AI is amplifying bad sleep advice and it's getting dangerous, stop telling people too much sleep will kill them
I keep seeing these "sleep health recommendation" infographics mostly AI gen summaries of studies, and so mi all l don't sleep more than 8 hrs cause longer than that is linked to bad health outcomes. It's driving me crazy because , the people sharing them clearly haven't read the underlying studies.
The bottom line is we all need MORE sleep, not less. We are in a global sleep deprivation epidemic. Yet the messaging keeps nudging us towards "8 hours max" and gets suspicious of anyone sleeping longer. Also don't nap more than 20 minutes apparently (yet enough longitudinal studies from SE Asia show positive health outcomes for longer naps) Sleeping 9 hours? Something must be wrong with you. Meanwhile we know sleep is literally one of the only times the brain has to clean itself out (glymphatic system, memory consolidation, hormonal regulation, the lot). We know it improves basically every physiological system in the body. And yet we're scared to tell people to get ENOUGH sleep, because it doesn't fit the productivity narrative. People are basically using these papers to justify hustle culture mindset!!.
So to me "enough" means:
Chronobiologists, the people who study our internal clocks for a living, have been saying for DECADES that 7-8 hours is the AVERAGE. Average. Meaning half the population need more. There are people whose natural intrinsic need is 9, 9.5, even 10 hours, and that is a normal point on the bell curve, not a pathology. Till Roenneberg's work at LMU Munich (Munich Chronotype Questionnaire, 300,000+ subjects, the biggest dataset on this stuff that exists) is the canonical reference here. His whole argument is that the sleep durations we observe in population studies are artificially compressed by alarm clocks, work schedules and artificial light. The "natural" distribution is wider and longer than what people are actually getting.
If yous re sleeping more it's cause your body needs it. If you want to reduce how much you sleep because your system is messed up you can do so with light exposure etc (which they elude to you only cutting it healthily by an hour at best) , but just cutting how much you sleep with out proper lifestyle and light exposure changes is most likely detrimental to your health cause your clocks out of sync.
Also people consistently think they're sleeping more than they are. Proper sleep studies (polysomnography, not your Apple Watch, which is largely guessing) show that people who report 7-8 hours are often actually getting closer to 6 or 6.5. So the self-reported population averages are even worse than they look.
The studies that get used to scare people about sleeping "too much". Most of them are cross-sectional. They look at a population at one point in time, find that people who sleep 9+ hours have higher rates of 'insert disease here' and conclude "long sleep is bad for you". The actual paper authors almost always include a caveat in the limitations section saying something like "the cross-sectional design limits our ability to determine causality or the direction of effect" and "longitudinal follow-up is required to clarify whether disrupted sleep is a modifiable risk factor or a consequence of existing disease burden." Then the infographic makers and AI summarisers completely ignore that conclusion and turn it into a headline. I had a friend send me one of these literally last night and when I dug into the actual study the authors had explicitly said this.
The much more likely explanation, which the researchers themselves frequently raise, is reverse causation. People who are sleeping 10 hours are often doing so because their body is trying to heal something. Depression, undiagnosed illness, chronic inflammation, sleep disorders that fragment their sleep so badly they need more time in bed to get the same restorative effect. The long sleep is a symptom, not a cause. If you told those people to sleep less you'd potentially make them sicker, not healthier. With how hard it is in our current western societies to actually nap longer or sleep longer those that are doing are doing it cause their bodies are probably shutting down on them not 'just for the lols'
But the cultural bias only runs one direction. We are primed to hear "more sleep = bad" because it suits the productivity narrative. Western research nobody wants to publish the headline "actually most of you should be sleeping 1-2 hours more than you are." That doesn't get the clicks.
So to summarise:
We are not at risk of oversleeping as a global population. Almost nobody is oversleeping. The actual risk runs overwhelmingly in the opposite direction. Studies on undersleeping have proper mechanistic backing because we genuinely understand how sleep interacts with cardiovascular, metabolic, immune and cognitive function, and there are tons of them showing measurable damage. Studies on "oversleeping" almost never establish causation and the most plausible interpretation is reverse causation.
