Judging by myself and my patients — not to mention the bags under the eyes of many of the people I meet each day — I’d say the biggest problem when it comes to sleep is that we don’t get nearly enough of it.

But believe it or not, it’s possible to go too far in the other direction as well. Like all good things, you can get way too much sleep — and too much sleep can be every bit as dangerous as too little.

One new study spells out the risks I’ve seen before: More than eight hours of sleep a night will boost your risk of chest pain and coronary artery disease.

Of course, the study also confirms that those of us who don’t get enough should hit the hay a little earlier — because less than six hours a night can double your risk of heart attack or stroke.

Too little sleep can also boost the odds of congestive heart failure by 70 percent, according to the study of more than 3,000 people ages 45 and up presented at a recent American College of Cardiology conference.

That means the sweet spot for sleep — for most people anyway — is between six and eight hours a night, or right around the seven nightly hours I’ve seen recommended from other studies.

One of those studies found that less than six and more than eight hours can boost the risk of cognitive problems. Too little sleep leads to problems in reasoning, vocabulary, and global cognition, while too much sleep can actually hurt up to six cognitive functions, according to British researchers.

Another study in 2010 looked at even more extreme levels of sleep, and found even more extreme results. Less than five hours a night doubles the risk of angina, heart disease, heart attack, or stroke — while nine or more boosts the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, and stroke.

What does this mean for you? Get the right amount of sleep, of course.

Just don’t turn to meds for help. Common sleep drugs can increase the risk of a number of health problems, up to and including death itself.

Some people are lucky enough to fall asleep the moment their head hits the pillow.

I’ve never been one of them, but I’ve never had to rely on sleep meds to get my rest, either, and that’s a good thing: The latest warning finds that these drugs come with one whopper of a death risk.

People who take them the most are 5.3 times more likely to die than people who don’t take them at all, according to a new look at data on nearly 35,000 people. As a “bonus,” sleeping pill users are also 35 percent more likely to get cancer.

You don’t even have to hit the pill bottle particularly hard to face a dramatic increase in the risk of death, because the researchers found that just 18 pills a year can make you 3.6 times more likely to die.

Since some 30 million Americans take these meds every single year, the researchers say their study suggests the annual death toll from these drugs is between 320,000 and 507,000 in the United States alone.

Compare that to the 443,000 U.S. deaths blamed on smoking each year, and that makes these drugs as bad as (or even worse than) cigarettes.

And that’s just crazy, since no one needs these drugs to get some sleep in the first place.

I asked Dr. Mark Stengler what’s keeping so many people up at night, and he said the answer can vary from person to person — but whatever the reason, most people can find a little short-term help in the form of melatonin.

He recommends the sublingual form of the so-called “sleep hormone.” And if you’re having trouble staying asleep, you’ll want to get a timed-release version so the melatonin keeps flowing throughout the night.

In addition, there are some natural herbs — include the classics like chamomile and passionflower — that can help you get the rest you need without the risks of meds.

But Dr. Stengler cautions that these aren’t cures so much as temporary fixes.

“Melatonin won’t necessarily treat a sleep problem,” he told me. “It’ll just help you get to sleep.”

He says the next step is working with your doctor to find the underlying cause of your nighttime woes — and once you fix that, you won’t need anything other than a comfortable pillow to get the rest you need.

Look at all the research on kids and sleep, and two things become clear quickly:

1) Kids don’t need as much as most of us think they do, and
2) They’re still not getting enough anyway.

One new study looked at 37 sleep guidelines for kids issued since 1897 along with more than 200 studies on how much nightly sleep kids have actually gotten during that time and found a few surprises.

The number of recommended hours of sleep has decreased over the years, and no matter what those hours are or how much they’ve decreased, kids always manage to get an average of 37 minutes less.

Anyone who’s ever sent a kid to bed at 8:00 in hopes he or she might actually arrive there by 8:30 (or even 8:37) knows how that is.

And even a century ago, people blamed technology for all those sleep-avoiding kids, according to the study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Once upon a time, it was that newfangled lightbulb. Today, it’s all the digital entertainment options kids have literally at their fingertips: videogames, text messages, music downloads and probably a few things we adults don’t even know about.

It’s bad news for many kids because too little sleep has been linked to any number of physical and mental issues in people of all ages — and in kids in particular, poor sleep has been connected to everything from obesity to low test scores.

But surprisingly, the sleep guidelines that have been issued over the years have been based on little to no actual science.

And while no one’s saying kids should be allowed to play videogames until dawn, a new look at data on 1,724 primary and secondary school students across the country finds that kids between 16 and 18 years old actually do better on less sleep.

Federal guidelines call for nine hours a night, but researchers found the kids with the highest test scores actually got around seven.

Younger kids, on the other hand, needed a little more: Between nine and 9.5 hours a night for 10-year-olds and between eight and 8.5 hours a night when they reach the age of 12, according to the study in Eastern Economics Journal.

Of course, research is one thing — but people are different. Some need more, some need less. If the child or grandchild in your life is tired all the time, they’re obviously not getting what they need.

And if they’re not studying when they’re awake, then even perfect sleep habits won’t boost the grades.

Ever watch someone with sleep apnea? It’s one of the most frightening — and unforgettable — things you’ll ever see.

One minute, the sleeper is snoring away. The next, nothing.

At first, you might be thankful for the quiet — until you realize the reason for that sudden silence: they’re not breathing.

Someone with apnea can go through dozens of breathless bouts per night and never even realize it — but in this case, what you don’t know can not only hurt you… it can kill you, too.

Apnea has been linked to everything from sexual dysfunction and metabolic syndrome to diabetes and heart disease — but now, researchers have confirmed that it’s not too late for people already fighting that nightly battle.

The standard mainstream treatment for apnea is an oxygen mask called CPAP, for continuous positive airway pressure. In a new study, 86 patients with moderate to severe apnea were assigned to either the real CPAP mask or a sham treatment.

After three months, the volunteers took a one-month break… then switched places for another three months.

When they got the real CPAP, the volunteers saw drops in blood pressure and cholesterol levels — including an average dip of nearly 20 points in dangerous triglycerides — as well as better control of their blood sugar levels.

More importantly, they also lost weight — and while most of the patients were battling metabolic syndrome at the start of the study, 13 percent no longer had the condition after the three months of CPAP, according to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But does all the credit go to that mask?

The researchers say they’re not sure — and I’m not either, because while CPAP can help get you through the night, the best way to beat apnea isn’t with oxygen — it’s with lifestyle changes.

And it starts with losing some weight — like the patients in this study managed to do. Studies have shown that even modest weight loss can end the apnea as well as slash your risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Lose that weight yourself, and you’ll not only look and feel better than you have in years — you’ll sleep better, too.