Am I sleeping too much?

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I've tried looking this up, but all I can find about Asperger's and sleeping is advice about children* who sleep too little.
I tend to find that I sleep a lot for an adult, about 10 hours as standard, but very often up to 12 hours when I have had to spend time socialising with a lot of people or had sensory overload (after work, going out on a sunny day, etc)
Usual in this case I get very vivid dreams, talk, shout and curse about unconnected things in my sleep, and move about a lot. I don't get very good quality sleep when this happens.

Is this normal after sensory overload? Also, is 10 hours normal otherwise for someone on the spectrum?
It's frustrating that all I can find is about people having trouble getting to sleep.

*Also, why is it that advice and information that is of use to all ages always addressed to the parents of children? It very much frustrates me and turns me off the information. Surely it would be better to not be specific about the age of the person in question?

Thank you for reading.

I think it's rather common for people with AS to need either less than average sleep or more than average. I, like you, also need around 10 hours. Anything less and I feel exhausted. Early mornings are the hardest thing for me to deal with... I can't stand it. People always think I'm being lazy or whatever.

I usually need around 9 - 10 hours of sleep a night; but do have a condition which causes chronic tiredness.

I seem to remember that the average adult sleeps 8 - 10 hours a night.

sleep can also be averaged over the week, I get the impression that the 8 hours a night is itself an average. I tend to get 5-6 hours a night, but then catch up a few more hours over the weekend. This probably averages back to 7 hours a night.

Jason

It sounds like you have a mild type of hypersomnia, if your looking to put a label on it.
It's bad if you get any sleep that does not feel "normal" for you. I find I need hours more sleep than everyone I know. And, I've heard that people on the spectrum have abnormal melatonin production; might be most of why our sleep is the way it is.

University of Warwick and the Federico II University medical school:
"Whilst short sleep may represent a cause of ill health, long sleep is believed to represent more an indicator of ill health,"

I think the amount of sleep a person needs varies from person to person. I have heard the figure 6 to 8 hours sleep talked about, but there are some who need less and some who need more. Ultimately, I think your body is a better indicator of how much you should sleep than a clock.

Adults need 8-9 hours of sleep. But you should not get more than 10 hours of sleep generally (unless you are catching up on sleep from the night before). Lots of the time people say yeah I get 5 hours of sleep each night because I have grown used to it. Very ffew people need more or less than normal and your body can not learn to be okay with less sleep than it needs. Your mind will think it is okay with less sleep but it is not.

How long I sleep depends on what I have been dooing that day. Some days I sleep 2-3 hours others I sleep 8-10 hours. Now if I get compeltly overloaded and meltdown I have sleept up to 20 hours.

I need at least nine, and I get more on the weekends. I get really tired, especially when I've been around people a lot.

I sleep around 10-12 per day. Feel exhausted if I don't.

5-6 hours normally. If I sleep much longer than that I end up being exhausted all day, and any less I just collapse before even getting out of my room. Sometimes I get really focused on stuff though and forget to sleep.

Before the light bulb was invented, people got an average of ~10hrs of sleep a night. Ponder that next time you go a full week on 8hrs of sleep and a few cans of red bull!

I am now 18 and sleep from 5 to 6 hours a night. When I was younger I slept close to 8 hours during the school year, and around 10 hours during the summer when school was out. Now if I sleep 8 hours or more I feel like there's a ton of weights pushing down on me when I get up. I tend to feel better with less sleep. But, I do have to sleep around 8 hours at least once a week to counter act the 5 to 6 hours I go on the rest of the week. I can't seem to get to sleep before midnight. I will hop in bed around 11:30 and lay there tossing around trying to get comfortable to get to sleep. But I often struggle to get to sleep. I have literally tried counting sheep, but that gives me anxiety because those sheep get very noisy in my mind. What I have been doing the past few nights after going to bed is to put my hand on my chest and count heartbeats. For some reason I find that makes me sleepy. I just count them and the repetition seems to work for me. I rarely count a thousand heartbeats before I'm asleep.

I'm going to posit that the statistics that are being quoted (adults need 7-8 hours of sleep per night) are probably based on healthy, non autistic adults.

And I think that makes a huge difference.

Now, I can't say much about everyone whose got ASD and how much they should be sleeping. That study (so far as I know) hasn't been done yet. What I can say say is that unless the lack or excess of sleep has become a problem in someone's life, or they have other symptoms indicating an energy or heath challenge, then they should sleep as many hours as they need to feel rested.

I've had atypical hypersomnia for most of my life. For months I will fall asleep very quickly, then suddenly be up thinking half the night, totally unable to get to sleep. I tend to sleep for 9.5 hours, but when I've been very depressed, stressed out, or experiencing excessive social demands, I will totally sleep for 12-14 hours a day.

I won't say that it is normal to sleep 12 hours a day, but I think that it is important to remember that Aspies are not "normal" in many ways, and so long as they are getting rest, and are happy with their sleep schedule, then I reckon that what is "normal" isn't all that important.