Ep 101: Sleep is Part of Your Training, Why Runners Need More Recovery, with Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown & Dr. Michelle Quirk

What if the most important thing you can do for your running today is sleep?

As runners, we spend a lot of time thinking about training: how many miles we're running, what pace we're targeting, whether we need more strength training, and how we're going to fit it all into our already-busy lives. There's another piece of the training equation that is easy to push aside which is sleep.

In this episode of the Mindful Marathon Podcast, I'm joined by my friend and fellow physician, Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown, a triple board-certified sleep physician and founder of Restful Sleep MD, for a conversation about sleep, recovery, and running.

We talk about why sleep is such an active process and why it's foundational to everything from muscle recovery and immune function to mood, cognition, and performance.

We also get into some of the questions I hear from runners all the time:

How does inadequate sleep affect running performance and recovery?

Do runners actually need more sleep when they're training hard?

Is it okay to take a nap after a long run?

When does a nap become too long or too late in the day?

If you've had a terrible night's sleep, should you still get up for your morning run?

When should you choose sleep over your workout?

What can you do if you're having trouble falling asleep?