down, kind of like a bear goes to hibernation, right? Wolves, that's me. They're the night owls. And I think you are an early bird. I think you're a lion if I remember. I'm a lion, yes, yes, yes. I'm an extreme lion with many complaints from many people. So you're the boss. Yeah, you're the boss that sends the emails early in the morning, right? Because you get up at 4.35 o'clock. I'm my own boss, yes. So, but see, that's what happens, right? Is we have early people. We have night people like myself. And sometimes those can get mixed up. The good news here is, is in the book, we actually delve into all the science of it. We teach people when is the best time to be intimate. We teach people when is the best time to have a cheeseburger. We teach people when the best time is to go to sleep, when the best time is to drink coffee or wine. I love this. All of these, all of these have very specific recommendations for people. And it's important to realize that your sleep really affects every area of your life. So it's not just these fun chronotypes that we're talking about in the sleep schedule, right? But it's our mood, right? It's our relationships with our family and with our friends. It's the way we look, right? Our aesthetics. I mean, let's be honest, you can tell when somebody hasn't slept well, because they don't look so good. By the way, by the way, as I'm Portuguese, you know, we Latins, we like to add a bit of drama to everything. So I'm sure you got this question. Is it better like you mentioned intimacy and romantic relationships? Is it better you have a relationship with your own chronotype or you get advantages to mix wolves with bears, bears with dolphins? So it's actually the best to mate with your chronotype. That's what I thought. Right? It kind of makes sense, right? Because, you know, if you're both early birds, then you both wake up early in the morning together. Maybe you make love then. You both go to bed together late at night. Maybe you're intimate then. So it's a little bit easier if your chronotypes match. But don't worry. Don't worry. In the book, I created times. I created a schedule even for people for intimacy in particular. So if you're worried, you can actually put your partner's chronotype on one side of the matrix, yours on the other, and you'll find the perfect time. No, everybody wants your book. No, everybody. I know, right? That's the best part. No more divorces. You're sent. You're sent. But so from all these, I think we've teased curiosity enough. And I was just going ahead because, of course, don't worry. There's some nerds watching because I mean, the skin care community, we trend to make up ourselves a bit nerdy into technologies, ingredients. So these two leading hormones. So you told me when we spoke already before, you spoke about cortisol, melatonin. Can you just organize a bit these concepts? Absolutely. So melatonin is what we call the sleep hormone. It only comes out in darkness. And this is what starts the sleep process. So I think it's kind of like the key that starts the engine for sleep is melatonin. Now the key that starts the engine for waking up is cortisol. So these two hormones are in opposition of each other, but they work with each other quite nicely. What's fascinating is as we get older, our melatonin production begins to drop. That actually has an effect on our appearance, not just our sleep. So many people will notice as they start to get older that their sleep starts to get a little bit earlier, a little bit earlier, a little bit earlier, like our grandma and our grandpa go to bed very early, those kind of things. Well, actually our skin is being affected at the same time by the same mechanism, which is this reduction in melatonin. So one of the things that we want to do is we want to do something to help bring that melatonin back and into the skin. And there's actually some compounds out there that have been interesting that it can be quite helpful. These are called phyto, what is it called? Hold on, you got to give me the right terminology. You had the right term, and I didn't remember what it was. It was called, it's specific for an antioxidant. It was a vita-bio rhythm, that's what it was. And so it's interesting when you start to look and understand that our skin reacts to the time of things that are going on. Therefore, if we can actually give it some of these nutrients, we will actually look as good as Castudio does this morning. I mean, the guy looks amazing, right? He doesn't have a wrinkle on his face. Yeah, but here's the thing to remember, right? Good sleep is also a component of good skin care. Yeah, that's a so-called beauty sleep, right? Exactly. There is some science and some wisdom in those expressions, right? Absolutely. So let's talk about it for just a second. So it turns out that slow wave sleep, or what we call deep sleep, is actually beauty sleep. And there's a reason for it. During beauty sleep, something called growth hormone is emitted. Now, for folks out there who into the anti-aging universe, you know about growth hormone. That is the good stuff, right? That's