Excess sleep can cause restless nights
LONG SLEEPERS who slumber more than eight hours a night and short sleepers who get fewer than seven hours of shuteye both report more sleep complaints than people who sleep in the "just right" zone of seven to eight hours, say researchers Michael A. Grandner, and Daniel F. Kripke, of the University of California, San Diego. Their study appears in the prestigious journal of Psychosomatic Medicine.
"Although it is unclear why long and short sleepers should have similar types of sleep complaints, these data challenge the assumption that more than seven or eight hours of sleep is associated with increased health and well-being," Grandner says.
A lot more is known by scientists about problems associated with lack of sleep than they know about too much sleep, although some studies have shown a correlation between increased risk of death in certain groups of people and too much sleep according to researchers Grandner and Kripke.
The researchers used the data from as many as 100 adults interviewed in the National Sleep Foundation's 2001 Sleep in America Poll to find out if long sleepers have as many sleep complaints as the sleep-deprived.
The participants were asked whether they had any complaints about the quality of their sleep and sleep's effect on their daily activities and how many hours they slept on a typical workday, not including naps.
More problems with falling asleep, waking up during the night, awaking too early, feeling "unrefreshed" upon waking up, and feeling sleepy during the day than those who slept seven or eight hours, were reported by long sleepers.
Sleep complaints were more common in both the long and short sleepers than in those who got about seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Women were more apt to be long sleepers than men were.
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