Instead of feeling crisp and refreshed, Jesse Wu wakes up sluggish after 12 hours of sleep.
"If I sleep the right amount, I feel really good," said the 25-year-old who lives in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. "If I sleep too long, I feel groggy throughout the whole day."
For years, doctors have warned about the dangers of not getting enough shuteye -- traffic accidents, weight gain, decreased productivity and immune protection, but the effects of oversleeping are not well-understood. There isn't medical evidence to recommend that people who sleep long hours should change their habits,
After I've gotten so much sleep, the first situation is I fall asleep at 10 p.m., even though I've gotten 12 hours of sleep, because I feel so groggy," said Wu, who works as a membership coordinator for a professional association.
This is known as sleep drunkenness, when a person hovers between sleep and wakefulness, said Dr. Lisa Shives, medical director at Northshore Sleep Medicine in Evanston, Illinois. In one case, a patient who had sleep drunkenness came to the emergency room because his wife thought he had a stroke.
"They'll wake up and be in this weird state of sleep drunkenness," Shives said. "If it's really severe, you're not going to be in any state to make decisions. If it's just regular [case], a lot of us feel 'blah,' and most of us have to carry on and get going on a shower and cups of coffee."
Oversleeping once in a while doesn't present serious health risks, experts say.
But if you habitually sleep excessively, it could be the result of an underlying health problem. And it could be cutting into your life span.
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