A Sleep in America poll of all adults revealed that women have more difficulty falling and staying asleep than men. This also means that they experience more daytime sleepiness at least a few nights or days a week. Women take longer to fall asleep than men and pose a rather indistinctive symptoms than men. This is due to the biological and physiological characteristic present in women. Some contributing factors for why women sleep differently are believed to be sex chromosomes, hormonal and physical changes, estrogen influence on our body, and biological conditions like menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause. Pregnant women doubled the risk factor for RLS compared to women who have never given birth and men.
Nearly half of women struggle to get to sleep at night
Although women generally go to bed at a sensible time compared to men, 46% of women were complaining that they have trouble sleeping every night. This was according to several clinical studies gathered by Neurology Medlink and from several respected contributors. Aside from dealing with menstrual cycle, postpartum, menopause and pregnancy. Women are more resistant to high altitude periodic breathing than men and 10% of pregnant women are diagnosed with having restless leg syndrome. Another unaddressed problem is the diagnosis of sleep disorders in women. Sleep disorders in women are said to be under-recognized, misdiagnosed and mistreated. This should be communicated accurately without gender bias.
When women can’t sleep it can effect them in more ways than one
When a woman suffers from poor sleep quality compared to men, and is at higher risk for breast cancer, miscarriage and infertility, then the need to include these unique psychosocial issues into research should be prioritized. But how much sleep do we really need? These are the kind of questions I hear from my friends and family. What the research says though is that there is no magic number. But there’s no doubt that nobody wants to have their sleep disturbed by nervous leg disorder, man or woman.