While you may also oversleep when you are feeling down or depressed. Korn-Reavis says oversleeping could highlight issues such as sleep apnoea, anaemia or vitamin deficiency. 'Our sleep before midnight is the most restorative phase of sleep, so getting to bed before or around 10 pm at least 3-4 nights is beneficial for gaining the really deep, nourishing slumber that sets up our energy levels for a happy and productive day,' she says. If you're suffering from an illness your body may also be craving more sleep than normal – the common cold, flu or even a stomach bug can leave us fatigued.Ī change in your sleep pattern could also cause you to oversleep – getting yourself into a sleep debt cycle, where you survive on bare minimum sleep during the week, and make up for it on the weekends can be detrimental in the long run.ĭr Ramlakhan advises anyone oversleeping to create a sleep schedule, ensuring that you go to bed early 3-4 times a week. Pressing the snooze button may feel like a normal reflex when you get woken up, but if it's causing you to oversleep, as you're feeling more fatigued, it could be down to several factors. While focus and brain power can also be affected when you get too much sleep. While this is then linked with gaining weight – as people who sleep an average 7-8 hours a night are more active – according to this study.Īlthough lack of sleep is normally associated with depression, it can also be a product of oversleeping. While another study, in the Journal of the American Heart Association, claimed that those who slept for more than eight hours a night had a greater risk of dying earlier from heart disease.ĭiabetes is also associated with oversleeping, as its increases your blood sugar levels. One study by the University of Warwick showed that oversleeping was associated with a greater risk of death. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day will help to maintain your circadian rhythm, which is the body's internal clock which is responsible for our ability to fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning.' What happens to your body (or mental health?) if you sleep too much? 'A good way to start is to stick to a consistent sleep schedule. So, how can you start to change your sleeping patterns? 'Even 10 hours of fragmented or poor-quality sleep won't be as beneficial as seven hours of undisturbed, restorative sleep,' says sleep expert and physiologist Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, 'If you feel tired after long hours of sleep chances are you need to establish a new healthy sleeping pattern.' However, she said it could depend on several conditions: 'Did you not sleep well the night before? Did your alarm wake you up out of REM sleep? Have you been short sleeping over a long period of time, and you just changed your bedtime routine?' Korn-Reavis says the biggest question she gets from clients is, 'I slept 8 hours, why am I still tired?'

However, it could also be that your body is still trying to catch up after a virus, or a bad period of sleep.

If you're sleeping for more than 9 hours, or more, every night, consistently, then you could be oversleeping – impacting the rest of your waking life. We've all been programmed to try and squeeze in as much sleep as possible – but if you're sleeping more than average and still feeling sluggish, unfocused or having memory issues, it could be time to delve further into your sleeping habits. If you are tracking your sleep, and feeling tired when you wake up, even though you've overslept, looking at your sleep metrics is a great way to start figuring out why you feel tired and if you can change anything about your sleep routine. Sleeping over 9 hours a night, consistently over a few weeks or months, is considered oversleeping – or a condition called Hypersomnia – the opposite of insomnia, where you struggle to sleep. 'However, if you are unsure how much sleep you need, consider starting with 7 hours and then check in with yourself to see how you are feeling.'

Opposite of insomnia