Ethiopian 5k secret = sleep?

We spend a lot of time here discussing training (and politics, etc), but sleep gets neglected as a training tool.

It's like those training threads where someone says, "Just run more." Someone brings up sleep, and the reply is "Just sleep more."

But HOW do you sleep more? Several months ago, I started to treat sleep like a serious training tool. I have improved a lot, but I still have trouble averaging more than 7 1/2 hours of sleep. Here are some of the things I'm doing.

Setting a bedtime reminder so I don't stay up late.

Taking Magnesium L-Threonate and L-Theanine prior to bedtime. (Recommended by Andrew Huberman in his podcasts on sleep)

Light reading before going to bed.

Wearing a cushioned sleep mask.

Tracking sleep quality with a smartwatch.

Avoiding all caffeine after 2pm.

If I feel the need to nap, I'll recline and read or listen to meditation music. Usually this is a half hour. Usually, I sleep only a few minutes of this time.

What have you found that works, especially for sleeping more at night? As I type this, I've been up since 4am. When I wake up at midnight or 2am, I can get back to sleep, but when I wake up at 4 or 5, getting back to sleep is really hard.

If you can't fall asleep after waking up at 4, then you have insomnia. There's a lot that goes into it and it can be linked to a racing mind, anxiety, hunger...the list goes on. But the important thing is putting yourself in a situation that lets you fall asleep. Seeing as you typed that at 4am, you're clearly doing the opposite of that haha. It's great to get out of bed when you can't sleep but then just go sit in the living room and do nothing. If you can't calm your brain down, you should try mindfulness meditation. If you can't help but turn on your phone/computer, then you have a screen addiction problem.

It's drugs. The secret is drugs. Just look at their neighbors to see what is going on unchecked in Ethiopia

I think like with so many things, the habits of mind we establish in childhood and adolescence are extremely hard to disrupt and retrain. I don't want to assume too much, but my guess is that the typical Ethiopian still grows up pretty disconnected from technology and the resulting disruptions to sleep (and increase of anxiety). My guess is that the typical American gets way too little sleep all through adolescence and spends way too much time on anxiety provoking activities. It will probably take more than a few months to retrain and may not be possible at all without completely disconnecting (which is not really possible).

Oh I believe them. And if any of you have spent time at an east African training camp you'll find that the day is very long and no one has anything else to do, and can afford to not have jobs. One can get plenty of sleep. They are still doping.

who has time to sleep more that 7-8 hours in the real world with a full time job and a family? Even without those things, who wants to sleep and lay around all day?

Why do you think that you are more intelligent? Many of us would probably like

to know…

Very interesting. I regularly only get between 5-6 hours of sleep per day, and I always wondered how much of difference getting between 7 and 8 would make.

Sleep + mega doses of EPO. That's the ticket

It's not a secret, but an essential tool to recover.
By the way, what was George Beamish doing while Hagos was sleeping?
And when they say "sleep", do they mean proper sleeping or just lying on the bed or a couch with heir eyes closed?
As someone pointed out, sometimes it's difficult to sleep more than 8 hours even if you don't have anything else to do... You just wake up and are unable to sleep more...

What??? What a disgrace to have to turn on the AC to sleep!!!
In the altitude of Kenya and Ethiopia nights are not so hot that you actually need to have an AC... In fact evenings are cool in Iten, ask any elite athlete who has gone there and they'll tell you...

Ok, thanks for the tips, but:
- Do you really think Ethiopians take Magnesium or any other supplements you mention?
- A cushioned sleep mask? Don't think they use that either!
- And surely they don't use their watches to tracks their sleep quality...

Perhaps in Western countries we are so worried about sleeping that we feel too anxious about it and fail to sleep?

Or is it we spend so much time in fron of screens, mostly doing useless things like giving likes in social media and posting (in some) forums... ???

Yes, blue light from screens tricks the brain into thinking it's daytime, and can keep some people awake. Viewing natural sunlight in the morning can help stimulate melatonin production, helpful for sleep. East African athletes eat a lot of greens so probably have more than enough magnesium. They also drink a lot of tea which is high in l-theanine, one of the supplements someone mentioned.

Still, many elite endurance athletes can nap in the daytime without eye masks because...they are exercising a crap ton more than hobby joggers or club runners and often at altitude which is more exhausting. The avg American sleeps 6.8 hrs/night, but this is down more than an hour from 1940s when people were much less sedentary. If people ran 120mpw most would have little trouble sleeping 8+hrs/day.

and the sauce

Run more

Ethiopian culture also encourages resting entirely 1 day a week, so they allow themselves to recover. They also believe in the impossible and that they can run to their best self at any given moment , ie Kenenisa believing he can get the wr at 40