Too Much Sleep?
Discussion
I posted on the sleeping problems thread as I do suffer from insomnia on a relatively regular basis.
Recently though I have been making a real effort to go to bed early and it seems to have worked, I have been going to bed around 10pm and falling asleep by around half past, then sleeping until around 7.30am straight through.
As a result I have been feeling absolutely knackered throughout the day and I mean literally no energy.
Last night I went to bed late (around midnight) and was up earlier (about 6.30) I have felt fine all day with loads of energy, in fact I felt great
I always seem to feel tired if I make an effort to have more sleep
Recently though I have been making a real effort to go to bed early and it seems to have worked, I have been going to bed around 10pm and falling asleep by around half past, then sleeping until around 7.30am straight through.
As a result I have been feeling absolutely knackered throughout the day and I mean literally no energy.
Last night I went to bed late (around midnight) and was up earlier (about 6.30) I have felt fine all day with loads of energy, in fact I felt great
I always seem to feel tired if I make an effort to have more sleep
The Major said:
hows that work then. I sleep loads and wouldnt think it would make you die quicker
I'm not sure but I think any cause is likely unknown/non existant, and the more than 7 hours thing is a correlation from a survey-type study. I.e. people who regularly sleep longer tend to have other health problems which may in turn lead to an earlier death.Having said that, I used to get headaches on days when I slept too long, particularly if I kept waking and falling back to sleep in the morning. These days I never sleep much over 7 or 8 hours, (if that, with the baby delighting in waking us up early).
Mr Gearchange said:
Having any more than 7 hours a night actually reduces your life expectancy anyway.
Is it not something along the lines of if you sleep too much your body ends up getting used to the amount of sleep its getting. When you sleep its your body re charging, therefore you will end up needing more and more sleep to re charge/recover from illness. I remember reading somthing along those lines. Same thing again for your immune system, too much sleep weakens it.Strange but kinda makes sense. My mum has always had bad health, always sleeps for an hr or 2 on the couch at weekends and usually has about 10hrs a night. Obviously not directly releated but she never has energy
The Major said:
Mr Gearchange said:
Having any more than 7 hours a night actually reduces your life expectancy anyway.
hows that work then. I sleep loads and wouldnt think it would make you die quicker
. If you take the average hours of sleep and average lifespan for the entire 20th century the figures get distorted.
People used to go to bed earlier because there was no reason to keep them out of bed, houses were not centrally heated and the physical drain of some work required longer rest etc.
The average lifespan in UK has risen from 71 to 79 since 1960 alone.
Ergo, if you sleep more you die earlier. The stats prove it.
OP seems relevant to me, slept 8 hours most nights this week and over 9 one day (alarm didn't work on temp phone whilst new one is fixed). Slept just over 4 hours Thursday night because I HAD to do something @ 9am Friday.... and felt more alive & energetic than I had all week! Go figure. Seems that sometimes, less is more...
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