Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective Ep 25 Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown (Board-certified Pediatric Pulmonologist & Sleep Medicine Physician)

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Sleep is your superpower. And just make that like an appointment. I usually say, make your appointment, make it like an appointment with your sleep. And because sleep has so many health benefits. Think of it as your appointment with your doctor, you wouldn't just like call your doctor and be like, Hey, sorry. I'm running late.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.

And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.

Hello physicians. I want to invite you to go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com and register for the masterclass that is going to be happening on May 28th at 11 central time. It's going to be a really good masterclass that is going to teach you how to leave work at work.

We are going to be talking how to chart with ease. And when you come to this masterclass, you're going to be able to walk away with practical tips that will help you to develop an empowering mindset for efficient charting. And you will also learn how to implement boundaries that will improve your patient care and free up your time.

And of course, you're going to recognize. Which distractions might be getting in the way of you closing those charts. So sign up, go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com. And also this is the perfect time for you to realize that June 20th is right around the corner. That's when my 12 week physician group coaching class is going to start.

It comes with 20 CME credits. Make sure you get on my waiting list and you can do that also by sending me an email on my website, you can contact me and you can get all the details. All right. Take care.

Link to my website to register: 

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I am so excited for today's episode. I have a dear friend of mine here, one of the leading experts or the expert in sleep. So it's going to be such an amazing treat for you guys today. So Dr. Funke Afolabi-brown is an assistant professor of pediatrics, as well as a board certified pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician. Wow. All the hats, right? Yeah, I totally it's a big treat. So she helps children sleep better and breathe better.

And by extension, she helps improve the sleep of their parents. Ooh. Where were you when this was happening to me? Okay. In addition to teaching and seeing patients, Dr. Brown is a speaker. She's an educator and a writer of the founder of Restful Sleep MD. She is passionate about helping busy professional women and their children prioritize sleep to achieve their optimal health and live to their fullest potential.

Okay. And so when I say she's a speaker, I mean, Jesus speakers, she speaks in. All over. So, we're talking like national and international and she goes to wellness retreats and she helps some of our coaching groups. And she's actually one of my really expert guest coaches. So it's such a treat to have her here.

And so when you need to talk about somebody to somebody about sleep, this is your go-to person. So Dr. Funke, thank you for coming. Tell us all the things.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm like, who is she talking about? Okay. Okay. It's me. It's me. It's me. I'm owning it. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I've been really, really looking forward to our conversation. I'm just so excited to talk about all things sleep to your audience.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, and you know, we've had this private conversation, but you know, a lot of us don't realize how ADHD can be impacted by sleep. Like, and then you understanding the sleep and pulmonologists aspect of it. You can give us this unique perspective, right. Do you mind telling us a little bit about how, what connections you make.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's so funny when you look at, you know, first of all, when we talk about the benefits of sleep, one of the things I usually talk about is the fact that sleep is not just a luxury sleep is not something that you do at the end of your day.

Okay. Most places are closed. I'm just going to shut down or it's dark outside. Sleep is not just a cure for sleepiness. Sleep is a fundamental biological requirement. Like every organism has to have that period of sort of quiet sense and sleep. Because of the functions that it has on our brain on rest and recovery on our hearts, on our hormone system, on our metabolic system, on our mood and our health, our decision-making just go from top to bottom, I'm telling you sleep impacted. And so when we flip that over and don't sleep, then we start to get into a lot of issues, both with our physical health, our emotional health, our immune function, and as well as our mood now, one of the key features or one of the key functions of sleep and benefits of sleep is to help with executive function, to help with creativity, to help with decision-making to help with, Making those emotional connections.

Okay. If we don't sleep well, then we're not as creative. We have issues with executive function. We have issues with impulsivity. And so it turns out, especially they've done a lot of studies in kids and adults and the symptoms you see when you don't sleep. Well, it almost mimics ADHD like symptoms.

So when we talk about. You know, just that like difficulty with full costs , you know, impulsivity, like I said, just like even anxiety. All those things can occur with sleep deprivation. And I seen a lot of people. I mean, ADHD is very, very common in children, in adults as well on a similar, a lot of people who may have been diagnosed.

