Oversleeping Is Just As Bad As Not Getting Enough Sleep; Leads To Higher Risk of Premature Death

A new study revealed that oversleeping is hazardous to one's health. Similarly, people who live sedentary lifestyles are at a higher risk of premature death.

Plenty of evidence has been revealed that sleep has a great impact on one's health while sitting for extended periods of time is bad. The study was the first time to look at the impact of both sleeping and sitting together.

A team of researchers looked at the health behaviors of more than 230,000 participants aged 45 and up. This was considered as Australia's largest study that focused on health as people age, according to Daily Mail.

Lifestyle behaviors that are known to increase the risk of diseases were analyzed which included smoking, excessive drinking, unhealthy diet, physically inactivity, excessive sitting times and too much or too little sleep. Researchers of the study also looked at different combinations of the lifestyle behaviors to determine which of the groupings were more likely to lead to a person's risk to die earlier.

The study concluded that sleeping for more than 9 hours a night means the person is four times more likely to die early. In addition, inactive people who lack exercise and sit most of the time are more likely to die a premature death.

Researchers also discovered that prolonged sleep, extended sitting times and lack of exercise were a deadly trio. "When you add a lack of exercise into the mix, you get a type of 'triple whammy' effect," according to Dr. Melody Ding, the author of the study and senior research fellow at the University of Sydney.

Lack of sleep combined with smoking and high alcohol intake also increases the risk of early death by four-fold. Physical inactivity and having too much sleep, physical inactivity and sitting too much, and smoking and high alcohol intake are other troubling combinations.

Similar to under sleeping, oversleeping messes with a person's circadian rhythm which is the 24-hour cycle driven by a person's biological clock that results in physical, mental and psychological changes. By sleeping less or longer than normal, people unknowingly throw off their circadian rhythm, as cited by Medical Daily.

According to researchers of this study, the combination of oversleeping and inactivity can be as deadly as smoking and drinking. Researchers pointed out that these behaviors together should be taken seriously as much as risk factors such as unhealthy eating patterns and excessive drinking levels.