Sleep has a major impact on our health and wellbeing. Busy lifestyles often make it difficult to sleep as much as we would like to. Not sleeping enough affects our mood, ability to focus, and risk of many medical conditions.

睡眠对我们的健康和幸福有很大的影响。忙碌的生活方式常常使我们难以尽情入睡。睡眠不足会影响我们的情绪，集中注意力的能力，以及许多疾病的风险。

We are often encouraged to sleep more, but can sleeping too much also be unhealthy?

我们经常被鼓励多睡觉，但是睡得太多也是不健康的吗?

We asked 26 experts in sleep research and neurobiology whether too much sleep is bad for you, 85 percent said 'no'. Here is what we found…我们询问了26位睡眠研究和神经生物学的专家，过多的睡眠是否有害，85% 的人说没有。以下是我们的发现。

What is the data on hours of sleep and health?

关于睡眠时间和健康的数据是什么?

There have been numerous research papers looking at the relationship between sleep time and different medical outcomes.

关于睡眠时间和不同的医疗结果之间的关系，已经有大量的研究论文。

Dr Jo Caldwell, an expert from the U.S. Naval¹ Medical Research Unit in Neuropsychology, summarizes the results of these papers: "The optimal² amount of sleep seems to be about 7 solid hours. For each hour below that amount, there are additive³ adverse⁴ health consequences, and for each hour above the 7 hours there are additive adverse health consequences."美国海军医学研究所神经心理学专家 Jo Caldwell 博士总结了这些论文的结果: “最佳睡眠时间似乎是7个小时。低于这个时间的每一个小时都会产生附加的不良健康后果，而高于7个小时的每一个小时也都会产生附加的不良健康后果。”

These 'adverse health consequences' include many lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes⁵, heart disease, and obesity⁶. Oversleeping, combined with low physical activity, is also correlated with increased mortality.

这些“不良健康后果”包括许多生活方式疾病，如糖尿病、心脏病和肥胖症。睡过头，再加上体力活动不足，也与死亡率的增加有关。

It is important to remember that all this data is observational. That means it is collected by observing people who have different sleep patterns and measuring their health outcomes.

重要的是要记住，所有这些数据都是观察数据。这意味着它是通过观察那些有不同睡眠模式的人并测量他们的健康结果而收集的。

Currently, there is no experimental data – where sleep duration is experimentally increased – that links oversleeping with mortality. Actually, the experimental result is the opposite.

目前，还没有实验数据表明睡眠时间的延长与死亡率有关。实际上，实验结果恰恰相反。

Dr Monika Haack, an expert in sleep research at Harvard University, says, "Extending habitual⁷ sleep duration has a beneficial effect on a number of biological systems, e.g., blood pressure decreases, sensitivity to pain decreases, and insulin sensitivity improves."哈佛大学睡眠研究专家莫妮卡 · 哈克博士说: “延长习惯性睡眠时间对许多生物系统有益，例如，血压下降，对疼痛的敏感性降低，胰岛素敏感性提高。”

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What is the link between oversleeping and poor health?

睡过头和健康状况不佳之间有什么联系?

As shown above, observational data suggests that sleeping for much longer than 7 hours is correlated with negative outcomes.

如上所述，观察数据表明，睡眠时间超过7小时与负面结果相关。

Dr Jamie Zeitzer, an expert in sleep research from Stanford University, says, "The problem with interpreting this as 'long sleep is bad for you' is that we don't know why the long sleepers⁸ have bad outcomes. It might be that they are sleeping a long time because there is something medically wrong that induces great sleep (sleep is great for fixing things)."斯坦福大学的睡眠研究专家 Jamie Zeitzer 博士说: “把这种现象解释为‘长时间睡眠对身体不好’的问题在于，我们不知道为什么长时间睡眠者会有不好的结果。这可能是因为他们睡了很长时间，因为某些医学上的错误导致他们获得了良好的睡眠(睡眠有助于修复问题)。”

Many of the experts agreed that there may be other factors linking long sleeping times with negative outcomes, but it is not clear what these factors are.

许多专家一致认为，可能还有其他因素将长时间睡眠与负面结果联系在一起，但尚不清楚这些因素是什么。

Dr William Killgore, an expert from Arizona University, says "The most likely explanation for the associations with long sleep is that the disease state is what leads to excess sleep, probably not the other way around. But without prospective⁹ experimental evidence, it remains¹⁰ a bit of a chicken-and-egg question."亚利桑那大学的专家威廉 · 基尔戈博士说: “对于长时间睡眠的关联，最有可能的解释是疾病状态导致了过度睡眠，而不是仅仅睡得多。但是，如果没有前瞻性的实验证据，这仍然有点像鸡和蛋的问题。”

How much sleep is healthy?

多少睡眠才是健康的?

Thankfully, we don't need to worry about sleeping too much. Dr James Ware¹¹, an expert from Eastern Virginia Medical School, says "It is not possible for a healthy person to 'overdose' on sleep. The person will instead lie awake, usually uncomfortably, in bed or get up."谢天谢地，我们不必担心睡得太多。东弗吉尼亚医学院的专家詹姆斯 · 韦尔博士说: “一个健康的人不可能‘过量’睡眠。相反，这个人会清醒地躺在床上或起床，而这通常是很不舒服的。”

Each person requires a different amount of sleep to function normally. Dr Vivien Abad, an expert from Stanford University, suggests that "for most adults, we recommend 7-8 hours of sleep. The key message is to get enough sleep to fulfil your health needs. Your ability to remain alert and functional¹² the entire day especially after meals is a good indicator¹³ of adequacy of hours of sleep."每个人需要不同的睡眠时间才能正常工作。斯坦福大学的专家维维安 · 阿巴德博士建议: “对于大多数成年人来说，我们推荐7-8小时的睡眠。关键信息是要有足够的睡眠来满足你的健康需求，让你一整天都保持清醒和机能的能力，尤其是在饭后，是睡眠充足的一个很好的指标。”

Finally, you can use a change in your sleep pattern to help detect changes in your health.

最后，你可以通过改变睡眠模式来帮助检测你的健康状况。

Dr Killgore explains, "If you find you are needing a lot more than 7-hours to function effectively, or if the amount of sleep you need has increased significantly, it might be something to bring up with your doctor. The increased sleep itself may not be hurting you, but it might be telling you that something else is."Killgore 博士解释说: “如果你发现自己需要远远超过7小时的睡眠才能有效地工作，或者如果你需要的睡眠时间显著增加，这可能需要去看看医生。增加的睡眠本身可能不会伤害你，但它可能会告诉你有其他东西在伤害你。”