It sounds too. I've had ADHD for years and really on meds and there's been difficulty with controlling their symptoms. And then they've been referred to, you know, to see a sleep specialist. And we found out, oh my goodness, they sleep deprivation. They sleep issues that are underlying this and addressing that, I mean, will not take away the ADHD, but it literally is the missing piece.

So it's so imeshed. Right. It's almost like a bi-directional relationship, like, literally almost pretty much co-exists, you know, up to 70% of people with ADHD, depending on where you, what literature you're looking at, also have some kind of sleep issue or the other.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. Wow. So insightful. Would you say, like, I was going to say the more we sleep, the more we rest, but you also can't always be asleep for 10, 12 hours, then you can't really function. Right. And that might be assigned to something else, maybe depression or something else, but would you say like five hours are okay, or would you say like, and again, I know everybody is different, but there's a certain amount that is needed for us to like really get some rest.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. So there's some genetic conditions where you, they call them like short sleepers.

It is like ridiculously rare. So when people tell me that they survive on five hours of sleep and they need only five hours of sleep, I suspect you probably either have that genetic condition, which again, is ridiculously rare or. You're just not being truthful to yourself because we, we have norms okay.

Of the range of sleep that's required for everyone. And it varies by age. So of course children need more sleep. So, you know, we're talking about newborns who sleep up to like 17 hours a day to teenagers that speak about eight to 10 hours. I mean adults. The range is also pretty wide. It's about seven to nine hours.

Again, it varies from person to person. Some people need less, some people need that nine hours to be able to function. Well, it's not like a magic pill. Like, oh, I must get nine hours of sleep or I'm doomed. One of the exercises I recommend that, you know, my clients do is just give yourself time, maybe like a weekend, a couple of weeks, or you're on vacation where you don't have an alarm clock set.

You don't have some kind of urgent meeting and study yourself, go to bed. Regular time and see when you wake up without the alarm. So that really will let you know if, how much sleep you really need really. And so most people, once they do that exercise, even if they've been sleeping about five, six hours, they realize, oh, actually I need seven and a half, or I need eight hours.

So that will really be the judge. And then you can't walk back when you get back home from vacation or whatever, and slowly start to try to extend your sleep towards that goal.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's great. Now we've all have heard about this and we, maybe we all do it to some extent, but I think the people with ADHD definitely do it.

You know, this asleep procrastination or like revenge to not go to sleep. Right. And then we're like, I should know better. I don't function well the next morning, but we still do it the moment. Could you speak on that a little bit for us?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. Revenge procrastination. It is a thing. And you know, we're seeing it more and more with just, you know, our 24 hour lives, our lives, our world, our society that never shuts down.

And so I see it more with that, like personal you've been going, going, going all day. And maybe now at the point where you feel like I deserve. Some time to myself, I deserve just some time to wind down, but then what do we choose? We made them choose things like maybe watching some TV and just like, okay, I'm just going to relax here for like an hour.

And so that hour becomes two hours and we slowly start to push back on our sleep time. And then the problem is now we're going to bed later than we should. And then we are waking up. At the same time. So our sleep is short. And so then it becomes this whole vicious cycle that, you know, it's at the end of the day, we were hurting ourselves.

But you know, it's a mental thing to thing of, okay. I've had, everybody has had a piece of me today. I want some time to myself, but then it's our sleep that ends up suffering. Because we're trying to buy that extra time, extra TV time or extra time to binge watch your show or whatever like that. And then we slowly just to push back on our sleep time.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And so one of the things that I tell my clients and my patients, you know, is, we know that we all want rewards. Right. So instead of waiting to the last few hours of the day, on purpose scheduling, like, I'm going to be 20 minutes on Facebook from like noon to one or whatever, right?

Like if you have blocked it out, what you're going to be doing, then it doesn't become like a need that you need at the end of the day. So then that's the way that kinda helps out. Right. What other techniques do you think other than us trying to set up an alarm, I always tell people, like, maybe put your phone to charge in the other room.

