Too much sleep?

Zippitydoo

Just wondering if anyone is in the same position as me...

I sleep way too much- I enjoy it, but at this stage I'm just missing too much of the day. 2 nights ago I slept 14 hours, and last night I slept 11 hours. I woke up numerous times today and just could not manage to get up- kept falling back to sleep. Finally at 4pm I dragged myself out of bed!

This is a regular occurence that I sleep this much, frequently sleeping 12 hours. Are many people like this or is there something wrong with me?

Faith

It's a real problem, and the more you sleep, the worse it gets. Basically, in your cells, you have structures called mitochondria. They look like this:



Those folds in it that you see are where respiration takes places, and energy is produced. When you're very active, the number of folds increases, increasing the surface area for energy production. When you're inactive, it unfolds because your body doesn't need to produce as much energy. They unfold during sleep, and the more you sleep, the less they fold. Thus, you're producing less and less energy, meaning you just keep feeling tired and sleeping more. You need to exercise and be active to get them producing more energy, but of course that's the last thing you want to do when you're knackered.

So yeah, sleeping too much makes you tired. There's nothing wrong with you, per se, but if you want to combat it, you should strictly limit yourself to 8 hours sleep a night and try to get in some decent exercise during the day. You'll quickly notice the increase in energy!

Zippitydoo

Thanks for the reply faith.

I can see the logic to what you're saying, it makes perfect sense. The only thing is, I get plenty of exercise, eat very healthily, and am never tired throughout the day. I also never have trouble getting to sleep, it's just that when I try get up, unless I have to be at work I end up struggling big time to get up. It may just be a motivation problem I don't know. Guess I just have to make more of an effort maybe.

Faith

Right, sounds like you have a very healthy lifestyle so. Do you have a daily routine? Do you get up at the same time every day? If you don't, try doing that. Set your alarm for the same time every day, and get up when it goes off. Try to get a constant amount of sleep every night, say 8 hours. It might just be a lack of routine.

Otherwise, it could have something to do with your cortisol or melatonin levels and when they're at their peak, but I really couldn't speculate on that.