A sudden increase in sleep duration can indicate underlying health problems such as sleep apnea or dementia, sleep specialist Roman Buzunov told news outlet aif.ru.
Buzunov explained that sleeping fewer than seven hours per night increases the overall mortality rate by 12 percent, while sleeping more than 10 hours increases mortality by 30 percent, citing medical data discussed several years ago.
Although the data suggested that long sleepers face a higher risk of early death, the somnologist emphasized that an important nuance must be considered before drawing conclusions.
He stated that long sleep duration only threatens health when a person's sleep pattern increases sharply. For instance, a cause for concern arises when an individual suddenly finds that their customary number of sleeping hours is no longer sufficient to feel rested.
According to Buzunov, such an abrupt shift signals ongoing pathological processes within the human body, specifically pointing to conditions like sleep apnea syndrome and dementia.
Individual sleep requirements
At the same time, Buzunov clarified that medical professionals cannot specify an exact number of sleep hours that is universally harmful to human health.
He emphasized that while standard health guidelines consider seven to nine hours of sleep per night to be the typical norm, an individual's healthy sleep requirement can range from 4 to 12 hours.
There are naturally long-sleeping individuals who genuinely require 10, 11, or even 12 hours of rest daily. Buzunov added that if a person has followed this pattern since youth, gets plenty of sleep, and feels well, there is nothing dangerous about it because it is simply their individual physiological norm.
Understanding sleep disorders and risks
Somnology is the field of medical science dedicated to diagnosing and treating sleep disorders and investigating how sleep patterns affect physiological health. Sleep apnea is a potentially serious medical condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts throughout the night, leading to fragmented rest and reduced oxygen levels. Dementia is a broad medical term covering progressive brain conditions that impair memory, thinking skills, and daily functioning.
The advice follows previous recommendations from somnologist Maksim Novikov regarding nighttime sleep disturbances. Novikov previously identified non-obvious causes for frequent awakenings in the middle of the night and urged individuals experiencing this problem to undergo testing for sleep apnea.
