A Syndrome Associated with Sleeping Late GORDON G. GLOBUS, MD A syndrome sometimes associated with sleeping late is identified in a student population. It is recognized as feelings of being worn-out, tired, lethargic, and irritable, with fuzzy thinking and difficulty in getting going. When it occurs, it tends to last for an average of 4.4 hr. This syndrome is particularly marked following sleep of 10 or more hr when the individual is not making up a sleep deficit. Under these conditions, the worn-out syndrome is more typical than feeling just great. These data suggest the testable hypothesis that optimal dura- tions of sleep fall into a relatively narrow band and that disruptive psycho- physiological effects are sustained with both too much and too little sleep. OLEEPING LATE is viewed in contradic- tory ways by American culture. On the one hand, sleeping for longer than usual is valued as something good in that it is refreshing, restorative, and fortifying. This value is held particularly by physi- cians, who as a group tend to complain about not having enough sleep, and thus may not be unbiased observers. On the other hand, in terms of the Protestant ethic, sleep is seen as a kind of waste, tolerable only in that it is necessary if one is to continue working productively. Persons who sleep late, the slug-a-heds, are considered lazy and slothful. They are exhorted to get up and go and re- minded that the early bird catches the worm. From the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, College of Medicine, Univer- sity of California Irvine, Irvine, Calif 92664, and Clinical Research Branch, Division of Extramural Research Programs, National In- stitute of Mental Health. Received for publication Dec 12, 1968; re- vision received May 9, 1969. Despite the burgeoning research ac- tivity in the area of sleep, little attention has been paid in the research laboratory to excessive sleep, making it impossible to choose between the contradictory values noted above. Verdone's study of long sleepers 1 was directed towards the analysis of sleep patterns and does not provide information as to whether ex- cess sleep is good or bad. Rechtschaffen and Roth have recently reported on hy- persomniacs. 2 They note in these persons that there is a postdormital confusion, and that they were difficult to arouse from sleep and continued to be drowsy, confused, and disoriented for as long as 1 or 2 hr following initial arousal. How- ever, these authors were concerned with a pathologic syndrome rather than the common, and in some groups, normative behavior of sleeping late. In any case, it is clear from these two studies, as well as that of Webb et al s of morning naps, that the electrophysiological pattern of 528