Women’s Running USA – September 2019

AL

EX
AN

DR

A-G

OR

N/

UN

SP

LA
SH

THE LATEST WARM UP

ENDING THE TABOO AROUND PERIODS

Fun fact you may know: Rose Lavelle scored the goal that locked

the United States’ Women’s World Cup victory this past July.

Fun fact you may not know: The next day, she got her period.

How (and why) do we know this insanely personal detail? Because

it's a well-established fact that the menstrual cycle is a limiting factor

on sports performance. And the USWNT want us all to finally start talking

about it. Working with a leading sports consultant, the team was able to

monitor their cycles and adjust diets, sleep habits, and training loads

for each player to minimize the impact leading up to the big game.

Download the same period tracker they used to better understand your

cycle and get simple, evidence-based tips to help you better train with

your body. Available for free on Apple and Google Play, fitrwoman.com

I

f you’re someone who lies sleepless in bed for hours at night, don’t. “I hear this from

patients all the time: ‘I’m falling asleep watching television on the couch and then I

get into bed and I’m wide-awake and I don’t know why,’” says Walker. “And it’s because

the bedroom has become a trigger for wakefulness.”

The analogy he gives: You would never sit at the dinner table waiting to get hungry,

so why would you lie in bed waiting to get sleepy? “Our brains are incredibly associative

devices, and if you lie there in bed awake, very quickly your brain—night after night, week

after week—starts to learn the association between your bed being the place where you

are away, not asleep.”

What you need to do is break that negative association, says Walker. So if you haven’t

fallen asleep after 20 minutes, or you’ve woken up and you haven’t fallen back to sleep

after 20 minutes, here’s what he says to do: “Get up, go to a different room, and in the dim

light, read a book or magazine; don’t check email, don’t eat (it trains your body to wake up

for that repetitive stimulus). Only return to bed when you are sleepy—and there’s no time

limit for that. That way you will relearn the association that your bed is the place of quick

and sound sleep, rather than the place of wakefulness.”

WHAT WE LEARNED...

When in Doubt, Walk It Out

The director of the Center for Human Sleep Science dropped some

serious eye-opening (or, eye-closing?) wisdom.

WHAT WE’RE

LISTENING TO...

Sleep expert

Dr. Matthew

Walker on

“Finding Mastery:

Conversations

with Michael

Gervais” podcast.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 WOMENSRUNNING.COM 13