Have you ever wondered... if too much sleep is bad for you?

Too little sleep is bad for you but what about too much? The answer may lie in a study carried out at Keele University that found sleeping for more than eight hours a night is linked to a range of health risks, including premature death.

Compared with people who sleep seven hours or less, those who average 10 hours a night are 30% more likely to have an early death and 56% more likely to suffer a fatal stroke. Poor sleep quality is also associated with a 44% increase in the risk of coronary heart disease.

But the researchers don’t think that sleeping a lot is directly to blame. It’s more probable that spending extra hours in bed is due to an underlying health problem. “Abnormal sleep is a marker of elevated cardiovascular risk,” said Dr Chun Shing Kwok, the lead researcher.

Writing in the Journal Of The American Heart Association, he suggested doctors give greater consideration to sleep duration and quality during consultations.