Harmful Effects of Oversleeping

There are many harmful effects of oversleeping. Too much of anything is bad. Sleeping for too long is detrimental to health and the physical well-being of a person. Although sleeping hours may be affected by various factors such as an illness, age or lifestyle habits, the optimum amount of sleeping hours per day is put at between 7 to 9 hours by most doctors. Sleeping less than 7 hours is often understood to be undesirable, but just as adverse is sleeping for more than 9 hours in a 24 hour period.

Many people do not follow an established sleeping schedule especially during their holidays. They might wake up early during the weekdays but get up late on weekends. This disrupts their sleeping pattern and eventually can lead to sleeplessness during the nights and being drowsy and sleepy during work. This affects performance of the person during work. This shows that having a regular sleeping pattern is essential and following it without any aberration is vital as well.

Harmful Effects of Oversleeping

Oversleeping has been found to be linked with ailments such as diabetes, heart disease etc. People with low social and economic status have been found more vulnerable than others. This might be due to the fact that such people do not have access to high quality health care. They might carry un-diagnosed diseases which may contribute to their irregular sleeping patterns.

A direct effect of oversleeping is obesity. Researchers have found that people who sleep 9 to 10 hours every day are 21% more likely to be obese than those who sleep the recommended 7 to 8 hours after a six year period. This trend continued even when vital factors like diet intake and physical activity were monitored and controlled. Oversleeping was adjudged to be the cause of this obesity.

People who oversleep on weekends or on vacations are prone to headaches. This is due to neurotransmitters in the brain which are affected by oversleeping resulting in headaches.

A link between oversleeping and heart diseases has also been established. A Nurses' Health Study involving 72,000 women was carried out and it was established that women who sleep 9 to 10 hours are 38% more likely to carry a heart disease than those who sleep 8 hours. Similarly people who sleep the recommended amount of hours have lower death rates than those who tend to oversleep.

Tags: Harmful Effects of Oversleeping, Oversleeping

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