Sleep: Is More the Merrier?

As a college student, I rarely sleep the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night. I am repeatedly informed by my professors, friends, family, doctors, and the media that not getting enough sleep at night is harmful to one’s health. Besides the obvious effects of not getting enough sleep such as dark circles underneath the eyes, irritablity, and feeling drowsy all throughout the day; not sleeping long enough can affect our bodies’ internal health, particularly our heart health. A consistently insufficient amount of sleep is correlated to an increased risk for myocardial infarctions (or heart attack), stroke, heart disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, heart failure, and frequent mental stress (“Too much, too little”, 2013; “Research explains”, 2012). On the other hand, I have some friends who seem to sleep all of the time and I began to wonder if there is any harm in getting more than the recommended hours of sleep. As it turns out, there is.

Hypersomnia, or too much sleep, is defined as sleeping more than nine hours a night. Every person at some point in their adult life has overslept the maximum nine hours of recommended sleep, but habitual hypersomnia puts one at an even higher risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes than if they would have slept too few hours. According to allsleep.com, hypersomnia is related to coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, headaches and obesity ("Oversleeping"). Additionally, a research study from the European Journal of Neurology, found that senior (over the age of 65) hypersomniac participants had a higher risk of developing dementia than the senior participants who slept seven hours a day (“Too much sleep”, 2009). Other than oversleeping by choice, sleep apnea (a sleep disorder that causes a person to stop breathing during their sleep, which wakes them from their slumber and often occurs several times throughout the night), depression, and certain medications are known factors that lead a person to oversleep. There is currently research is being done on the physiological mechanisms behind why too much sleep can lead to such health effects, as well as other factor that cause a person to oversleep.

However, I am skeptical to which came first; was it the decline in heart health or the hypersomnia?

References:

 

“Oversleeping”. Allsleep. Retrieved from http://www.allsleep.com/sleep-disorders/oversleeping-too-much-sleep/

 

(2009). “Too much sleep could increase risk of dementia”. National Sleep Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.sleepfoundation.org/alert/too-much-sleep-could-increase-risk-dementia

 

(2012). "Research explains how sleep duration affects the heart: even sleeping too many hours a night can be hazardous." Heart Advisor, 15(6), 6-7. Retrieved from Health Reference Center Academic.

 (2013). “Too much, too little sleep linked to health problems”. Health. Retrieved from http://news.health.com/2013/10/07/poor-sleep-habits-linked-with-chronic-diseases-study-says/