When does too much sleep become unhealthy?

How much sleep a person needs depends on several factors, with age at the forefront. While newborns and babies sleep for more than half the day, seven to eight hours of sleep per night are recommended for adults.

The need to sleep usually decreases further with age, with lots of elderly people only requiring around six hours of sleep. The ideal sleep duration also depends on how much physical and mental work you’ve done during the day and whether you’ve recharged with a daytime nap.

The required sleep duration therefore varies greatly from person to person. While some adults get by with six hours of kip, even after a long, hard day, others need nine or even ten hours of sleep each night.

If you want to figure out your own sleep needs, you should get to know your individual biorhythm. A good way to do this is by taking a weekend where you have nothing on and going to bed when you feel sleepy over those two or three days. Don’t set an alarm for the next morning and see when you wake up on your own. If you feel fit and well-rested in the morning, you now have a sense of your natural sleep needs.

If left to their own devices, some people wake up very late on their days off. Should you feel recovered and ready to tackle the day after nine to ten hours of sleep, that’s not a problem. However, many people do not feel refreshed at all after such a long period of sleep; in fact, they tend to feel even more tired. In this case, it’s probably safe to say that you’ve had ‘too much’ sleep.

If you regularly sleep for long periods without feeling rested afterwards, you should seek medical help or try change your sleeping habits first. To do this, you need to start by understanding where the constant tiredness and lack of recovery stem from. There are various possible causes of this:

• Sleep disorders (e.g. narcolepsy, sleep apnoea)

• Acute illnesses (e.g. bacterial/viral infections)

• Chronic diseases (e.g. chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, cardiovascular diseases)

• Mental illnesses (e.g. depression)

• Nutritional deficiencies (e.g. iron deficiency)

• Hormonal disorders (e. g. hypothyroidism)

• Medications (e.g. sedatives, antihypertensive drugs, antidepressants)

• Substance abuse (e.g. alcohol)

While illnesses such as infections can be overcome more quickly with plenty of sleep, mental illnesses, for example, are quite different. Depression, in particular, not only increases the need for sleep, but is also exacerbated by excess sleep.

Many people who sleep too much can even become depressed for the first time in their life or notice other symptoms as a result of the constant tiredness and exhaustion. Read on to find out what these are.

If you don’t get enough sleep, you will often feel irritated and lacking in motivation the next morning. However, you may have noticed yourself that too much sleep can also cause these symptoms. This is because the deep sleep stages decrease after a certain amount of sleep, which results in the quality of your sleep no longer being as good as it needs to be to satisfy your need for sleep.

In addition, you may wake up in the middle of deep sleep, which also makes you feel weak and exhausted shortly after awaking. Learn about the long-term consequences of consistently having too much sleep and too little restful sleep.

A lack of quality sleep has a particularly negative effect on the psyche. If we sleep too much, we get less out of the day than early risers or people who get a solid seven to eight hours. Many people who like a good lie-in or a lengthy sleep feel cut off from the outside world, which can lead to depression.

If you are also constantly tired and lacking motivation in spite of getting lots of sleep, this has a major impact on your well-being. Depression is often the result of, or is exacerbated by, excess sleep. During treatment, you are therefore best-advised to reduce the amount you sleep.

Do you find it hard to remember things in everyday life and have to concentrate hard while doing your usual work to avoid making mistakes? An unhealthy sleep duration can affect our brain performance – in both directions.

While healthy people are often only briefly confused or unfocused after too much sleep, this condition persists throughout the day for sufferers of sleep disorders such as narcolepsy (excessive uncontrollable daytime sleepiness). The pathological fatigue and risk of suddenly falling asleep can make it almost impossible to follow conversations or go about one’s work. Excessive sleep can also be the first sign of dementia.

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of several symptoms that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. These typically include obesity, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, a lipid metabolism disorder and a low concentration of HDL cholesterol in the blood.

If you are someone who sleeps a lot but still feels exhausted, drained and unable to concentrate during the day, healthy sleep hygiene can improve your sleep quality and ensure that the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep at night are enough for you to get up feeling well-rested in the morning. The most important factors for healthy sleep hygiene are:

• A regular sleep-wake cycle

• Time for relaxing evening rituals

• A quiet, tidy and dark sleeping environment

• Bedroom temperature of between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius

• High-quality mattress and bed linen

• Sleepwear/pyjamas made of natural materials

• A 15-to 30-minute nap before 3 pm

• No alcohol, caffeine or nicotine before going to sleep

• A light, protein-rich evening meal

• Not eating immediately before sleeping

• No strenuous exercise immediately before sleeping

If there is no improvement despite these factors, you should seek medical advice. Sleep laboratories, neurologists and psychologists are the right place to go, depending on the cause. Your GP can carry out initial investigations and make the appropriate referrals.

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