As we all know, often staying up late, lack of sleep, will damage people's physical and mental health.
But new research has found that too much sleep can also be bad for you.
The study included about 1 million adults with no history of cardiovascular disease who were followed for an average of 9.3 years.
Compared with people who slept between six and eight hours, those who slept more than eight hours had a 33 percent higher risk of developing or dying from coronary heart disease or stroke, while those who slept less than six hours had only an 11 percent higher risk.
Other studies have shown that people who sleep up to 10 hours a night have a 30 percent higher risk of dying early, a 56 percent higher risk of dying from stroke, and a 49 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who sleep seven hours a night.
The results are surprising: Sleeping too much can be so bad for your health.
Why is this? Understanding some of the physiological mechanisms underlying sleep may provide some answers.
Sleep secretly protects the health of the body
It has long been thought that sleep is a static process.
But in fact, the process of sleep is not as calm and simple as it seems on the surface, but like a mysterious night factory, in the intensive processing, classification, delivery of products, orderly and accurate.
The factory is the structure of the brain associated with sleep, and the core of the factory is the neuroendocrine system.
Many important hormones that maintain the body's operation are secreted from this, such as the upstream hormones that regulate the thyroid and gonads are in this system, which can be described as the headquarters of the normal operation of human physiological functions.
The secretion of these hormones is closely related to sleep.
Throughout the course of sleep, there are two different periods that occur in rotation.
During one of these periods, people dream and move their eyes as if they were watching a dream scene, this period is called rapid eye movement sleep, which can be represented by NREM sleep.
In other periods, there is no rapid eye movement, called non-rapid eye movement sleep, which is represented by NREM sleep.
These two sleep states have different physiological functions, alternating throughout the night, and each performs its own duties.
NREM sleep, or the period of time when you are not dreaming, is designed to promote growth, eliminate fatigue and restore strength.
During NREM, the secretion of various hormones in the pituitary gland increases, especially growth hormone, which is secreted vigorously in the deep sleep period of NREM, and is reduced in other sleep stages and awakening states.
Growth hormone contributes to the synthesis of protein and ribonucleic acid, and these two types of substances are the material basis of body repair, can promote the metabolism of cells throughout the body, is conducive to energy storage, and prepare for the tense activities of awakening.
Growth hormone secretion increases during NREM sleep, which directly or indirectly promotes growth and development.
