We all know the dangers that come with sleep deprivation, but have you ever wondered whether the opposite – sleeping too much – was having an effect on your physical well-being?

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Well it’s not good news according to the experts, because eye doctors have this week warned that over-sleeping could cause you to go blind.

Research by doctor Rahul N. Khurana at the Northern California Retina Vitreous Associates finds that sleeping more than eight hours a night can lead to macular degeneration — the leading cause for blindness in the UK.

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It also leaves you seven times more likely to suffer from geographic atrophy; the advanced stages of the condition.

One silver lining is that going blind is a completely painless experience, though I guess that’s little consolation.

Dr Khurana surveyed 1003 patients with and without macular degeneration and assessed their sleep patterns before publishing his findings.

He says:

The mean sleep duration for patients without AMD was 7.97 hours, compared with 8.17 hours, 9.00 hours, and 8.97 hours, respectively, for those with early AMD, neovascular AMD, and geographic atrophy.

The altered sleep patterns illustrate another morbidity that patients with AMD suffer from, and merit further investigation.

Another thing worth noting is that sleeping face-down on your pillow could also lead to sight loss as it stops a fluid in your eye called aqueous humour from draining properly. In fact from all the things I’ve read it sounds like the only healthy way to sleep is flat on your back, which (for me at least) is the most impossible way to sleep.

It’s shitty news to say the least, especially as I was planning a mega lie-in this weekend. And they say nobody sleeps better than white people — not after reading this.