Apparently, women actually need more sleep than men – and not getting enough shut-eye causes worse health problems in women too.
Professor Jim Horne, director of Loughborough University’s Sleep Research Centre, said that ‘for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with high levels of psychological distress and greater feelings of hostility, depression, and anger’.
‘In contrast, these feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in men.’
Prof Horne has also explained that women’s brains are more complex than men’s. ‘Women’s brains are wired differently from men’s and are more complex, so their sleep need will be slightly greater,’ he said.
‘The more of your brain you use during the day, the more of it that needs to recover and, consequently, the more sleep you need.
‘Women tend to multi-task – they do lots at once and are flexible – and so they use more of their actual brain than men do.
‘Because of that, their sleep need is greater.’
But there is a small exception.
‘A man who has a complex job that involves a lot of decision making and lateral thinking may also need more sleep than the average male,’ Prof Horne added.
‘Though probably still not as much as a woman.’
