What experts say about oversleeping and how it might affect your health.
| Health tips: Can you get too much sleep? | | | Dear Reader,
Getting too little sleep is clearly associated with negative health outcomes. Sleeping too much has also been associated with an increased risk of health problems, but experts aren’t in agreement about what this means. Cause and effect can be murky here: Does too much sleep lead to poor health, or does someone in poor health sleep longer?
Research suggests that for adults, regularly sleeping more than nine hours is associated with poor health outcomes, ranging from depression to cardiovascular disease and even death.
However, when the American Academy of Sleep Medicine set recommendations for sleep, experts determined there was little evidence linking longer sleep and poor health. The academy found “only a few studies demonstrating an association of poorer general health or increased risk/presence of disease with 9 (or more) hours of sleep.”
Ultimately, the experts couldn’t reach consensus on how too much sleep could be harmful. For that reason, their recommendations for anyone over 18 years of age include only a minimum — seven hours — and not a maximum amount of sleep.
However, there may be cause for concern if you’re sleeping more than nine hours each night, or if you notice that you need more sleep than you used to. Either of these can indicate a physical or mental condition that may require treatment. If you believe that you’re sleeping an excessive amount, discuss it with a medical professional. |
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