Sleeping is crucial for your health. The right quantity of sleep determines your mental and physical being. From the required rest to your body and all the organs, to the mental efficiency to be able to focus on your task, your sleep affects it all. Sleep helps your body relax, recover from pains, bruises and general wear-tear of muscles. In fact it is also noted that sleep lowers the risk of everything from obesity, diabetes to premature death. But does it mean that too much of sleep is a good thing? Definitely, No, say experts. Too much of sleep comes with their own harmful effects on the body and mind.
According to statistics, individuals who sleep more than 10 hours per day generally have worse health profiles than those who sleep for 7 to 8 hours. It is not always entirely clear whether it’s a sign that you are sleeping more because you have a disease or if it can actually make you sick. The predominant opinion is that long sleep is a marker for underlying health problems. Sleeping too much could turn out to be just as damaging as sleeping too little, here are some things that happens when you sleep too much.
1. The higher risk of heart disease
Too much sleep, means long hours of inactivity which contributes to a number of diseases and health ailments. On the very top of the list is the risk of heart disease. As a result of long hours of sleep, the human body greatly suffers. Too much of sleep for longer periods can contribute to the risk of heart ailments.
Research proves that sleeping more than 8 hours a night increases your chances of dying from it by almost 34%. Also, facts state that women are more prone to sleeping longer than men, which puts them at the highest risk of developing heart problems. Heart problems are kept at bay with proper restful sleep, overdoing it means just piling on the heart problems or increasing them multifold.
2. Struggle with your weight
Sleep and obesity have a relationship. Studies reveal that people who don’t sleep enough tend to be heavier and the struggle with weight is similar is the case with people who sleep too much.
Sleeping for long hours means inactivity for long hours which brings us yet again to the point of obesity. In other words, the more you sleep, the less you move and the fewer calories you burn off therefor finally increasing the body weight leading to deadly obesity.
3. Developing Diabetes
Like weight and heart diseases, diabetes also has roots in too much sleep. Sleeping for long hours frequently can raise your blood sugar levels, as does not sleeping enough. You do not wish sweet dreams or yourself would not want to be faced with sweet dreams as these sweet dreams for long hours can increase the blood glucose level and increase your risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
Again, the long hours of sleep means lesser hours of activity, which means a sedentary lifestyle overweight which is also likely what’s driving this risk factor of developing diabetes.
4. Brain ages faster, loses clarity
According to research, too much of sleep can make your brain fuzzier, which means you will not be able to concentrate. According to research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, it has been revealed that chronic long sleeping can age your brain by as much as 2 years and make it difficult to perform everyday tasks. Also it seen that long sleepers tend to have trouble with basic mental functioning.
5. Risk of dying early
One of the worst things that happened when you sleep too much is, the risk of dying early. Large-scale epidemiologic studies have revealed that people who sleep longer are more likely to die prematurely. There is no exact facts as why this happens, but inflammation in the body probably plays an important role. Also, the other risks of heart diseases, diabetes, and struggle with weight add to the risk.
6. Terrible mood and also depression
Too much of sleep like too little of it can adversely affect your mood. Depression and sleep go hand in hand, but it’s a chicken-and-egg situation, where the cause and result cannot be determined one from the other. People with certain types of depression sleep longer, while too much sleep is also the reason for causing depression.
It is not important that sleeping for long once in a while in a temporary phase of sad feeling, could end up clinical depression, but in some cases, shortening the duration of your sleep might be enough to lift your spirits.
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