Getting enough sleep reduces your risk of illness and chronic disease, lowers stress, improves mental health, and so much more. So surely the more you sleep, the healthier you are? Not so fast.
When it comes to sleep, it’s not always a case of “the more, the better.” How much sleep is too much? According to the National Sleep Foundation, “oversleeping” is defined as sleeping more than nine hours in a 24-hour period. This is because most adults need about 7 to 9 hours — though there are exceptions and circumstances in which that changes, which we’ll get to later.
However, even before you worry about sleeping too much, you have to know how much shuteye you’re actually getting. Using a wearable like Oura Ring can help you track your sleep.
With sleep-tracking technology that matches performance with the gold-standard polysomnography test, Oura gives members a Sleep Score out of 100 to provide insights into the quality of your sleep. Various factors influence this score, including the duration of sleep, latency (how long it took you to fall asleep), and restfulness (how many times you woke up during the night).
Understanding how much sleep you really need — and knowing if you’re getting too much — comes down to a number of factors. Read on to find out some potential causes, and possible consequences of sleeping too much.
Is it Possible to Sleep Too Much?
Physiologically speaking, no. “The likelihood that you’re consistently oversleeping is very low, and it’s physiologically very difficult for someone to sleep too long,” explains Raphael Vallat, PhD, senior machine learning data scientist and former sleep researcher at UC Berkeley.
“For example, I could try to sleep 12 hours, but after eight or so hours, I’d wake up and not be able to fall back asleep.”
First, quick rewind: Sleep is regulated by a complex interplay of physiological and hormonal processes in the brain and body, known as the circadian rhythm. The associated hormones, such as melatonin and adenosine, affect how long you are asleep each night (assuming there aren’t other interruptions, like alarms or young children!).
Adenosine is produced in the brain while you’re awake and builds up throughout the day, slowly increasing the feeling of sleepiness. While you’re asleep, levels of adenosine decrease, influencing the time at which you wake up in the morning.
Aside from hormones, your brain also responds to light exposure, signifying that it’s the morning. That’s why many people find it difficult to sleep for long periods during the day unless they’re in a dark room or sufficiently sleep deprived. All of these mechanisms are designed to prevent you from sleeping beyond what is required.
However, as Vallat says: “The only way you’re able to substantially oversleep is if you’re sleep deprived or if there’s something else going on.”
4 Reasons you might be over sleeping:
- You’ve accumulated sleep debt.
- You might not be getting as much quality sleep as you think.
- You may have a sleep disorder.
- You might have a chronic health condition.
Ref: Ouraring.com