Lack Of Sleep Doubles Risk Of Death, But So Can Too Much Sleep

According to the research as below, someone like me who sleeps 4 or 5 hours a day for a few days and then sleeps more than 12 hours all at once will die at very early age? 

gotta fix my sleeping habit!

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ScienceDaily (Sep. 24, 2007) — Researchers from the University of Warwick, and University College London, have found that lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. However they have also found that point comes when too much sleep can also more than double the risk of death.


In research to be presented to the British Sleep Society, Professor Francesco Cappuccio from the University of Warwick’s Warwick Medical School will show the results of a study of how sleep patterns affected the mortality of 10,308 civil servants in the “Whitehall II study.”

Those who had cut their sleeping from 7h to 5 hours or less faced a 1.7 fold increased risk in mortality from all causes, and twice the increased risk of death from a cardiovascular problem in particular.

Curiously the researchers also found that too much sleep also increased mortality. They found that those individuals who showed an increase in sleep duration to 8 hours or more a night were more than twice as likely to die as those who had not changed their habit, however, predominantly from non-cardiovascular diseases.

“In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around 7 hours per night is optimal for health and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill-health.”