the stuff that you really want going, because it really does work. Keep you working and regenerating, right? It does. It's true cellular repair occurs when growth hormone is emitted. And that only happens when we have good sleep and we go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time and get that good Stage 3-4 sleep. So what I always tell people is we've got to use the skin care that affects our bodies. This is the most advanced circadian skin care I have ever seen. And I don't think there's anybody else who's more advanced than you guys. I have to be honest, I've looked around, and this is pretty amazing stuff. Sounds beautiful. I tell you that we identified, I mean, in terms of Switzerland as a brand vision, we identified it. We are not alone. I'm not saying we are alone or the first. We just try to be amongst the best or the best, arguably, is this idea of anti-inflammatory as the most important thing skin care should strive for. So exciting skin care should take in consideration, inflammation triggers, which happen more during the day, right? That's the bad side of cortisol. Cortisol is good at bed, right? It depends on the level. And what's interesting about cortisol is it can go up or down depending upon things that go on during our daytime, right? And so sometimes, so as an example, if we're exercising on a daily basis, our cortisol doesn't have nearly the variability than if we don't exercise on a daily basis. If we're not hydrated, we have high spikes in cortisol, but if we're hydrated, our cortisol stays in more of a range that we're looking for. And so one of the things that we know is when we have a lot of cortisol in our brain for a long period of time, it causes something called oxidative stress, right? So oxidative stress is a problem for our entire body because that increases inflammation internally. These are things that we don't actually see with our eyes, even if we're looking at ourselves and we say, oh, wow, we look great in the mirror, oxidative stress can be going on. And this is where we can see damage, what we call free radical damage, right? And that's the thing that we really want to try to avoid. So we don't want cortisol levels super high all the time. And that happens when we're sleep deprived, right? And so all of this comes full circle, right? When we say to ourselves, okay, we want to have good sleep hygiene. We want to go to bed at a good time. We want to wake up at a good time. But before we go to bed, we want to take care of our skin because we know that during the nighttime, this is the time for repair. So if we give our skin the tools to utilize and repair while we sleep, we wake up gorgeous. I think that word repair is like the repair mode. So it's like the repair mode is triggered by the melatonin expression, correct? Exactly. So it means with a good sleep, you enter that state. And when you are aware that the stress hormone, it's a weakness, it's a fight, it's fine, it's run away, it's be smart, it's the whole thing. If it's over, it triggers more inflammation than not, right? So that's why you should modulate the two actions day and night. And I think that's important for us to take a moment and talk about, right? Is because our energy levels fluctuate during the day, right? Which means our cortisol level fluctuates during the day. That's a natural process. But what we don't want is too much cortisol at night, right? Exactly. And that's the big one, right? We want to keep those spikes down at night. And if we can, we don't want too much cortisol running in our brain during the day because that also causes that level of inflammation. So it's really a cycle and a circle that we're looking at in terms of our overall health and wellness, right? And it's always interesting to me, because a lot of people say to me things like, well, how can caring for your skin actually help your sleep, right? Like how could something like that actually work? This is an instance where we actually have a product that helps modulate melatonin and that reactivity in the growth hormone. So we're talking about real science here, guys. This is the direction we're taking. Your words are like music. It's like music. So I think if we add your wisdom, your book, so the idea of the chronotypes that you learn more about yourselves. So it's not I'm a lion. I'm better. You are a wolf. Your worst is how would you like it? How much in sync or out of sync am I with my life, right? With all my habits. And then my skincare should reflect. I mean, there's no skincare for bears, for dolphins. So in that sense, it's more universal. But there are still maybe things which can affect more a person, which has a lot of insomnia. It will have more problems with drainage, toxins, et cetera, right? So we know that people who have insomnia actually do have significant issues. One, they have a tendency to be more dehydrated, which is going to make their skin look a little more ashen and things of that nature. We also know that people with insomnia don't have great eating habits. So their nutrition, the way they're fortifying