Why Women Get Less Restorative Sleep Than Men

Women get less restorative sleep than men because of their lifestyles and caregiving roles. They sleep less and wake up more often. A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports experimented on mice to find the sleep difference in men and women. “While the caregiving role interferes with a woman’s sleep, biological factors may also play an important role in sleep differences,” said Rachel Rowe, assistant professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US.

Gender Differences in Sleep

Many research and animal studies have explored how insufficient sleep impacts the risk of diseases like diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, and immune disorders. Having these diseases may also have an impact on sleep.

The researchers used specialized cages lined with ultrasensitive movement sensors to analyze the sleep patterns of 267 "C57BL/6J" mice. They found that male mice slept for 11 hours in 24 hours and one hour more than the female mice.

The one-hour extra sleep was non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep which is the restorative sleep required by the body to repair itself. The female mice had short and disrupted sleep.

Hormones and Sleep Patterns

The study was also conducted on other animals including fruit flies, rats, zebrafish, and birds which showed the same results in females.

“Females are born with a nature of sensitivity to their environment and are aroused when needed because they take care of their young ones’” said Rowe. stress hormones like cortisol and sex hormones can also have a role in promoting wakefulness. The team hopes for more research to understand the underlying biological differences that can boost sleep treatment.

Advertisement

Source-Medindia