Bed.
It’s the best holiday away from waking life.
For seven (Or nine. Or whatever your jobs or kids’ll permit) hours after darkness falls, you can fall into a blissful state of nonexistence. Clock out from the business of living. And (hopefully) arise refreshed tomorrow. But when it comes to this inactive activity, experts suggest too much of this good thing can get you prematurely in the permanent state that resembles it. That – or harboring a host of maladies that make you wish you were. Thus, when it comes to sleep, balance is key.
And here’s just a few illnesses you might notice post over-dozing:
1. Dia-beetus
Indeed, diabetes can be just one of the joyless conditions you’ll find yourself falling prey to when you sleep too long. Note, however, that I didn’t say oversleeping causes diabetes. And that’s for good reason. While there’s not yet a strong enough correlation between the two, some surmise that imbalanced sleep causes oscillations in blood sugar levels, leading to diabetes. Others, however, will maintain that diabetes is just another symptom of whatever, other, underlying issue is making you sleep too much
2. Superfatness
I live in a pretty corpulent country. And while a lotta that’s because of the terrible food choices people are easily convinced to eat, bad eating habits and bad sleeping habits can combine to make for some serious obesity issues. In fact, some recent research demonstrated this: in said study, folk got fatter when they spent nine to ten hours vacationing in dream land on a nightly basis. In fact, the results showed they were 21% more likely to become obese within six years than sleepers of the “recommended seven to eight” category. Weird thing? Even when food intake or aerobic activity were altered, the association remained.
3. Cranial pains
Headaches can make the whole world blur. They’re distracting. They put you in a bad mood.
And, when too much snoozing’s the cause, it can drive you right back to bed and become a cyclical issue. But how’s bed cause headaches? Well, researchers think it’s because specific neurotransmitters are released with excess rest – one’a which is serotonin – the feel good hormone. By getting that outta whack, you can not only experience headaches but also depression, which we’ll touch on imminently.
4. Dorsal discomfort
Laying in the same posishe for too long’s prone to land you a backache – whether you’re prone or supine or a side sleeper. Sure, if you’ve just had a fall or pulled something while leaning over to to doody duty for Rufus, that’s one thing. Acute issues call for bed rest. But if you’ve just got those “I spent two hours commuting home in traffic” aches, docs say a bit o’ body moving’s the best prescription for you. ’cause too much rest leaves you rigid, which exacerbates preexisting probs – and can also make for new ones.
5. Chronic melancholy
Depression’s not funny. (Well, not unless you’re bipolar, and then sometimes it’s funny retrospectively when you enter mania mode and can joke about it to everyone.) But when you’re in the throes of it? Not so much. And this’s another one of those things that can either be a cause of too much slumbering – or a symptom of it. I’ll be first to admit that if I’m on the verge of despondency, languishing under the covers is the perfect push over the misery cliff. (Espesh when you wake up at 1 and realize you’ve wasted your whole day and feel like an uber-loser; not great for confidence or anti-sadness feelings.) Likewise, when I’m sadder, I tend to sleep more. And I’m in good, gloomy company. ’cause about 15% of forlorn folk also are guilty of too much mattress surfing during depressive episodes.
6. Cardiac afflictions
Heart disease is yet another sickness you may experience when you stock up on a surplus of sleep. In fact, The Nurses’ Health Study observed about 72,000 women. And the women who slept nine to 11 hours each eve were about 38% more apt to have coronary heart disease than the chick who caught an abstemious eight hours. Yet again, this is another one of those studies where we hafta say “correlation does not equal causation”. Because they can’t find a specif reason for the link between too many Z’s and afflicted tickers.
7. A slight case of deadness
Per WebMD: “Multiple studies have found that people who sleep nine or more hours a night have significantly higher death rates than people sleeping seven to eight hours a night.” But, really: after reading all’a that stuff listed above, is it any wonder death is also linked to too supersizing your snoozery? With all those disorders happening in one body, what do you expect?
That’s why I say, at the end of the day, the best advice is: First, go to bed. (Because, duh, we just said “at the end of the day”.) But, after that, at the start of the day (tomorrow), wake up, and go to your PCP (that’s “primary care physician” – not, ya know, psychedelic drugs that make you see horned horses with wings breathing fire). Then, the two’a you can combine forces, break out your Sherlock Holmes kits together, and figure out why you tend to spend most of life acting unlively. Fix that, and the seven deadly sicknesses above’ll be less likely to befall you.
Well, except for that last one. It’s coming for us all.
So let’s all get healthy and rested and maybe we can stave it off for a li’l longer.