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Everyone needs sleep but not all people need the same amount of time to refresh themselves. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, adults need around 7 to 8 hours sleep per night.
However, there are manypeople who wake up lateor sleepexcessively despite sleepingfor more than 9 hours.
What causes you to feel sleepy even though you have got enough sleep?
According to research in 2013, the percentage of Americans who are oversleeping increased from 27 to 37 percent from 1985 to 2007.
If you are one of those people who still feel sleepy despite havingenough sleep, these are the possible causes:
1. Sleeping until the afternoon onyour day off.
After long working days, people sometimes choose to spend their day off sleeping, especially during the weekend.
However this can actually affect your body and make you feel more tired.
Sleep expert Christopher Winter explained that our bodies have regular sleep cycles during normal days. Duringthiscycle, our body understands when to wake up and when to sleep. Adding more time to our sleeping cyclemayscrew it up.
This mess is what makes your body feel tired and sleepy.
If you want more time to sleep, Winter suggests adding only 60 to90 minutes.
2. Hypersomnia.
According to the American Sleep Association, hypersomnia is when someone shows signs of excessive tiredness andlooks like they aren't getting enoughsleep.
Interestingly, someone with hypersomnia who hasslept for more than 12 hours, may still need to sleep the following afternoon.
Hypersomnia is divided into two types, primary and secondary hypersomnia. Secondary hypersomnia is the most general. It is caused by depression, obesity, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
Meanwhile, the cause of primary hypersomnia can be genetic disorders such as myotonic dystrophy, Prader-Willi syndrome and Norrie disease.
3. Obstructive sleep apnea.
According to the National Library of Medicine, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a condition in which someone cannot get enough air while sleeping.OSA occurs when the upper airway is closed temporarily while the breathing effort keeps going.
This is what causes the OSA patients to awakenperiodically at night, making them unable to sleep fully. And it leads them to feel excessivelytired.
OSA patients cannot have a normal sleep cycle because they keep waking upand their sleeping cycle constantly changes. Thisleads them to feel sleepy or wake up late despitesleeping for 7 to 8 hours.
4. Alcohol.
People who consume alcohol sometimes find it easier to sleep. It makes them think that alcohol increases sleepquality.
Unfortunately, this is not true, since alcohol actually messes up your sleeping cycle.
Research done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has shown that drinking alcohol hours before sleeping might cause you to get irregular sleep.
This article was previously published byHellosehat.com and all medical data hasbeen reviewed by a licensed medical doctor.
(brl/red)
