A study from the National Institutes of Health found that those who sleep nine hours or more each night are almost twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who sleep six hours or less.
The More Sleep, the Greater the Risk
The health of 80,000 nurses, none of whom had Parkinson's disease at the beginning of the study, were tracked for 24 years. Analysis of the 181 women who developed Parkinson's during the course of the study showed that the longer they slept, the greater risk they had of developing the illness.
Nurses who slept at least nine hours a night were 80 percent more likely to receive a Parkinson's diagnosis, while eight hours elevated the risk by 60 percent and seven hours increased it by only 10 percent.
Night Shifts
Working night shifts, however, reduced the risk. Longer stints offered more protection; nurses who worked overnight at least three times a month cut their Parkinson's risks in half. Previous studies have demonstrated that those who work night shifts have lower levels of the hormones melatonin and oestradiol, which may contribute to the development of Parkinson's at high levels.
This appears to validate earlier research indicating that too much sleep can increase your risk of disease. In fact, both too much and too little sleep can be problematic for your health.
Several years ago I posted a study that suggested less than eight hours of sleep will not hurt your health. But now we find that regularly sleeping more than eight hours may actually harm you.
However, while oversleeping can cause problems, I suspect most Americans are actually getting too little sleep, putting them at risk for conditions like diabetes, aging and obesity. Many, many studies have linked our 24/7 lifestyles to a lack of sleep that's had a devastating effect on the U.S. population's health.
The real key is to get the optimal amount of sleep every night. However, it's important to do so without taking a health-harming drug; they do more harm than good.
If you're having any trouble sleeping, I urge you to review my secrets for good sleep, which includes tips such as:
Get to bed as early as possible. Our systems, particularly the adrenals, do a majority of their recharging or recovering during the hours of 11PM and 1AM. Prior to the widespread use of electricity, people would go to bed shortly after sundown, as most animals do, and which nature intended for humans as well.