Subscribe RSS FeedIf you oversleep often and want to get rid of this terrible habit, there are two main areas that you need to work on – your habits and your mindset…
Here are the five main steps I suggest you take in order to stop oversleeping:
1. Change the way you think about sleep
If you “love to sleep”, you have to start thinking about sleep as something you must do in order to survive. Nothing more.
Stop making excuses like – “I need more sleep than the average person”. You should be convinced that you can sleep less and have more energy than you have now, which is most likely true.
2. Motivate yourself to stop oversleeping
Oversleeping is like any other addiction, and you have to be highly motivated and absolutely convinced that you WANT to overcome it.
Come up with at least one strong reason WHY you want to sleep less. Be as specific as you can. It might help to write it down and read it to yourself daily.
3. Set (and stick to) a steady sleep schedule
It’s best if you can go to sleep and wake up at the same times every day. At least do you best to wake up at the same time, no matter how long you had slept…
Put the clock away from bed, set a wake up call, ask someone to throw you out of bed, whatever you need to do to make sure you wake up on time.
4. Reduce sleep gradually
If you sleep 10 hours every night, don’t move to 7 hours all at once. Reduce 30-60 minutes every week or so.
Don’t beat yourself up when you fail, because it might only make things worse. Just learn from your mistakes and come up with a plan for the next day.
5. Improve your sleep
The quality of sleep is just as, if not more important than the quantity. There are many simple things you can do to get high quality sleep, which will allow you to get more energy from less sleep.
There is a lot of information (online and offline) about sleep optimization, self motivation and so on. You can do your own research and come up with a plan of action.
If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide that will help you stop oversleeping read my review for the End Tiredness Program >>
Tags: Over - Sleeping, oversleep, reduce sleep, sleep less, sleep too much, sleepping too much, stop oversleeping
hi please give me some advices to stop overslepping thank you very much
Mohamad, there is a lot of advice on how to stop oversleeping here and also on my blog (click my name). If you have a specific question please ask.
I have had every test and Dr. try and no help. I sleep 16 hours a day and can go right back to sleep. No sleep apnea, no depression, no stress what is it?
Sherri, how old are you and how can you afford to sleep so much? Don’t you have anything to do? What do you mean by “I can go back to sleep”? Do you mean that you can’t keep your eyes open? Have you tried to make yourself sleep less? How? How did it work?
I am the same as Sherri. I have to sleep at least 12 hours a night though usually I spend sbout 16 hours in bed, though I could easily stay asleep longer. I also sleep very deeply so alarms and things usually have no affect. What can I do?
Katie, I would have to ask you the same questions I asked Sherry…
1. How can you afford to sleep so much? Don’t you have anything to do?
2. What have you tried doing in order to reduce your sleep?
Note to myself: I have to add an option to subscribe to comments.
Hello and thank you for the great information.. Any recommendations how to tell your signifigant other they suffer from this? my wife average 11-12 per night ..and thinks everything is ok.
hello.i really need to sleep about 5-6 hours a a day cause i need to study hard and there is no time to waste. but i feel tired all the time so i have to use coffee. i really need to do it and in the summer i’ll get free! but my exams i really important to me.
I have the same problem as Katie and Sherri. I am 14 and I sleep
for about 16 hrs if I can afford to. Actually, I could even sleep more If I wanted to but my family forces me up. If it is a school day I sleep for 3hrs after school, eat, do homework and sleep for another 6-8hrs. I try not to reduce the time because if I dont get this amount of sleep I feel tired the whole day. This is not very good because when I go on holidays, I dont sleep as much, as I want to use my time wisely and when I return home I could sleep for a whole day… Im not sure what to do:(
Ryan, does your wife has anything better to do than sleep?
Tina, it’s possible to reduce sleep, but your big mistake is getting a lot of coffee. Instead, eat well – live food, drink fruit juices, smoothies, plenty of water, and also move yourself – get some exercise, stretch, hang out in the sun. When you feel the need, try a ‘power nap’ of 20-40 minutes.
Sushi, the only way you can reduce your sleep is if you decide that you want to, and not because of outside pressure. Try to go a couple weeks with 9 hours night sleep. Follow the tips in the article and in my response to Tina (above).
I’m a 22 year old college student and i tend to oversleep alot or sometimes undersleep. either way i’m tired most of the time. how much hours of sleep do i need per night?
