Last Updated on April 23, 2020
© Medical News Today
Sleeping is one of life’s greatest pleasures. There is nothing quite like going under the bedsheets on a Friday night after a long week of hard work and staying asleep for as long as you like. That’s one of the reasons why people love weekends.
The importance of regular good sleeping has been studied intensively. Experts concluded that healthy adults should be getting between seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night.
Although these values depend on each person, the truth is that most of us struggle to guarantee those average eight hours of sleep as modern life forces us to sleep less than we should. But the opposite also happens.
Just as getting little sleep, getting too much sleep can also harm your body and affect your mental health. Depression, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and impaired brain function are some of the disorders associated with oversleeping.
So, how much sleep is too much sleep? Well, that’s what your body will tell you through these five warning signs!
1. Headaches
Even though this phenomenon is not yet fully understood by sleep researchers, you can get headaches from sleeping too much. There are a couple of theories that could explain it.
The first hypothesis is that oversleeping can interfere with your brain’s neurotransmitters and reduce your serotonin levels. Lower serotonin levels can, in turn, cause headaches or even what experts call “serotonin migraines.”
Headaches can also be caused by being laid down in bed for so long. There’s a chance that the pressure to which the neck muscles are subjected may trigger headaches across the forehead and at the base of the skull. Especially if your pillow and mattress don’t provide the support and comfort that your body needs.
Lastly, the headaches may derive from caffeine withdrawal, dehydration, or low blood sugar levels. This is more likely to happen to people who do not usually sleep too much. So when they do, their bodies feel the lack of breakfast.
