Too much of anything, we’re told, can haunt us in a variety of ways. A good night’s sleep is the foundation for energetic daytime activities, and most medical professionals believe sleep is essential in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but too much sleep has been linked to a host of medical issues which include heart disease, diabetes, and an increased risk of death.
Sleep is still somewhat of a mystery. Researchers are discovering new facts about sleeping and too much sleep all the time, so no one is really sure how much sleep is too much sleep, but the consensus is most of us should sleep between seven and nine hours a day. Those numbers are based on past sleep pattern studies and they are accepted by the medical profession and used as a guideline to treat certain medical conditions.
Two personal factors are definitely associated with too much sleep. Low socioeconomic status and depression are the two culprits that can cause negative health issues as well as too much sleep. People who are considered lower on the socioeconomic ladder may not have access to proper health care and may live with undiagnosed illnesses like heart disease, which can cause the condition known as hypersomnia.
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Sleeping is an escape for people who suffer from different forms of depression and those people may stay in an anxious mental state until other health issues develop that creates negative physical side effects. Stress and illness usually create a need for more sleep, and once a pattern of too much sleep develops individuals tend to spiral out of control and find themselves in another reality where redundant thoughts create more negative side effects.
Of course, not everyone who oversleeps has a medical or sleep disorder. Alcohol and drug abuse as well as prescription medications can be catalysts for more sleep, and some people simply enjoy the experiences lived in the dream world and want to sleep a little longer.
Oversleeping is Linked to Obesity, Diabetes, and Other Debilitating Conditions
The list of medical conditions that are linked to oversleeping is an impressive as well as debilitating one. Obesity can certainly be a by-product of too much sleep. According to a study done on 9,000 Americans people who sleep nine or ten hours a day are twenty-one percent more likely to experience weight issues, and people who sleep more than nine hours a day have a fifty percent greater risk of developing diabetes.
Sleeping longer than usual can cause headaches. Oversleeping impacts certain neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine and that interaction can cause head pain. Back pain is another by-product of too much sleep. Sleeping longer does impact certain muscle groups. The old treatment for back muscle injuries was more sleep, but doctors now realize that exercise instead of more sleep is a better solution. Another relevant statisitc is people who sleep more than nine hours a day have significantly higher risk of dying earlier than people who sleep seven hours a day, although no one really understands why.
If someone is consistently sleeping more than nine hours a day a professional checkup is in order. Even though sleep is considered a good thing, too much of a good thing can bite us where the sun don’t shine and sleep certainly falls into that category.
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