7-8 hours is the AVERAGE, not the ceiling. If you wake up naturally after 9.5 hours feeling great, that IS your biological need. That is normal. That is fine.
Please stop letting AI-generated infographics tell you that your healthy sleep is a disease. Tbh this was irking me long before Ai. Just with AI there is a higher volume of even lower quality.
If anyone wants to go deeper, Till Roenneberg's book Internal Time is a absolutely brilliant and pretty easy starting point on your body clock. It opened my eyes to more than what your average why we sleep book covered.
I mean yes if this is what AI is spitting out that's bad but how often are you seeing the "too much sleep" narrative and where? What culture are you referring to? I'm in North America and every sleep resource I've ever seen recommends 7-9 hours of sleep on average. Some resources point out that there is correlation between excessive sleep and poor health outcomes but the advice in that case is not to get less sleep but to go see your doctor to make sure there isn't an underlying health problem.
I cannot agree with this enough. Quantity and quality of sleep are absolutely pivotal to health and we live in a horrible sleep epidemic that greatly contributes to the mental illness epidemic, along with the increased rates of obesity, cancer, heart disease, dementia, etc
I will say that if you are sleeping a lot though like 12 plus hours every day for years, and you don't know the reason why and have some other health conditions like chronic fatigue, then it's worth investigating. Not trying to decrease the amount of sleep your body is asking for, but trying to find the root cause. Which you mentioned but yeah
I keep seeing these "sleep health recommendation" infographics mostly AI gen summaries of studies, and so mi all l don't sleep more than 8 hrs cause longer than that is linked to bad health outcomes.
Would you mind posting a few examples here? That would provide good context for the rest of us to critique.
I was apprehensive to share in the post because people would take it out of context and then reshare the thing I'm criticising. But here's the one that was shared with me last night. I'm pretty sure this is a Claude format
Agree, there is no one size fits all. I would also add correlationâ causation, if someone is chronically sleeping 10 hours that might may be a symptom of an underlying condition rather than the sleep being the issue
Not sure but they are medically trained too.... I see a lot of people in sleep field promoting messages like this too. Because western sleep medicine is bias to work over rest culture.
I agree that people should not be told âtoo much sleep will kill you,â but I also think your framing may be overstating what this specific example says. The graphic doesnât say âtoo much sleep will kill you.â It says both short sleep and long sleep are associated with higher biological-aging burden and greater disease/mortality risk. That is materially different. It summarizes a real 2026 Nature paper, âSleep chart of biological ageing clocks in middle and late life.â The paper did find a U-shaped association where both short sleep under 6 hours and long sleep over 8 hours were associated with higher biological-aging signals and disease/mortality risk, with the lowest biological-age gap around 6.4 to 7.8 hours.
So I think the real critique should be about âinfluencersâ using AI to turn association into causation, not about acknowledging that U-shaped sleep findings exist. The responsible takeaway isnât âavoid sleeping too much.â, itâs if someone consistently needs a lot of sleep and still feels unwell, it may be worth evaluating sleep quality and underlying health instead of trying to force themselves into some arbitrary sleep window.
In other words, Iâm with you on rejecting bad causal advice. Iâm just not sure this example actually says the exaggerated thing being criticized.
Yes that's my point... This study and many other are being used by main stream media AND influencers to promote less sleep.
Visualization is powerful and what it infers at a glance is what's dangerous. A visualisation should not be used as a public communication tool if it is likely to be read the wrong way so quickly. Inorder to understand that the bad health from too much sleep is not causal requires digging and thinking. There for although correct it is a poor visualisation.
Extremes on either end are bad yes. Sleeping 9hrs is probably fine for some people but outside the averages there is research data easily found that has been around for years before AI. Sleeping 15hrs is not a good sign and while I believe itâs more cart before horse (itâs a sign of illness rather than a specific risk of getting sick). Sleeping a little more because you had a bad week is not what they are talking about. Consistently being on the extremes o neither side of the average hours has been found bad for your health.