So it's not like right there with you. And of course we've already. Some people know not to have a TV in their bedroom. I do have a TV in my bedroom, but I try not to turn it on after a certain amount of time, because I know I will get sucked into it.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Yes. Great question. So I followed this acronym that I created is called CREATE, healthy sleep habits. I think that's a great place to start or maybe a little bit before that is the fact that everybody can sleep weel, so understanding that mindset shift of, I understand how important sleep is. Even if I have not made the best decisions to promote goods before myself, I can start and I can start tonight because sleep is free.

Right. And so then you then say, okay, where do I start? And then you go online or you try to Google sleep hygiene, and then 20 Steps come in and you're like, okay, forget this I don't think it's for me. And so I've kind of distilled it to like six most important things that you can pay attention to that you can follow because it's evidence-based.

And so the first thing is C-onsistency. And that's the thing with the prevent procrastination. If we go back and bend your sleep time starts to be flippant. We'll start a flip on flop and your body doesn't know when it's going to sleep, but we watching another Netflix show tonight. Or are we going to just be on Facebook? Like set a time? I love the idea of the alarm and me. I usually to set boundaries. Right? So. You need to be able to set boundaries, to be able to be consistent. So whether you say by 10:00 PM, nobody can gain access to me. Right? You don't have to train people, do people that like bombard your phone at very late hours.

Once you put like either a do not disturb on your phone or something like that, they know they can't reach you. Of course you can leave. Of course, people that need you in the case in the times of emergency, make sure they can have access to you. But other than that, you're going to sort of train people to say, you know what?

My sleep is really important to me when I sleep well, when I wake up, I can help you solve your problems. I can be a better person. And so really starting from that consistency and it's consistency to your bedtime consistency to wake time. So depending on when you wake up in the, in the morning, right? If you wake up, I give someone that wakes up at 6:00 AM.

And you're supposed to get seven hours of sleep that , come back. How many that would, that would be, that means you should be in bed by, you know, or eight hours of sleep. For instance, I mean, you should be in bed by 10:00 PM and just make that like an appointment. I usually say, make your appointment, make it like an appointment with your.

And because sleep has so many health benefits. Think of it as your appointment with your doctor, you wouldn't just like call your doctor and be like, Hey, sorry, I'm running late. Like you wouldn't get an appointment. Right. That's it. Right. And so that's one, the consistency and consistency. When you go to sleep consistently, when you wake up, because you're training your circadian rhythm, that internal clock and your QA for sleep.

And then,

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I was going to ask you, you know, I think, that is something we can definitely work on. And like you said, treating it as an appointment that can be like a game changer now. I believe you have some kids, right? How easy or how hard was it implementing some of these techniques with your own kids when like, obviously you and I have like an idea of what we want them to be doing.

And then what they actually do sometimes are like two different stories, right? And like, what are some tricks that have helped you with your kids or any insight that could help us? Because obviously if they're asleep, then we can go to sleep. Right.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: That is awesome. And let that be the motivation to really make it like a house thing. So not just you, you have to get everybody else on board. Like if you're, if you have a teenager who decides I want to have a party at 10:00 PM, you're not going to sleep no matter how much you set the intention. So we literally have it like before bedtime, because bedtime can be chaotic, especially if you have young kids and they're bouncing off the walls, they sort of have this energy rate and the attention seeking during that time, because they're overtired. So that consistency needs to include your family and say, listen, everyone, we're going to start bedtime routine. So even if you set a bedtime at 10:00 PM, that's all, when you're going to go upstairs. Right. Your kid, depending on their age and depending on the number of hours of sleep they need, they, you literally have to go to. Get them ready have a routine for them. The second part of that, my acronym R-outine is not just for our children. Really. We talk about, oh, they have a bath. We sit and get som we read a book. We as parents need that routine as well, just to show be a role model. And so have that routine for them where they are anticipating what's coming up next. And we're doing it over time and really staying ideas to be consistent. This is what we do. We're going to keep it simple. You know, we read two books, we sing one song. We have this no more.

I need to pee. I want to get a glass of water. I need another hug. We set limits, you know.

