Understanding The Risks & Effects Of Oversleeping

Regularly oversleeping can cause headaches and make you feel sluggish, disrupting your daily life by hampering your ability to focus, make decisions, plan, or socialize. In the long run, it can even increase your risk of diabetes, heart issues, depression, obesity, and early mortality. 

Time your naps for no more than 20-30 minutes. Before your nap, set conditions to fall asleep quickly like soothing music and dim lighting. Finish your nap at least 5-6 hours before your night routine so that it doesn’t disrupt your scheduled bedtime.  Avoid any strenuous work before a nap (like exercising) as it might push you to sleep for longer. 

To avoid oversleeping, follow simple sleep hygiene tips before going to bed. These ensure that you get deep, quality sleep so that you can wake up feeling well-rested and satisfied .. Follow a consistent sleep schedule so that your body gets used to these sleep patterns, which will eventually let your circadian rhythms sync up to this time. Develop a good nighttime routine including relaxing, meditative practices, less screen time, and an ambient environment so that you can go to bed more easily. Avoid naps during the day, and limit heavy meals and coffee close to bedtime.

You can fix your sleep patterns gradually by implementing changes like avoiding screen time 15-20 minutes before bedtime. Slowly increase this time to 1 hour before bed. Adjusting your schedule in small 30-minute increments, till you are comfortable sleeping and waking at your desired time. Follow sleep hygiene and mental health tips like reducing stressors, practicing relaxation techniques, and listening to soothing music before bed. 

Yes, getting quality sleep can improve cognitive functions like attention, memory retention, language comprehension, emotional processing, creativity, decision-making, and more. When you are in deep sleep or REM stage, your brain also works on storing long-term memory information. So, getting too much or too little sleep can also disrupt these functions and cause several cognitive abilities to diminish.