Too much sleep? Are you kidding? There’s no such thing these days, right? With today’s fast-paced lifestyle, there’s hardly enough time to get enough sleep let alone too much.

However, if you sleep eight hours a night or more and still wake up less than refreshed, you’re probably sleeping too much. What you need is not more sleep, it is quality sleep.

Quality sleep allows us to wake up feeling refreshed and full of energy, ready to start the day. It also allows us to sleep fewer hours, freeing up more time to do the things we want.

Many people assume that because they feel tired all day or have a mid-afternoon ‘slump’, they need more sleep. Is not true!

Many people believe that because they may have had a couple of late nights, they need to “catch up” by getting more sleep. It’s not true either!

Sleeping too much can mess with your circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is your 24-hour “clock” controlled by a central part of the brain. This clock tells us when we are sleepy by altering our body temperature by a few degrees. When the body temperature drops, we feel sleepy. On the contrary, when it rises, we feel awake and alert.

When we sleep longer, our body temperature does not rise as quickly. This is why we feel sleepy and sluggish in the mornings. The more tired we feel, the less exercise we do. Inactivity keeps body temperature low, thus creating a vicious cycle.

The more we sleep, the less time we stay awake to create our quality of sleep for the next night. Our bodies don’t get enough exposure to sunlight to lower our melatonin levels, so we stay sleepy throughout the day.

The deepest stages of sleep (stages 3 and 4) are the most restful. This is where the body regenerates. Most of the sleep in stages 3 and 4 takes place in the first 4 hours of our sleep. The rest of the night is spent in REM sleep (dreaming) and in the lighter stages. Stages 3 and 4 are also where the immune system repairs and strengthens itself. Getting this kind of quality sleep is vital.

A good start is to make sure you get enough exercise during the day, this gives us a triple benefit. It gets us out in the sunlight, which lowers our melatonin levels, raises our body temperature so we feel energized, and makes us tired in a healthy way so we can sleep more soundly at night.

So when you get home from work feeling drained and tired, don’t stare at the TV. Put on those sneakers and go for a brisk walk around the block!