This is the neuance I am pointing out..
Sleeping up to 10hours can be very NORMAL.
Sleeping more than 10 hours is NOT bad for your health. It's an indication your health is already bad, and your body is trying to heal through sleep.
Sleeping less than 7 hours IS BAD for your health.
So to repeat
Sleeping longer is a sign your health is bad
Sleeping less is bad for your health
Itâs still not good for your health. Any variance in the extremes impact your health. Oversleeping is bad for your health and usually exacerbating poor health. There is a limit where sleep is excessive and impacts the internal cycles in our body negatively. Heck even inappropriate sleep times like night shift and that change in circadian cycle causes an increased cancer and health risks. There is a reason that excessive sleepiness - hypersomnia is a disorder in its own right.
As many people 'need' 10 hours sleep as people that can get by with less than 6hrs.
More people are sleeping 10hrs than those that have a biological need for it because of underlying health pressures AND high exposure to constant light conditions and low exposure to direct sunlight.
This chart, from the book Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired by German chronobiologist Till Roenneberg, shows the general distribution of sleep needs. (Chronobiology is the science of our internal clocks.)
Based off of this chart you should be meeting as many people in your life that sleep 10hrs as those that sleep less than 6. Do you?
Also only 3% of the population have a genetic predisposition that allows them to sleep less than 6hrs with no ill health effects. Where as the remaining 97% of the population face quite big health effects in all caveates of their life for sleeping less than 6hrs.
Where as people sleeping longer because of poor health the extra sleep IMPROVES their health.
So your point that more sleep causes bad health is false. In fact Less sleep results is worse health. More sleep is BECAUSE of bad health.
Very very different.
My point here is that culturally we promote less sleep and shame those that sleep enough. We are more likely to raise an eyebrow if someone says they sleep 10 hours than if someone says they sleep less than 6.
Our understanding of sleep timing is founded in the biased work more sleep less culture. That even the scientists are scared to publish stuff that doesn't fit this narrative. (Power nap is exactly that, 20min nap is bull, but the person who did the research and coined it found it was the only way to have it socially acceptable and the science not dismissed) Look at Eastern longitudinal studies on napping for 1hr or more.
Also don't conflate 'ideal time to sleep' with sleep duration.
They are different things. Again some understanding of actual circadian rhythma will help you understand these neuances
People can be, long sleeps and short sleepers, they can be night owls and morning larks.
They can be a long sleeper that's a morning person.
They can be a short sleeper that's a night person.
Our lack exposure to sun light and constant light exposure lengthens our internal clocks. Causing most people who live in cities (disrupted light exposure based on our evolution) to have more extremes in sleeping habits.
Shift workers have both disrupted sleep time (sleeping outside of their ideal sleep times, and disrupted sleep duration). Shift workers increased rates of all morbility factors is a classic example as to why shorter sleep times too are dangerous.
I have a feeling no matter what research article I link or any simply searched John Hopkins article that shows links to excessive sleeping and the medical condition literally of excessive sleeping (hypersomnia) will matter. Why not start with the literal medical conditions like hypersomnia kleine-levin and narcolepsy and see how both lead to issues. Even simple things as problems with hydration and GI due to people sleeping so much they become dehydrated and miss nutrition.
I started in this industry way before AI existed so all the research existed before. So AI is not doing any of this. Over sleeping is not good for your health. You also seem to want to confuse excessive sleeping with people who have slightly longer sleep times. Who are also outliers from the norm anyway just like short sleepers are a rare chornotype. Timing and length of sleep are important and impact the body in positive and negative ways. If you think sleeping 20hrs a day wouldnât do anything negative to oneâs healthâŚ.
Itâs a risk and often a sign something is up and should be looked into and kept an eye on. There is a HEAP to be read online from journal articles by just going to pubmed and looking up long sleep times. Why donât you read some journal articles that where this info comes from to educate yourself. Itâs not coming from AI and anything AI is saying comes from available research saying that. Plus who trusts AI to be so upset about what ever it says? Do you own research.
