You’re probably sleeping so much all of a sudden because:
Use the RISE app to find out how much sleep you need and how much sleep you have to catch up on. RISE can also tell you when to do 20+ healthy sleep habits to reduce sleep disturbances and help you get a good night's sleep. We’ve found 80% of RISE users get better sleep and feel more energy within five days.
Sleeping more than usual can be worrying. But, before you jump to any conclusions, suddenly needing more sleep isn’t necessarily a sign of a medical condition. The most likely culprit is not getting enough sleep in the first place.
Below, we’ll dive into why you’re sleeping so much and how you can use the RISE app to make sure you’re getting the right amount of sleep for you.
There’s no set definition for excessive sleeping, but if you’re regularly sleeping for more than 10 hours it may be a sign of a sleep disorder or health condition. Many people need around nine hours of sleep and may need a little more when catching up on sleep or recovering from an illness. So it’s only usually worrying when you sleep for more than 10 hours.
If you’re sleeping excessively, you may also experience:
We all need a different amount of sleep, though, so excessive sleeping will look different for everyone.
Plus, you can’t really get more sleep than your body needs. So if you’re sleeping excessively all of a sudden, it may be because your body temporarily needs more sleep.
We cover this in more detail and whether nine hours of sleep is too much here.
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Here’s how to figure out if you’re oversleeping.
To know if you’re oversleeping, you need to know how much sleep you need in the first place. It could be more than you think, especially if you haven’t woken up without an alarm in a long time.
When we looked at how much sleep 1.95 million RISE users aged 24 and up need, we found 48% of users need eight hours or more sleep a night. Some need up to 11 hours 30 minutes!
RISE uses a year’s worth of phone use data and sleep science algorithms to work out how much sleep you need.
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Spending 10 hours in bed doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting 10 hours of sleep.
You need to think about sleep efficiency, which is the measure of how long you spend actually sleeping in bed, taking into account the time it takes to fall asleep and any time you’re awake during the night.
Your lifestyle or sleep habits might have changed recently, changing your sleep efficiency and causing your time in bed to shoot up.
RISE tracks your sleep duration so you can tell how long you’re really sleeping for.
Heads-up: Check your sleep debt on RISE — this is the amount of sleep you need to catch up on. If you’ve got a lot of sleep debt, your body might want to oversleep in an attempt to catch up on sleep.
If you’re sleeping more than usual, there are a few likely causes.
If you’ve missed out on sleep recently, you’ll have sleep debt. This is the most common reason you’re sleeping so much all of a sudden.
You might have missed out on sleep due to:
When your body gets the chance — maybe when you don’t set an alarm on the weekend or on vacation — it’ll sleep for longer than usual to catch up on lost sleep.
And if you’ve got a lot of sleep debt, it may take a while to catch up, so you may be suddenly sleeping for longer than usual over the course of several days if you have the opportunity.
RISE can work out how much sleep debt you have.
There are times in life when you need more sleep than usual like when recovering from:
You’re not necessarily sleeping too much, but rather getting the extra rest your body needs.
Dr. Chester Wu, who's double board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine agrees, “Sleeping more than usual is usually nothing to worry about. Your body’s probably catching up on lost sleep or fighting off an illness. However, if you’re consistently sleeping for more than 10 hours, it’s worth speaking to a doctor to rule out a sleep disorder or medical condition.”
Medical conditions can make it harder to get the sleep you need or make you sleepier than usual.
These include:
Some medications could cause sleep loss or make you feel sleepy.
Those include:
Excessive daytime sleepiness is when you struggle to stay awake during the day and you may fall asleep at inappropriate times. It may affect 9% to 28% of the population.
Potential causes of excessive daytime sleepiness include:
Hypersomnia is a sleep disorder that causes you to sleep for long periods of time and feel excessively tired during the day. It’s rare — about 4% to 6% of the population have it.
Common causes of hypersomnia include:
Idiopathic hypersomnia is when there’s no known cause.
Sleep apnea is when your breathing gets cut off during your sleep. You’ll experience a lot of sleep disruption and may find yourself spending a lot of time in bed to get the sleep you need.
