Did you know that we can actually be getting too much sleep?

According to Sealy’s Chief Sleep Officer, Neil Robinson, an extra hour in bed can seem like a lifeline for those living busy, tiring lives, but too much sleep can cause long-term illness, impact on cognitive ability and can leave you feeling even more exhausted.

While there’s no hard and fast rule into how much sleep someone needs, in general, the ideal is around seven to eight hours each night – anything more, or anything less, can have a major impact on both our short term and long-term health.

Drawing on the findings of the recent Sealy Sleep Census, which studied the sleep habits of more than 5,000 people across the UK, too much sleep has been shown to lead to weight gain, exhaustion and risk of health issues such as high cholesterol.

And so Neal advises that if you’re feeling exhausted or overtired, the key is to focus on good quality sleep, ensuring factors such as a poor-quality mattress or too much caffeine before bed aren’t hampering your ability to get quality sleep.

Other tips include getting into a sleep routine during the week that you emulate at the weekend, improve your bedroom environment by banishing technology completely or have a tech-free hour before bed, and consider your alarm approach; it might be tempting to set your alarm a little earlier so you can hit the snooze button for an extra 10 minutes, however, this will actually make you feel worse when you eventually do drag yourself out of bed, as going back to sleep after hitting the snooze button prepares your body for another sleep cycle.