Why is it when you sleep for 10-12 hours you end up more tired throughout the day than if you had 8 hours of sleep?
In: Biology
Three main reasons: 1. If you’re sleeping 8 hours normally and one day decide to sleep for longer, you end up disrupting your natural circadian rhythm, which leaves your body in a jet lag state because it’s a bit confused. Keep a consistent schedule for better sleep. 2. Waking up later might mean you wake up at a different sleep stage. You might be waking up in a deep sleep state instead of the usual rem or light sleep stage you normally are used to. Your body cycles through these stages every hour and a half on average. 3. If you’re sleeping for too long it might be a health issue like sleep apnea preventing you from getting a good night sleep. Your body isn’t getting the rest it needs.
Hormones. The longer you sleep, the more “relaxing” hormones your body releases. If you sleep for 10 hours, you have more hormones (such as prolactin and melatonin) than you would have if you slept for 1 hour.
Maybe the Matrix was on to something. We’re built like a battery, once it gets charged up to 100%, any additional charging actually depreciate the lifespan of the battery.
The short version is you don’t… or at least, not really. If you sleep 12 hours when you normally sleep 8 hours, there’s probably a reason. Typically, it’s because you either DIDN’T get your normal sleep, or are ill, or recently changed sleep schedules. Sleeping 10-12 hours is your body trying to play catchup and re-adjust, and it can’t really do that in a single day.
I doubt you’d actually feel better if you “only” had 8 hours sleep than if you had 10-12. Your head can get used to sleeping < 6 hours a night, but your body remembers the debt. As soon as you let your body begin to recover, your head will notice the change and become aware of what it was concealing from itself.
Usually because you were tired to start with, which is why you needed 12 hours sleep in the first place.
Wait some people get 8 hours of sleep?
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