their body and their nutrition for their skin, sometimes isn't so great either. So when we talk about the dolphins, which is the group that unfortunately has all the sleep-related issues, the insomnia, that's correct. One of the things we know is that they actually, we have to take special care of the folks who are not sleeping so well because, unfortunately, their body is reacting to that. So what's one of the things that they can do? Follow a consistent schedule is number one, right? Wake up at the same time every single day. Number two, stop caffeine by about 2 p.m. in the afternoon. Remember, caffeine will affect your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. And in some cases, remember, it can be a diuretic and make you even more dehydrated. So please, please, please be careful by using caffeine too early in the morning. What's that? That's very interesting because I think some people have this illusion that they can evade laws of nature because they are somehow special. So they don't depend on biology, but in the end, they all die, right? So end of the life, they agree with biology. During life, they deny it, right? So they say that I can drink coffee after dinner, I still sleep. Maybe they sleep, but they don't sleep deep enough. And that's the point I want to make. So that's what happens, which is interesting. And I'm glad you brought this up, Castillo, because it's important for everybody to realize is you can, of course, you can have a cup of espresso, cappuccino, whatever it is that you enjoy with dinner, right? And you still might fall asleep, but the quality of the sleep that you're getting, it's going to be very low. And that specifically, that deep sleep, that beauty sleep is dramatically affected by caffeine. Now, to get a little serious for just a moment here, that also, that deep sleep affects your immune system. So, you know, right now is a time when everybody is very interested in immune function and what's going on with our immune systems. And so it's critical, critical, critical for everyone to be getting better sleep. It will help with your immune function. It will help with the current pandemic situation as well. So not to get too serious here, but to understand, check the maps, check the maps. You know, sleep, it affects every organ system, every disease state, everything you do, you do better with the good night's sleep. And so using these products, following these recommendations, personally, this is what I do. It makes a lot of sense. And I'm getting great sleep during the pandemic. What is also the stand in terms of alcohol, sometimes we also hear a good glass of red wine. It's the best way to fall asleep. So, so a good glass of red wine is good for your heart, but it's not great for sleep. All right, so let's be honest. Right, or for skin. So we don't want to drink too close to bedtime. That has an effect specifically on this beauty sleep that we keep talking about. Alcohol and caffeine are not friends of beauty sleep. I can assure you of that. But the alcohol in particular, while it does make you fall asleep very easily, it wakes you up about three hours in and then you're in trouble. Right? That's a problem. So again, probably the glass of wine, if you have dinner, because I don't have dinner, I have dinner at four o'clock. One glass of wine, one glass of water, wait one hour. Two glasses of wine, two glasses of water, wait two hours. That's it. Two glasses is the limit. And it's like three hours, four hours before bed. Three hours before bed, stop all alcohol, and then you'll be perfectly fine. Exactly. And then guys, the day you don't do it, you have a hangover that's fine, pick your poison, but it's like out of the 365 days of the year, two hangovers and beauty sleep. Not bad. Rest of the time, good. We have a deal, doctor's prescriptions. So back to your book. I just want to tell everybody that you will find, by the way, we should also say where people can find more of you. So if people are really interested to learn more, you can go to chronoquiz.com or you can go to thesleepdoctor.com and you'll see all of my information there. Of course, SwissLine is going to be having a special section on their website coming soon dedicated to beauty sleep. Yeah. So we're excited. So we wanted to have people please check that out. I've written some articles that are there and so we're excited for you to learn more about inflammation and sleep and some of the things that we've been talking about today. We're going to dig in a little bit more on the science, but I think you'll really, really like it. But yes, I've seen a couple of questions fly by here. People are asking about caffeine. You can drink caffeine, but you want to stop drinking caffeine by 2 p.m. Why? Because the half-life is six and a half hours. And so about that time is about 8.39 o'clock at night and you'll be getting ready for bed. Yeah, exactly. It's all, as it says, the power of when. It's not to drink or not to drink, to have it or not to have it. It's when, right? So guys, good news. So there are 100 signed books from Dr. Bruce, which we SwissLine are giving away. So keep your eyes open the next coming day. So some will be offered here on Instagram. As Dr. Bruce says, there will be a section. That's why we are starting this partnership. So you're going to write some blog articles for us to bring, because you know, I really want to say this on behalf of a skincare brand, that there is only as much skincare can do for anti-aging. If lifestyle is all wrong, if we are out of sync with everything, don't ask your retinol, your vitamin C, your alleuronic acid to change your life. Right? Right. