People who are workaholic always sacrifice a few hours of sleep in order to stay productive and get ahead.
However, the habit of teenagers to stay a few more hours in a bed can become a problem in adulthood.
It is extremely important for your overall health to sleep enough because when you sleep, your brain clears out toxins. On the other hand, you are not supposed to stay too much time in bed because it can have devastating effects.
How Long Should I Sleep?
Most adults sleep between 7 and 9 hours, but this number is not appropriate for every age. For example children under the age of 18 need a lot more sleep.
The National Sleep Foundation issued these recent recommendations after having conducted multiple studies with experts in sleep, anatomy, and physiology, as well as pediatrics, neurology, gerontology and gynecology.
If you sleep one hour more or less once in a while it is not a serious problem, but making it a habit can can contribute towards serious health conditions.
Here are 7 reasons to mind your sleep:
- Obesity
Oversleeping can confuse your metabolisms and it will begin to store energy instead of spending it.
The results from a recent study showed that people who slept for 9-10 hours every night were 21% more likely to become obese over a six-year period than were people who slept between seven and eight hours a night, even though both groups followed similar diets and exercise regiments.
- Diabetes
If you are getting too much sleep or too little sleep, it will impair your body’s ability to process glucose which results in insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
One study conducted on 276 individuals for 6 years, found that those who went above or below the recommended hours of sleep were more likely to develop impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes during the period of the study than normal sleepers. Many other studies confirmed this result.
- Depression
Depression can affect sleep in two opposing ways: depressive episodes are either characterized by bouts of insomnia or oversleeping.
Roughly 15% of the people who are depressed sleep too much.
Sleeping too much when people depressed in fact can worsen mental health and make recovery even more difficult.
- Heart Disease
Balance is the best solution for your heart. Getting too much sleep or too much exercise can cause damage to your heart.
A recent research called the Nurses’ Health Study, investigated the sleeping habits of 72,000 women to examine the effects of sleep on heart health.
The results showed that those women who sleep between 9 and 11 hours at night were 38%more likely to have coronary heart disease than women who slept 8 hours a night.
- Headaches
Chronic oversleeping will cause you headaches.
This is because sleeping too much during the day disrupts certain neurotransmitters, like serotonin.
Usually, this leads to poor sleep quality overnight, which results in headaches during the day.
- Back Pain
People who suffer from back pain often lay in their bed for the whole day because they are unable to move during intense episodes of pain.
However, spending too much time in bed can actually cause your back muscles to weaken, making them more prone to pain.
In order to prevent this, you should try build up your muscles through low-intensity exercises and watch your pain melt away.
- Death
Even though the researchers cannot quite understand the mechanism behind the phenomenon, individuals who sleep nine or more hours a night are more likely to die from a medical condition than people who sleep between 7-9 hours. The saying “ I’ll sleep when I’m dead” might have some truth after all!