Addiction comes in many different forms. Some of them are highly punishable by law, while others do not really break any system of rule — except maybe for the individual’s own health and wellbeing.
Take for example addiction to sleep: sleeping is something that everybody is entitled to because it is a biological need, and depriving yourself of it can have very serious health repercussions. But on the other hand, having too much sleep is also just as bad for your health as failure to get a good night’s sleep, according to medical experts.
It’s for such reason why sleep addiction is a matter that needs to be addressed. It’s something that makes the life of a person pretty much revolve around sleeping, causing him or her to miss out on a lot of things.
Experts say that most adults need to spend 7 to 9 hours in dreamland in order to enjoy the many different benefits of sleeping. Getting more than the recommended hours of sleep all of the time can cause a lot of disadvantages.
Some of the problems that are linked to oversleeping include:
Cognitive impairment. Both sleep deprivation and excessive sleeping can cause a considerable decline in the functioning of the brain.
Depression. In some cases, it is depression that makes a person want to sleep always. But in other instances, it is oversleeping leaves an individual feeling depressed.
Pain and inflammation. Experts say that people who make it a habit to sleep more than necessary reported of increased pain and inflammation.
Increased disease risk. There are lots of health risks associated with oversleeping, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Higher mortality. Basically, studies have shown that people who slept a lot had so much shorter life spans than those who slept in the right amounts.
Needless to say, being hooked on sleeping can significantly increase your chances of having some or all of the dangers mentioned earlier. Who knew that something that is needed by the body for optimum health can be very detrimental to the health if it’s overdone?
So how can you tell if you’re a sleep addict? Here are some of the signs to watch out for:
You just woke up and you’re already thinking about napping. You may be addicted to sleeping if your first few thoughts upon opening your eyes in the morning are the naps you are about to take throughout the day.
You gnash your teeth when someone or something wakes you up. It’s like it is the end of the world if your spouse or family member wakes you up, or your smart phone or alarm clock does it.
You need several different alarm clocks. There’s a possibility that you are hooked on taking Z’s if you have to use numerous alarm clocks because one going off is not enough to get you up.
You tend to sleep the entire weekend away. You know that you have a problem if you find it awkward when the topic at the office on a Monday morning is “how was your weekend spent?”
You turn into the Hulk if you fail to get a nap. Everyone gets cranky when sleep deprived. But if you had enough sleep the night before and failure to take naps makes you irritable, it’s a different story.
You can fall asleep in any place, at any given time. No matter if you’re in a car or on a plane, or when there’s complete silence around or a catfight is going on, you have no trouble getting to dreamland.
You have no idea what’s going on in the world around you. Rather than catch up with current events by watching the news or reading the paper, you spend most of your time catching some shut-eye.
You deem sleeping as the most important thing in the world. Forget your career, budding romantic relationship of favorite vanilla ice cream — sleep and nothing but sleep is all that matters the most.
