Your eyes close and your mind shuts down the second your head hits the pillow, but you wake up 10 hours later still feeling tired.
Many people complain about sleeping too little, but some struggle with the opposite problem: oversleeping.
Oversleeping, or hypersomnia, is a sleep disorder characterized by complaints of excessive daytime sleepiness occurring regularly or often, even after sleeping 10 or more hours a night.
“Healthy sleep encompasses three major things,” Marishka Brown, a sleep expert at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), said recently. “One is how much sleep you get. Another is sleep quality — that you get uninterrupted and refreshing sleep. The last is a consistent sleep schedule. If you’re sleeping more than nine hours a night and you don’t feel refreshed, there may be some underlying medical issue.”
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If you are asking yourself, “Why do I need so much sleep,” here are the most common reasons for that and some tips on how to revamp your sleeping routine.
While individual sleep needs may vary depending on age and conditions such as illness, stress or physical activity levels, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine notes that experts recommend that schoolchildren get nine hours of sleep per night and teens get eight to 10 hours, while adults may only need seven hours or more.
Some adults, known as long sleepers, naturally require up to 10 to 12 hours of sleep per night, and not because of a medical condition but because of their natural biological predisposition.
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Why do I sleep so much?
You may require more sleep than usual for the following natural reasons: an increase in physical activity, stress, jet lag, or during and right after recovering from illness or surgery.
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Not only that, a commentary published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal recently suggested that getting more sleep when you receive a vaccination improves antibody production and your overall immune response.
Mental health conditions like depression or a past history of trauma can also cause oversleeping. The condition is present in 15 percent of people with depression, Michelle Drerup, of the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center, said during a recent podcast.
Sleep disorders like sleep apnea or narcolepsy can also trigger oversleeping, the NIH says. Sleep apnea, which involves