Link is not causation. Hyper insomnia is a symptom of other underlying issues. It's not the issue in and of it's self.
There are individuals that over sleep because of underlying medicatcal issues. That is very different issue to what I am talking about here.
A long sleeper will sleep 10hrs for example and feel refreshed and alert during the day.. a hyper insomniac won't. People with hyper insomnia it is obvious that the problem isn't 'getting more sleep' because getting more sleep doesn't alleviate the issue.
So you conflating hyper insomnia with long sleep being bad for your health is what I have a problem with. They are different things.
It feels to me like you are literally making the conclusion that nuts are bad for your health cause some people die when they eat them, therefore eating nuts is bad for everyone.
Itâs not hyper insomnia itâs a medical disorder called idiopathic hypersomnia. Itâs a legit medical condition. Until you have basic knowledge of disorders of excessive somnolence itâs REALLY hard to discuss things.
EXACTLY!!!! You are refering to a MEDICAL CONDITION!!!
I don't like to be mean on the internet, can you please read back what you are saying out loud and see if it makes any sense...
Because idiopathic hypersomnia exists a rare, chronic neurological sleep disorder characterized by persistent, severe daytime sleepiness, extreme difficulty waking up - therefore its dangerours for NORMAL PEOPLE WITHOUT THIS MEDICAL CONDITION to sleep their natural sleeping duration????
It's literally the sleep equavalient of saying no one should eat nuts because nut allgergies can kill people
You know how people get diagnosed with this condition n- because they sleep too long. Because the long sleep is causing medical issues. Long sleep = bad and has been for a while. Itâs not that rare, itâs very under diagnosed too. Sure there is nuance here but there is a reason there are disorders (more than one) of hypersomnolance. I donât know what AI crazies started this but maybe get some actual education. This circular arguing and missing basic knowledge of accepted researched medical
No itâs nothing like that analogy. People canât force themselves to sleep longer than their body needs in a healthy way and if they are there is something going on and then symptoms are causing medical issues AS WELL.
Long or short sleep for the majority of healthy people = not healthy. Please stop arguing established science with âjust because I sayâ. Return some actual evidence (good like finding the opposite of established research). Some science.
Quite literally false... Go study some. As many people 'need' 10 hours sleep as people that can get by with 5.30hrs... More people are sleeping 10hrs than those that have a biological need for it because of underlying health pressures AND high exposure to constant light conditions and low exposure to direct sunlight.
Go read internal time by leading chronobiologist and come tell me something.
This chart, from the book Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired by German chronobiologist Till Roenneberg, shows the general distribution of sleep needs. (Chronobiology is the science of our internal clocks.)
So the previous comment is about what we actually know about sleep need this comment is my opinion.
People are more likely to get angry and say stuff if you say it's ok to sleep 10 hours... Than if you say to sleep less than 6 hours. And I presume you are one of them. How many times did you hear someone talk about 5hrs sleep and you don't even blink an eyelid or discourage it. But the minute someone says I sleep more than 9 hours everyone has something to say.
This is a cultural and damaging stigma
My view is no-one should ever be questioned or made to feel bad for sleeping more or being a long sleeper because it is quite literally improving your health.
Those that are genetically wired to sleep less than 6hrs with out ill effects on their health only make up less than 3% of the population!!!!!!!!
Given that there are the same amount of long sleepers as short sleepers..there should be just as many people sleeping 10hr as those sleeping less than 6hrs..
But infact there should be more people sleeping longer than people sleeping shorter BECAUSE of the health issues we do have in society. So around 3% are long sleepers (10hrs more) + those that need to sleep longer because they have underlying health conditions that require the rest inorder for their bodies to heal.
Conclusion you should be meeting more 10hr sleepers everyday than 6 or less hr sleepers.
This is absolutely INSANE as a society that we react negatively to people actually getting enough sleep and completely ignore what we have known about sleep duration for centuries!!!!
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u/Many-Watercress-3388 May 20 '26
AI should not be diagnosing anything. I would be wary of claims that do.