What is the cause of excessive sleep: habits, lifestyle, diseases?

Prop­er and healthy sleep is one of the main con­di­tions for main­tain­ing good health and main­tain­ing a high qual­i­ty of life in a per­son. It helps him to work pro­duc­tive­ly and helps to strength­en the immune sys­tem. Lack of sleep leads to the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous seri­ous dis­eases — from obe­si­ty to dis­eases of the heart and blood ves­sels. But its excess is also dan­ger­ous for humans.

The problem of proper sleep in modern people

Sleep time for an adult is 6–8 hours. It is dur­ing this peri­od that the body recov­ers from the pre­vi­ous day and it accu­mu­lates strength for work, cre­ativ­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. But not all mod­ern peo­ple sleep enough hours. Busy work, the need to spend time with chil­dren, or bad habits such as con­stant­ly read­ing social net­works, lead to the fact that many peo­ple stop get­ting enough sleep.

For a per­son, not only insuf­fi­cient, but also exces­sive sleep is equal­ly harm­ful. Even if a per­son sleeps more than 12 hours, he does not feel rest­ed. Instead of cheer­ful­ness, he feels lethar­gy, drowsi­ness and unwill­ing­ness to do any­thing. Just like lack of sleep, its excess leads to the devel­op­ment of seri­ous dis­eases. If a per­son sleeps a lot, but does not get enough sleep, this may indi­cate dis­or­ders of the ner­vous sys­tem.

Hyper­som­nia, or the need to sleep a lot, leads to the devel­op­ment of seri­ous dis­eases such as dia­betes, obe­si­ty and depres­sion. To iden­ti­fy the true cause of this dis­or­der, it is nec­es­sary to exam­ine the body for the pres­ence of dis­eases that lead to drowsi­ness. Many may not attach impor­tance to this con­di­tion, believ­ing that they just like to sleep. But if this does not con­tribute to a qual­i­ty night’s rest, then hyper­som­nia neg­a­tive­ly affects the qual­i­ty of human life.

Excess sleep — one of the bad habits or a sign of the disease?

Hyper­som­nia is not always the result of any dis­ease. Most often, a per­son tries to “get” those oppor­tu­ni­ties for a night’s rest, which were not enough before. For exam­ple, he prefers to sleep in after work­ing at night or hav­ing to wake up too ear­ly dur­ing the week. The sit­u­a­tion is exac­er­bat­ed in win­ter and autumn, when day­light hours are short­ened and the sun ris­es lat­er.

Peo­ple who use cer­tain drugs or alco­holic bev­er­ages are prone to hyper­som­nia. The habit of drink­ing even a small dose of alco­hol before start­ing a night’s rest does not con­tribute to prop­er falling asleep. Instead, it caus­es the devel­op­ment of alco­hol depen­dence. Med­ica­tions can also be addic­tive.

Vio­la­tion of the regime of rest and wake­ful­ness is one of the com­mon bad habits of peo­ple who do not have the need to get up ear­ly. If a per­son is forced to come to work by a cer­tain time, then he uses an alarm clock, because with­out an alarm clock he can over­sleep. The desire to sleep longer on week­ends is one of the con­se­quences of not get­ting enough night­ly rest dur­ing the week.

Anoth­er cause of hyper­som­nia is bad habits. These include a late and too heavy din­ner with the use of not the most healthy foods — fat­ty meat, pick­les, sweets and fast food. Digest­ing heavy meals pre­vents you from falling asleep quick­ly. With­out the need to come to work by 9:00, a per­son suc­cumbs to the temp­ta­tion to sit longer at the com­put­er or watch TV.

Hyper­som­nia can occur with increased lev­els of stress or depres­sion. When a per­son can­not fall asleep for a long time, he needs to sleep longer. If at the same time he needs to wake up ear­ly to go to work, then he feels over­whelmed and lethar­gic, expe­ri­ences drowsi­ness dur­ing the day. Such dis­tur­bances in the func­tion­ing of the ner­vous sys­tem lead to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in per­for­mance, rela­tion­ships with col­leagues and man­age­ment. On week­ends, a per­son with a ner­vous break­down “over­sleeps” because there is no desire to wake up.

Hyper­som­nia can lead to headaches, depres­sion, and over­weight. Get­ting rid of hyper­som­nia will help devel­op a use­ful habit of going to bed and wak­ing up at the same time both on week­ends and on week­days. If the rea­son for “over­sleep­ing” is not lazi­ness and a desire to sit longer in front of a TV or com­put­er, then its deep­er cause should be found and elim­i­nat­ed.

Proper sleep is one of the components of a healthy lifestyle.

Get­ting enough sleep is one of the main com­po­nents of a healthy lifestyle. Just like prop­er nutri­tion and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, a prop­er night’s rest is nec­es­sary for a per­son to improve per­for­mance, strength­en immu­ni­ty and the prop­er func­tion­ing of all body sys­tems. There­fore, “over­sleep­ing” is just as harm­ful as lack of sleep.

In some cas­es, the desire to sleep longer is nat­ur­al for a per­son after work­ing the night shift or ill­ness. But “hiber­na­tion” and a healthy lifestyle are just as incom­pat­i­ble as a too short peri­od of night rest, last­ing only 4–5 hours. A per­son can “over­sleep” as a result of stress, because “switch­ing off” helps him get away from a seri­ous prob­lem for a while. Just like the inabil­i­ty to fall asleep for a long time, “over­sleep­ing” leads to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in a person’s cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and the devel­op­ment of men­tal dis­or­ders.

When a per­son sleeps a lot, but does not get enough sleep, he becomes not only lethar­gic and drowsy, but also irri­ta­ble. To solve the prob­lem of hyper­som­nia, it is nec­es­sary, first of all, to revise the sleep pat­tern, as well as to con­duct stud­ies on the state of the thy­roid gland, since a lack or excess of hor­mones can lead to increased fatigue or excitabil­i­ty. If the cause of hyper­som­nia is the stress expe­ri­enced by a per­son, then every effort must be made to elim­i­nate stress fac­tors.

A healthy lifestyle implies not only good health of the body, but also a har­mo­nious state of mind. One is impos­si­ble with­out the oth­er. An adult needs to sleep about 7–9 hours a day, and not to reduce this rate. If a per­son sleeps for more than 10–15 hours, then this already indi­cates hyper­som­nia, the caus­es of which must be dealt with. If it neg­a­tive­ly affects per­for­mance, then self-dis­ci­pline and the elim­i­na­tion of prob­lems that pre­vent falling asleep and wak­ing up cheer­ful and full of ener­gy will help a per­son.