Insomnia makes it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep, meaning you have to spend a long time in bed to get the sleep you need.
Other sleep disorders that cause sleep debt or sleepiness include:
Women (and those assigned female at birth) have an increased risk of poor sleep.
Pregnancy, menopause, and your period can make it harder to get the sleep you need. You may be feeling more tired than usual or need longer in bed to get enough sleep during these times.
Check out the many other reasons for female fatigue here.
Poor sleep habits could increase how long it takes you to fall asleep and cause you to wake up more often in the night. This means you need to spend longer in bed to get the sleep you need — making it feel like you’re sleeping more all of a sudden.
You may have changed your sleep habits or a change in your work or personal life (like working longer hours) could be impacting your sleep.
Poor sleep habits include:
You can’t really sleep too much. If you’re sleeping more than usual, you may be catching up on lost sleep or recovering from an illness, injury, or exercise. Most of the time, sleeping more than usual is nothing to worry about.
There are some studies that show a “U-curve” when it comes to sleep duration and health. That is, too little sleep is bad for you, but so is too much sleep. Both under and oversleeping have been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and death.
But that shows correlation, not causation. So, excessive sleep may not cause health issues. Instead, health issues may be the reason for excessive sleep in the first place.
Plus, many of these studies don’t take into account how much sleep people need, so they may not be sleeping “too much” to begin with.
Finally, a 2021 paper puts it plainly: “In response to the question: “Can I sleep too much?,” the answer is “No,” since “too much” implies sleeping longer than is biologically necessary.”
Expert tip: Most of the time, you don’t need to worry about oversleeping, especially if you’re just laying in for an hour or two at the weekend or sleeping for longer than usual while not using an alarm clock on vacation. Instead, keep an eye out for more drastic changes in your sleep duration. RISE can track how long you sleep for each night.
You can also check to see if your sleep debt has crept up and keep note of any lifestyle changes that could impact your sleep, like starting a new medication.
If you think a medical condition or sleep disorder could be the reason for excessive sleeping, reach out to your healthcare provider.
Feel like you’re sleeping a lot all of a sudden, but still tired all day? Speak to a doctor if you’re worried or consistently sleeping for 10+ hours, but most of the time, a few lifestyle changes can help you get your sleep and energy levels back on track.
Here’s what to do:
Users notice a big difference:
“I never realized how much sleep I actually needed, and how sleep loss accumulates to detrimental effect. Since I got my debt under control, I have more energy, am no longer crashing or napping, drinking less coffee, and my days feel more productive.” Read the review.
For more short and long-term energy hacks we’ve covered how to get more energy here.
You’re most likely sleeping so much all of a sudden because COVID symptoms have caused you to miss out on sleep or your body’s recovering from the illness.
You’re most likely sleeping so much and still tired because you’re sleep deprived. Your body wants to sleep more than usual to catch up on lost sleep. Other reasons include needing more rest when recovering from intense exercise, injury, or illness, or there’s an underlying medical condition or sleep disorder like sleep apnea, excessive daytime sleepiness, or restless leg syndrome.
You may have slept all day because you’re sleep deprived and your body wants to catch up on sleep. You may also need more sleep because you’re recovering from intense exercise, injury, or illness. A medical condition or sleep disorder, like sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome, may also be to blame.
If you regularly sleep for more than 10 hours, reach out to a healthcare provider. But you may not need to worry about sleeping too much. You may either need more sleep than you think, so it’s not too much, or you may temporarily need more sleep when recovering from an illness, injury, intense exercise, or sleep deprivation.
You’re most likely sleeping so much and still tired because you’re sleep deprived. Your body wants to sleep more than usual to catch up on recent lost sleep. Other reasons include needing more rest after intense exercise, when fighting off an illness, or there’s an underlying medical condition or sleep disorder.
You may have slept all day because you’re sleep deprived and your body wants more sleep to catch up on what it’s missed out on. You may also need more sleep because you’re recovering from intense exercise or fighting off an illness. A medical condition or sleep disorder may also be to blame.
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