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. So keep attentive. There is these 100 books we're going to give away. So you already know where to find Dr. Bruce from my site. You know where to find me. So it's H Traveler on YouTube. These lives here on Instagram. By the way, YouTube H Traveler, I'm going to hack it. If you send me, there is an email there. If you send, so H Traveler friends, subscribe the channel, send me an email. I will snap a book out of the lucky draw and make sure that some H Traveler followers get the book. Awesome. And since before letting you go, because I remember you told me that you were having a hard time to get hold of the products because your wife and your daughter were just taking them away from you, right? Yes, they were. As a matter of fact, they loved them. When that box showed up, they were like yahoo and they just grabbed it and took off. Okay. So we'll make sure that each blog article we get, we send you a survival kit. I love it. I'm really happy. Okay. Perfect. So for everybody, which is Switzerland paying attention. So if you think anti-inflammatory, these, it's the baby recovery serum, which is together with all the line age intelligence by the castle site, which is the ingredient mostly anti-inflammatory in the whole collection. And you'll see that everything we talk about circa the end, it's our Swiss cure. So these two beautiful babies here, which are AM and PM, of course, very fancy eccentric as we are. But science inside, we don't promise to increase your melatonin. We don't promise to decrease your cortisol. This is something that you will like to hear. So we don't promise to do more or do less, but to capture the good things when you need them and to maybe less sensitivity when you don't need them. It's credible, right? This way to go. Yeah. Well, and for me, working with a company like Swissline is important because you're all about the science, right? You want to know what the science is, how the ingredients work. Skin biology. Right. Skin biology, right. Exactly. And we've, now we've combined sleep science with skin biology science. So this is really groundbreaking stuff. Like, I don't want people, like, I know people think, oh, this is interesting. This is not something that I have seen before. So this is real science that is actually helping with your skin as well as having an effect on your sleep. So I'm pretty impressed. Absolutely. We've dying to bring you to Switzerland as well, because as we have some interesting locations, I showed you some like the medical excellence at the Jürgen Stop Resort. So well, when COVID, when the world, when life allows it, for sure, we'll invite you to come to Switzerland. And then who knows, we're going to do other lives than, I mean, we have a lot ahead of us because I tell you, there are very few brands really creating awareness for all these lifestyle options. And I think that's the way to go if we are serious. No, and I think it is because right now, I mean, let's be honest, now is a time where people are pretty stressed out, right? And how does that stress effect are the way we look, the way we act, the way we feel? This is a difficult time. I was excited to partner with you guys because you're one of the first skincare companies that came to me and said, we want to help people sleep better. We want people, we want to educate people on this. We want to really think about this in a different way. And so that's what's important to me is partnering with companies that are science minded, but also like to have a lot of fun and do things that people enjoy doing, like looking better and enjoying life and things of that nature. So for me, it was an easy yes to work with Swissline because you guys are science based. You understand what you're doing. You have a lot of fun. And you know, we're educating people. So it was great to hear. So guys, fight for your book. It's about skincare a little bit and about love and about so many other important things. Thank you so much, Dr. Michael. So wishing you a great day ahead. And for me, as a good lion, I'm go to bed at 10 o'clock for sure. You're doing well. So for everybody out there, if you happen to be in the United States, it's National Sleep Awareness Week. So happy National Sleep Awareness Week. World Sleep Day is tomorrow. So a happy World Sleep Day to everybody across the globe. This is Dr. Michael Bruce, the Sleep Doctor, wishing everybody sweet dreams. Take care. See you soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, everybody. Ciao.