Rae, I can’t tell you how much sleep you need because it varies from one person top another. The healthy average is about 7-8 hours. How much do you sleep?
hi, im a lazy lazy bum who cant get up because i cant be arsed. i want to get up and be productive but im just too lazy. everytime i wake up it is freezing cold and i just want to hibernate. if i wake up early i feel dizzy and have a fuzzy feeling in my head. i need to sleep all day. I execise for 30-40 mins per day, and i only eat healthy foods. i still need to sleep in every morning and i have lost countless jobs because i sleep in. i simply dont hear the alarm. I think my subconscious wants me to sleep in because i am anxious about work maybe. i dunno, whether its weekend weekday, day or night i just want to sleep. i’m even tired now.
Dave, I have many questions to ask you, like:
How old are you? How long do you sleep? What time do you go to sleep and what time do you wake up?
Do you remember a time when you used to sleep less? What was different then?
Do you drink? Do you take any medications? Do you smoke?
If you tell me the answer to those questions I might be able to be more helpful. However, answering these questions for yourself might help as well.
Also – read about Trouble Waking Up
Hello everyone. I think I have a sleeping problem… I am 20 years old, I was in university last year but got academically excluded and i think one of the reasons i failed was that i was oversleeping. I did study a fair amount of times, sometimes even resorting to working all night and sleeping around 0500 in the morning to wake up at 7 for exams. It just wasn’t my year, I know that I could have passed had I put a few more extra hours, but sleep really screwed me over.
I once however slept around 2300 and woke up around 4, I needed to sort out my study visa and I told myself I had to get up early and I did. Now that i think about it, I always tell myself that i want to wake up early but I usually still sleep in, I usually sleep around midnight but end up waking up around 7 and sometimes 8. I really want to cut down to 5-6 hours a day so I can study more as I am applying for universities for September/October and I want to prepare and discipline myself so I won’t encounter the same problem again. I have a problem of sleeping through the alarm, especially if i sleep past midnight(which i sometimes do stay up till 0200).
I am aware that this may attribute to the problem but is there any other advice you can give me, I think that maybe the main thing i need to do is have a phase shift, to start sleeping at 2200 so I can wake up around 0600/0700 by default.
Well Orwell, seems like you’ve answered your own question. However, I know how hard it can be to go to sleep early. It’s something I sometimes struggle with myself…
From time to time I’d work on the PC until late and then watch TV for 2-3 hours before I go to sleep. I won’t oversleep, but I’d wake up tired and then tell myself that I won’t do it again (which lasts some time until my next glitch).
Some suggest setting a bedtime alarm – to tell you to go to sleep. That’s an idea, but I don’t think it would work for me personally.
I’d say it all comes down to goals and motivation. You need to convince yourself that if you sleep well and wake up early you will be more energetic, happier, healthier and also more succesful as result.
Was that helpful? People, any other ideas?
Hello,
I have difficulty sleeping for an appropriate amount of time. It’s quite commong for me to sleep for 10 hours on work days (not getting up until the last minute to get to work on time) and sometimes even longer on days off from work. In fact, the other day, which was a day off from work, I slept for about 15 hours straight.
I don’t usually have to exert myself that much at all at work, but there is one problem that may be a factor; a high calcium level in my blood testing. My doctor had my parathyroid tested due to the calcium, but that came back normal.
Also, in November 2008 I remember inexplicably starting to have this problem. It seems like it just hit me out of no where. Before then, I used to be able to sleep for 8 hours and be quite well-rested.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
I know nothing about high calcium levels and Hyperparathyroidism (Wikipedia). About your oversleeping problem, it sounds like a motivational / emotional problem. Try to remember if there was some major change in your life on Nov ‘08. Do your best to follow my tips on this post and others and tell me how it works.
I am a cancer patient in recovery and am taking many pills related to my disease (including Ratio-Oxycocet).
Could pills such as the above be the cause of my oversleeping?
I am told that oversleeping may also be a long-term effect of chemo and radio…? How true is this ?
Sorry Charles, but I’m not a Doctor. Yet, it’s a known fact that a very common side effect of all sorts of pills is excessive tiredness. About the effect of “chemo and radio”, well, it sounds logical. That’s really all I can say.
I wish you a fast and complete recovery and the best of health.