Ruth Alexander
speaker
4,250 appearances
120 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2011
last heard Aug 2018
Ruth Alexander’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
They say although sleeping for a long time is linked to ill health, there's no evidence that it's causing the ill health.
So the increased risk of health problems that you see in people who sleep for a long time is probably not the sleep causing that.
The sleep itself is probably a marker for some underlying condition that the person may not know yet that they have.
But not everyone agrees.
Sean Youngstead, professor at Arizona State University in the US, says short sleep has been studied a lot because that's what pharmaceutical companies, sleeping tablet manufacturers, are interested in.
He's one of the few people researching long sleep and says he's getting interesting results.
As well as the inflammation and depression, the teenagers also complained about soreness and back pain.
Supporting a theory put forward by Kevin Morgan at Loughborough University in the UK, Sean wonders whether the problem with long sleep is prolonged inactivity.
He's carrying out an experiment where long-sleeping and average-sleeping adults are asked to spend an hour less in bed.
Maybe reducing time spent in bed might also consolidate sleep, he posits.
It helps insomniacs.
Sleep quality is something all the scientists agree could affect your health.
The problem is, it's even harder to measure than how long you sleep.
So how much sleep should you be getting?
Well, despite the caveats that people are very unreliable witnesses to their own sleep, Greg Jacobs thinks we do have an idea.
But if you enjoy sleeping, spend a lot of time in bed and feel perfectly well, you're probably just fine.
There's no sure evidence that the lion is going to kill you.
Our email address is moreorless at bbc.co.uk.
You can get a download of this programme and previous editions at our website, bbc.com slash moreorless.
Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service.
Showing 841–860 of 4,250 · page 43 of 213
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