Study says too much sleep could be worse for your health than getting too little

If you are stressed, sick or tired so often the advice is to just get more sleep. Sleep cures all. And it does do wonders for both your physical and mental health.  A recent study found that sleeping in on weekends can actually add years to your life. But is it possible that too much sleep can also be bad for you? According to a new study, the answer is yes.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, used data from more than 3 million subjects of past studies and found that sleeping more than 7-8 hours was linked to a higher risk of death. Subjects who slept 9 hours per night had a 14% higher risk of death and if they slept 10 hours the percent went all the way up to 30!

Well + Good also cited a study from the Mayo Clinic that sleeping too much or too little can increase the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Poor sleep quality can lead to heart disease

The researchers also found that poor-quality sleep was associated with a 44% higher risk of coronary heart disease. “Our study,” said lead author Dr. Chun Shing Kwok, a clinical lecturer in cardiology at Keele University, “has an important public health impact in that it shows that excessive sleep is a marker of elevated cardiovascular risk.”

According to a recent report from Gallup, the average American gets about 6.8 hours of sleep each evening so pretty impressive that some people are getting 7 plus hours however there is clearly a sweet spot when it comes to how much to sleep.