As busy adults, we always tend to lessen snoozing time or maybe even skip sleeping at all because we generally have lots of things to do be it in the house, office, or with the business. For the past years, doctors have continuously warned the public that less than the ideal eight hours can prove to be detrimental in the long run, and they are basically right: we tend to not function well when we don’t get enough sleep. Sometimes, even a cup of coffee couldn’t jolt our energy up and other times, the tiredness catches up with us and would result in us getting sick.

Meanwhile, there are also others that don’t track their sleeping hours simply because they don’t want to, with some even thinking that it is a healthy practice because they’ll get enough rest. The thought is not completely wrong: people need to sleep in order for their body to recover from the day’s work and to prepare for another day of grinding and hustling. After all, experts advise that we should never lose a day’s sleep and if possible, cover the recommended time of snoozing. However, a recent study points out that we should never get too much of shut-eye.

Extensive Study on Sleeping

Shutterstock | A new study explains how oversleeping can affect us

Yup, new research, which was said to be the biggest, sheds light on the effect of too much sleeping on our body – which is quite intriguing for those who are fond of getting some extra bedtime and which might inspire us to wake up earlier than usual as well.

The study was conducted by a team of neuroscientists from the Brain and Mind Institute of Western University through an online scientific investigation. Launched in June 2017, over 40,000 people from different parts of the globe took part in the study and willingly provided information that rendered useful in understanding some aspects of sleep.

This isn’t the first time, though, that a study was held in order to further discover more things about sleeping. Cognitive neuroscience and imaging researcher Adrian Owen said they wanted to know the sleeping habits of people from all around the world.

The participants provided their age, location, the medicines they were taking at the time of the survey, as well as their educational background because Owen said these things may play a role in the result of the study.

Result of the Study

The exam tested the respondents’ reasoning, language skills, and short-term memory. The latter wasn’t affected by the sleeping habit but the same can’t be said of the first two. Specifically, the result showed that about half of the respondents slept for just 6.3 hours on average per night, or about an hour short than what is acceptable.

Pretty sure that there are those who operate in less than the said number of hours, which will obviously take a toll on the performance the following day. With the study, those who just snoozed for four hours or under seemed nine years older when they performed, which was quite a shocking observation but totally makes sense.

Shutterstock | The study found that those who slept for four hours or less performed poorly the following day

With regard to the number of hours of sleep, the research said all adults need seven to eight for them to become highly functional the next day. It’s not only that, but the same number of hours is also the suggested amount of sleep to keep our body in tip-top shape, the study revealed. However, what’s more, startling was that the group found that those who get little sleep are the same as those getting more than the recommended hours.

‘Sleep Inertia’

Shutterstock | Because of sleep inertia, we often feel tired and groggy even after getting too much sleep

We often feel groggy and tired even after a full 10 hours of sleep, which is also called “sleep inertia.” This is also what happens when we wake up in the middle of deep sleep, or the Rapid Eye Movement, the stage when we usually dream.

Meanwhile, the study also said that even a single night’s sleep can greatly affect the person’s thinking abilities the next day – those who slept more than the usual hours the night before the study performed better than those who had less than their usual sleeping time.