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Long hours of sleep might be risky, leading to early mortality, reports scienceworldreport.

People who face the danger of early death include those who sleep for longer than nine hours a night, those who sit for more than seven hours a day or even people who exercise for less than 150 minutes every week, according to researchers at The University of Sydney.

"When you add a lack of exercise into the mix, you get a type of 'triple whammy' effect," said Dr. Melody Ding, study author and senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, according to The Daily Mail.

"Our study shows that we should really be taking these behaviors together as seriously as we do risk factors such as levels of drinking and unhealthy eating patterns."

Scientists probed the lifestyles of 231,0481 Australians who were above 45. They first filled out a lifestyle survey for baseline data, and then recorded behaviour that was known to increase sensitivity to disease, which included "smoking, excess drinking, poor diet and being physically inactive".

The researchers observed that many unhealthy sleeping habits, such as sleeping too less, along with smoking and drinking could increase the risk of early death by four times. Too little exercise and too much sleep, or too little exercise along with too much sitting, smoking and drinking also exposed one to early death.

"The take-home message from this research - for doctors, health planners and researchers - is that if we want to design public health programs that will reduce the massive burden and cost of lifestyle-related disease we should focus on how these risk factors work together rather than in isolation," concluded study co-author Professor Adrian Bauman, in a news release.

Scientists explained that the non-communicable diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer tend to fell more than 38 million people around the world, leading to more deaths than infectious diseases. It is important to understand the fatal combinations that can lead one to death.

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.