We’re always hearing about “not enough” sleep. It’s part of our culture and—for many of us—daily life.
We’ve certainly harped on that topic a lot on this blog, and for good reason: Lack of sleep has been linked to all kinds of biological, mental and emotional health problems.
But what happens when you get too much sleep? When you sleep in on Saturday morning only to awake feeling rather hung over and groggy from all that snoozing? When you feel more tired than you did the night before? Surprisingly, some of the same problems can occur when you oversleep as when you don’t get enough.
A recent article in Wired magazine explains that sleeping too much causes feelings of fatigue because it’s throwing off our bodies’ circadian rhythms. Scientists say the human body has a pacemaker of sorts in the same primitive part of the brain that controls hunger, thirst and sweat, which figures out when it’s morning and tells the body when to start using its energy.
So even if you’re asleep, your body may be functioning in some ways as it would if awake, and so essentially sleeping in leaves your bod all confused. That’s why sleeping too much makes you tired.
Sleeping in once in a while is OK, but chronic oversleeping is bad for you. A Harvard study found that people who slept 9 to 11 hours a night were more likely to develop memory problems and heart disease than those who slept a solid eight. Other studies have linked oversleep to diabetes, obesity, and even early death.
People may oversleep chronically for a number of reasons. Sleep disorders such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy can also make oversleeping more likely. Having a job with early, late or overnight hours can make it difficult to set normal circadian rhythms, which are typically regulated by daylight. Doctors recommend using dark curtains and artificial light to help, instead of medications if possible. Depression can both cause oversleeping and be a result of it.
Also, if you’re not sleeping well at night for whatever reason, you may getting lots of superficial rest and not enough of the deeper, restorative sleep phases. Craving deeper sleep, you might therefore snooze longer trying to compensate.
That’s when having a comfortable, good quality mattress is worth its weight in gold. That and a cool, quiet, restful bedroom where you can enjoy said mattress and sleep to the fullest…for that magic timeframe of about eight hours.