Right. Think of you, you know, as parents, of course, you know, we want to, especially as busy professionals, you know, we want to cater to our children, want them to feel loved. You've given them the whole day for you to show them that love.

So at night, all that stuff is delayed tactics. So I think really when you drill down to like, okay, we need to set limits, this is what we do in this family. They will follow through. There'll be some pushback, but if you stick with it, That's it, that consistency piece they will get on board. So that's definitely something that.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's such great advice, you know? So tell me, how did you decide that this is the field of medicine you wanted to go into? Is this something that you have always been like, so passionate about? Like as far as you can remember?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. I'll answer that. I just, so just. Rumanian part of my acronym before I forget no problems. So there's the a is, (CREATE) A is A-ssigned the bed for sleep and sleeping bed. Don't use the bed for your desk, your office desk, your dinner room, your movie theater. And then E, is having, an E-nvironment, that's cool, that's dark and noise free.

Sorry. There's E M then there's a, and then T is T-ackle-Technology, which we've talked about. Put charge your phone outside. That's perfect. And then the last E is E-liminate caffeine, alcohol. All those things can affect the quality of your sleep and I'll share those resources at the end of today. At the end of our talk.

Now, when it comes to why sleep medicine, I struggled, I struggled, I had insomnia at some point during training. It was a combination of sleep deprivation and insomnia, I would say because what was happening was I was trying to burn the candle on both ends. I am not a night person. I'm someone that literally, if I could go to bed at eight 30, that would be my sweet spot.

But then I was trying to follow the crowd. Right. So when everybody else was going to study, I would go to study and then they would wake up at evil, odd hours and I would wake up then as well. So I was burning the candle on both ends and it made me really anxious, stressed out. I was working 10 times as hard for the same results.

And so, you know, once I realized that my superpower was sleep and I figured out how to make sure I got enough sleep and I just saw how it changed my life. I'm like, oh my gosh! Oh, my goodness. People need to hear this. And so, and that's been my mission. And then of course, when the kids came and then, oh my gosh, they took my sleep away pretty much right.

Working through that process as well. It really motivated me then to say, I do need, so I'm going to go. I'm going to get additional training to really learn the science of this. And the evidence behind this and everything I had done, even before I did my sleep fellowship was, you know, was what I ended up learning more.

And so then that really pushed me and motivated me to, to help women like myself who are doing all the things. And we have so many competing priorities, you know, not necessarily prioritizing sleep, which really is like a critical element to our ability to do the things that are important. Right. So, that's really been just a story really of how I ended up here.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. I mean, if we think about it, one third of her life, we spend it asleep, right. Or we should be spending asleep. But sometimes like you said, we don't prioritize it and it could be a couple of things. Maybe we don't have the ideal bedsheets or we don't have the right lighting in the bedroom or, we have too many distractions and you were able to see that one of the denominators that. Helped you show up how you wanted to was the more you like rested and slept, the more you were able to show up instead of like you said, trying to do everything. And, and some of us sometimes don't have that awareness that we need to slow down. And reevaluate the situation and then like speed up. Right? Some of us just want to keep going and going and going. I know where that there's no gas and eventually you're going to be pushing the damn car.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: You're running on fumes. You're running on fumes that is so true. And it's harder. It's so hard.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, I had you just stopped and say, okay, I have one fourth of a tank. Let me fill up right now

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Exactly! Before we start to go uphill. So I'm not pushing the car.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Before it doesn't become a community problem. When everybody has to push you uphil.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Exactly.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So tell me, what are you up to these days? I know you were just. I'm doing a TV show, right? Like I'm so excited about all this. Tell, tell me, tell me about all the things.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh gosh. All the things. Yes. But while I say that it does sound like a lot, but one of the things I want to say is because I prioritize sleep, I kind of can drill down on the things that are going to give me the best. Sort of literal bang for my buck in that sense, teach me how to build systems in place. So I don't get burnt out on so that my sleep does not suffer. Right. So I just want it to profess that. Well, I was recently, you know, part of what with baby center to create a course for babies' sleep, which is been such a need and such a desire in my heart.

