Women Sleep Better If They are Married

Researchers are suggesting that the key to a good night's sleep for a woman is to get married

Researchers are suggesting that the key to a good night's sleep for a woman is to get married.

According to a research abstract that will be presented today at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, being stably married or gaining a partner is associated with better sleep in women than being unmarried or losing a partner.

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During the eight years of the study, results showed that women who were stably married or who had gained a partner had better sleep than women who were unmarried or who had lost a partner over the course of the study follow-up.

According to the study's lead author, Wendy Troxel, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, women who were stably married had the highest quality sleep measured objectively and subjectively, and these results persisted even after controlling for other known risk factors for sleep, including age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and depressive symptoms.

"Women who had 'gained' a partner over the eight years of the study had similar subjective sleep quality as compared to the stably married women; however, after looking at specific objective sleep measurements we discovered that these women had more restless sleep than the always married women," said Troxel.

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"We speculate that these findings may reflect a 'newlywed effect' or simply the fact that these women may be less adjusted to sleeping with their partner than the 'stably married' women," the expert added.

To reach the conclusion, the study gathered data from 360 middle-aged African American, Caucasian, and Chinese women drawn from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, with a mean age of 51 years.

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Participants reported their current relationship status at annual visits. In-home polysomnographic (PSG) sleep studies were conducted over three successive nights 6 to 8 years after baseline. Subjects also wore wrist activity monitors, which provide a behavioral measure of sleep-wake patterns, for approximately one month.

Researchers examined the association between women's relationship histories and their sleep by analyzing the sleep differences between women who were stably married, stably unmarried, or those who experienced a relationship transition (gaining or losing a partner) over the study follow-up period.

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Source-ANI
RAS