Not enough sleep? Too much sleep? Does any of this make sense?
You have been told a million times that if you don’t get enough sleep, you increase your risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia, heart disease, and more. Essentially a lack of sleep results in death. But over the past few weeks we’ve seen multiple reports and studies that say if you sleep too much, you increase your risk of dementia. What are we supposed to make of this? Too much sleep? Too little sleep? Some studies say 7 hours isn’t enough, while others report more than 8 hours increases health risks! That’s how much of the media reported these studies anyway, but what the study actually said was that if you sleep more than 8 hours AND have “Excessive Daytime Sleepiness”. That Excessive Daytime Sleepiness is a clue! It suggests that this cohort of people are not getting adequate restorative function of sleep. Even when they are sleeping for extended periods of time, they are not reaping the health benefits sleep provides. Potentially the reason they are sleeping longer is simply because their restorative function is impaired, which results in the excessive sleepiness. The world is so caught up on sleep time, the message we get is “sleeping to much is bad for your health!” It’s time for the us, and particularly the scientific community, to move beyond simple measure of sleep duration in order to gauge health and measure outcomes. It’s a significantly flawed model, and we see researchers regularly try to adapt their reasoning to time based inputs rather than the functional aspects of sleep.
But what does this mean for you? First off, at Affectable Sleep, we’re not the sleep police. We’re not going to tell you how long you should sleep. We believe this is a highly flawed approach to thinking about sleep. There isn’t one diet that is right for everyone, or one exercise regimen that works for everyone. Why would sleep be any different? You need to figure out the sleep that is right for you, and the sleep that fits into your lifestyle. Part of that can and should be based on how you feel, but we can’t ignore that lifestyle plays a considerable role. You should be eating well, and getting exercise, and both of these will improve the natural restorative function of sleep.
