The faceless, nameless "they" of modern science have found a link between "excessive sleep" (and also too little sleep, so watch out for that) and dementia in the elderly, who usually conk out for a while sometime in the afternoon because their bodies need a rest.
According to French researchers, however, daytime sleepiness may be a dangerous urge to submit to because it may be an early predictor of cognitive decline. Results from a study of 5,000 people over the age of 65 showed that those who took regular naps scored lower on mental ability tests. "These results suggest," said lead researcher Dr. Claudine Berr, "that excessive daytime sleepiness may be an early predictor of cognitive decline."
A concurrent research team in Vancouver, meanwhile, found evidence that succumbing to more than nine hours of sleep a night was also linked to the dulling of the mind's cutting edge. Scientists think that, more than signaling the onset of cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer's, getting too much sleep may hasten the onset of dementia. Really, though, getting too little sleep is bad too, so people ought really to be winding their bodies up like Swiss clocks every night so they get the correct seven hours of sleep, no more and no less because, otherwise, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things will happen.
Image via Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock.