How Much Sleep Is Too Much? Sleep needs can vary from person to person, but in general, experts recommend that healthy adults get an average of 7 to 9 hours per night of shuteye. If you regularly need more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep per night to feel rested, it might be a sign of an underlying problem, Polotsky says.
We often say that people need 7-9 hours of sleep, but some people require more sleep to feel rested. “Long sleepers” are people who regularly sleep more than the average person their age. As adults, their nightly length of sleep tends to be 10 to 12 hours. This sleep is very normal and of a good quality.
Yes, it is. And sleeping too much — 10 hours or more — can harm your health. Further, it may be a sign of underlying health problems, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
In extreme cases, a person with hypersomnia might sleep soundly at night for 12 hours or more, but still feel the need to nap during the day. Sleeping and napping may not help, and the mind may remain foggy with drowsiness.
Editor's note: Kleine-Levin Syndrome mostly affects teen boys, causing them to sleep up to 20 hours a day during episodes that can last weeks. It's rare, possibly affecting one person in a million, with a higher incidence among Jewish people.
Idiopathic Hypersomnia
This sleep disorder is characterized by difficulty waking. View Source , excessive sleepiness, and the inability to feel rested after sleeping at night or napping during the day. With this disorder, you may sleep as much as 14 to 18 hours a day.
If you don't feel refreshed when you wake up after sawing logs for sufficient hours, there could be a problem. Khan says oversleeping is generally accompanied by symptoms of tiredness during the day, including grogginess, headache, decreased energy, and mood changes.
Research bears out the connection between too much sleep and too little energy. It appears that any significant deviation from normal sleep patterns can upset the body's rhythms and increase daytime fatigue.
Scientists believe that the pacemaker evolved to tell the cells in our bodies how to regulate their energy on a daily basis. When you sleep too much, you're throwing off that biological clock, and it starts telling the cells a different story than what they're actually experiencing, inducing a sense of fatigue.
And while the occasional long sleep is generally nothing to worry about, oversleeping several days a week could be a sign that something more serious is going on.
There are four likely culprits behind your low energy: your sleep need is more than eight hours, you're getting less sleep than you think, you've got sleep debt to pay back, or you're out of sync with your circadian rhythm.
In medical terms, oversleeping means sleeping more than nine hours in 24 hours. It's associated with a higher risk of several conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. That doesn't mean it causes those conditions. Instead, oversleeping may be a symptom of other underlying conditions.
Obesity. Sleeping too much or too little could make you weigh too much, as well. One recent study showed that people who slept for nine or 10 hours every night were 21% more likely to become obese over a six-year period than were people who slept between seven and eight hours.
Sleep feels good because when we rest, our bodies produce melatonin, which controls our sleep patterns. Our melatonin levels increase at bedtime, making us feel tired. Melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland, makes us feel cozy and relaxed, allowing our bodies to get the time off they need at the end of each day.
Research has shown that it can take up to four days to recover from one hour of lost sleep and up to nine days to completely eliminate sleep debt. View Source . A full recovery from sleep debt returns our body to its baseline, reducing the negative effects associated with sleep loss.
Like insufficient sleep, oversleeping is a sign of disordered sleep. It may be connected to a mental health issue, such as depression. It's often a signal that a person is experiencing poor sleep quality, and it can be a sign of a clinical sleep disorder, including obstructive sleep apnea or narcolepsy.
A person with an 8-hour sleep need who gets 6 hours each day for 5 days builds a sleep debt of 10 hours. As sleep debt builds, brain and body functioning deteriorate. Sleep is needed to “pay down” this debt.
Research has shown that adolescence brings with it a shift in biological sleep patterns. Thanks to changing circadian rhythms at this stage, teens naturally get tired later on at night. It's also harder for their bodies to wake up in the mornings.
If you aren't feeling rested when you wake up, despite getting to sleep at least 8 hours prior, then it might not be the quantity of your sleep that's the problem. It could be your sleep quality that needs some attention. The amount of sleep you get is important, but equally important is the quality of that sleep.
Having a hard time waking up in the morning may be due to the natural effects of sleep inertia, your sleep habits and schedule, or sometimes point to underlying conditions.