And so BabyCenter, if for those that don't know, is this incredible organization that literally take you through the Fest moment? You realize you're pregnant till your child is older. So they go through so many steps on developmental milestones and things. And one thing they just introduced is a course, which literally takes you step by step into what you should expect for your baby sleep, right from the moment you bring them home from the hospital to like, or even before then, from how to arrange your baby's room and set it up so that we can sleep well when you bring them home to like taking care of naps and sleep training and things like that. So that was an incredible experience. And, you know, I'm going to put the link.

The link is also going to be on my website, restful sleep md.com. So you could sign up and gift it out to new moms in your life or moms who are struggling with sleep and things like that. The other piece I also have is the other end of the spectrum, is Kids Sleep Course for Teens. So I have a teenage sleep course as well, which is really driven and created for our teenagers who also feel like they are invincible.

They don't need sleep. What we know they are so exhausted. So that that's for them. And I didn't leave the mamas out as well. In fact, I have. The special touch for moms. And so I do have one-on-one coaching for moms. So like you guys get the icing on the cake where I literally walk you through how we can get you sleeping well, how we could get you setting boundaries so you can prioritize your sleep. So you're not running on fumes. And the best place to find me is, my website, as well as on Instagram @restfulsleepMD.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. You've shared so much of your tips today, but guys don't get full. Well, she's only shared, although she, you can see she, she's serving here from a place of abundance, you can see how her knowledge can be in, in burst into all the stuff that she's doing. So you, you already know that your network, it really becomes your net worth. So you gotta make sure. You know, if you know somebody who, who can benefit from their kid, learning how to sleep, or you have that teenager, or you yourself know that something's has to change because we cannot continue to, you know, run without gas.

Right. You need to make sure you reach out to her. And the same thing, like maybe. You know, you've been telling your teenager this, right. And they're not paying attention yet. Guess what? Let's get a physician to tell them that this is why it's needed. Right. Because sometimes we already know, even though we're saying the same thing to them, they just don't accept that.

What we're telling them until somebody. Yeah. Tells them and, and who better than an expert in that field, right? So don't hesitate, like run, like run to her webpage, run to her Instagram. You need to see everything that she's saying. And if you have any retreats or any, lectures that you need her to come and talk about, definitely reach out because you might just change somebody's life, you know, because sleeping might mean, not an accident the next morning, because they have enough awareness and enough reflexes. Right. So I always tell my people. You know, uncontrolled diabetes, it can be like drunk driving and lack of sleep can be like drunk driving because of reflexes are so not on point. And we don't realize the importance of it.

And so yes, please, please reach out.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Awesome. Thank you so much. I love that. I love that analogy you just gave the same way we wouldn't want to share a road with a drunk driver. We don't want to share the road with a sleepy driver and we don't want to be that sleepy driver. And so, yes, please prioritize your sleep as much as you can.

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome! Well, thank you so much for being here with me. This was a treat. Reach out to her and, definitely send us an email telling us how sleeping impacted your life. Okay. All right. So last question. I always do this. So, you know, we have ADHD. And sometimes we space out.

So let's say my listeners just started paying attention, like right this second, what is the one take home point you would want them to take away with?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh my God. I love that SLEEP IS YOUR SUPER POWER!

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome! Sleep is your super power implement it today. Tonight do that today. Thank you, Dr. Funke.

As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.

 

Link to my website to register: 

Transformation Physician Group Coaching

 

About Dr. Brown

Dr. Brown is board-certified in pediatric pulmonary medicine and pediatric sleep disorders. As a double board-certified pediatric respiratory sleep medicine physician, Dr. Brown helps her patients breathe better and sleep better. By extension, she helps improve the sleep of their parents.

Dr. Brown is a speaker, an educator, a writer, and the founder of Restful Sleep MD where she helps busy professional women and their children prioritize sleep to not only achieve their optimal health but also thrive and live to their fullest potential. She does this through courses and programs focused on educating and empowering busy professional women to make sleep a priority as a critical pillar of their health. 

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