Too much sleep?

There was a time, not too long ago when i couldn't get enough sleep.  It was  a constant struggle almost every night of the week.  When should I turn the TV off or when was it time to leave the bar...There was always a lingering feeling that i was going to miss out on a precious minute of sleep.  On average i was asleep around 11:30 and snoozing it by 6:00 which all too often turned into a marathon snoozing session.  Well, things have changed.  All of the pressures to get to sleep are gone and i now get a solid 9 hours of sleep a night (roll eyes here, but at least you have a job).  One of the things i find interesting is that i have been going to sleep at the same time i just don't have a daunting alarm waking me up.  Everyone has experienced this...you wake up early, it's still dark and you slowly look at the alarm clock hoping you have at least a couple hours left to sleep before the dreaded alarm goes off.  In my case, i have to reach for the alarm clock and bring it as close to my face as possible to see the time (I'm blind as a bat without my contacts in).  And what do you see?  Oh yeah, 10 minutes until the alarm is going to be blaring.  Well, here's the interesting thing.  I have been feeling just as tired even though i'm getting more sleep.  

So, the question stands.  Is there such thing as too much sleep?  Do you ever feel more tired after getting 9, 10 or 11 hours of sleep?  Well, counter intuitive to what you might think, studies do show that you can have too much sleep.  What is considered too much sleep is different for each person (no surprise there).   If you can get 8 hours of sleep a night your in good shape.   7 is decent too.  The key is consistency.  Your body (as everyone can probably attest to) learns when it should get up.  So good luck all of you trying to manage a fun social life or intense TV schedule AND work.  It's tough but doable.  

Second thought of the night...Studies show that children need more sleep than adults.  And even more importantly, children's sleep schedules are different than adults.  The bodies of children and teens naturally will stay awake later and want to wake up later.  Knowing this, why do we as a society force high school students to wake up in an unnatural time?  Shouldn't we do everything we can to optimize their learning at that age?  Why not rotate school hours a little, maybe making it start at 9:30 or 10:00?  I understand that there are plenty of logistical problems like daylight for sports or coordinating with parents work schedules but the goal of school should be learning, Period.