Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
It's important to know how much sleep you should be getting daily. If your gender affects this, you need to know before you set up your sleep schedule.
There are many ways science has shown that the bodies of men and women have different needs.
For example, men tend to need more calories and different nutrients when they are going through puberty than women do.
On the other hand, women need a different set of nutrients to handle their reproductive cycles most effectively.
Today, you'll learn more about why sleep matters, who needs to get the most sleep, ways to ensure you are getting enough sleep every night.
How Much Sleep Does a Man and Woman Need?
How much sleep do we really need to get each night?
According to the National Sleep Foundation, the recommendations for how much sleep people need to get daily should be broken down into age groups for the best clarity.
Our sleep needs change as we age, so this is the easiest way to understand how much sleep is usually needed by people of a certain age.- zero to three months old: 14 to 17 hours
- four to 11 months old: 12 to 15 hours
- one to two years old: 11 to 14 hours
- three to five years old: 10 to 13 hours
- six to 13 years old: 9 to 11 hours
- 14 to 17 years old: 8 to 10 hours
- 18 to 64 years old: 7 to 9 hours
- 65 or more years old: 7 to 8 hours
These guidelines are based on the average amount of sleep for these categories.
Every individual may handle more or less sleep, but this range is a good baseline to use to judge how much sleep you need to get.
Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
It has been suggested that women need to get more sleep than men to be healthy; is this true?
Researchers have pointed out that women need to get about 20 more minutes of sleep, on average, than men need to get.
At the base level, this can be accounted to the fact that women have been shown to use a higher percentage of their brains throughout the day, and that can lead to a higher need for sleep to recover fully.
Why Do Females Need More Sleep Than Males?
Now that you know that women, on average, need a little bit more sleep than men, you might be curious about why this is.
Women often do not get enough sleep during the night because they tend to be interrupted more than men while sleeping.
Problems like pregnancy and menstrual cycles can cause difficulty sleeping, and women are also more likely to be woken up by their children for assistance than men are.
Why does this matter so much? It's because of the following reasons:
Multi-Tasking
The primary reason why women need more sleep than men is that their brains function differently on some levels.
Women are, for example, more likely to multitask during the day than men are.
Multi-tasking requires more brain areas to be active at one time, which can cause a higher need for the recovery that sleep gives the brain.
Hormonal Disruption
Another reason why women need more sleep than men is that women are more likely to suffer from the problems caused by sleep deprivation than men are.
In particular, women have been shown to have a higher risk of psychological problems from a lack of sleep than men are.
Additionally, women are more likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, and depression than men are if they do not get enough sleep.
Scientists believe that the risk of these problems increases more for women than men because the hormonal cycles of women are more complex.
When sleep doesn’t normally happen for women, it can cause their entire hormonal system to be out of wack.
This causes their bodies to suffer from a large number of problems.
How to Get More Sleeping Hours
The National Sleep Foundation has made a number of recommendations for how to improve the sleep that you are getting each night, including:
- Getting regular exercise.
- Setting a routine bedtime as well as a wake-up time.
- Limiting daily caffeine and alcohol intake.
- Improving your sleep environment with sleep aids, such as sleep masks.
By ensuring that you are doing these things, you can improve the sleep that you are getting, and problems like insomnia will become less frequent.
Sleep hygiene is essential and setting up a sleep routine will make it easier than ever before to get a good night of sleep consistently.
Does What Gender Needs More Sleep Matter?
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what gender needs more sleep.
The most important thing is that you, as an individual, can get enough sleep.
The ideal amount of sleep varies from person to person, regardless of their age and gender.
Age and gender guidelines are useful as a starting point, but it is up to you to determine how much sleep you actually need.
You can determine if you are getting enough sleep by tracking your sleep habits and then asking yourself some important questions, such as:
- Do you feel productive and well-rested on seven hours of sleep, or do you need more than that?
- Are you at risk for any diseases that could require your body to get more sleep to lower that risk?
- Do you do a lot of physical activity during the day that your body needs to recover from at night?
- Do you ever feel sleepy or uncoordinated during the day because you cannot focus properly?
- Do you have trouble sleeping?
- Do you rely on caffeine or other stimulants to keep you awake and alert throughout the day?
- Do you sleep significantly more on free days than you do on workdays?
By answering these questions, you should be able to get a better idea of how well-rested you are, how much sleep works for you, and what you might be lacking.
If you are struggling to answer these questions or determine what it means for your health, consider talking with your doctor or a sleep specialist.
With their help, you can make sure that you are getting enough rest.
Who Needs More Sleep Men Or Women: The Conclusion
Do women need more sleep than men do, or is that a statistic that isn’t very important?
While science does show that men generally need about 20 minutes less sleep than women do, the most important thing is that individuals learn to address their own sleep needs.
Every body is different; your body may need more sleep than others’ bodies that are the same gender as you.
Once you realize how much sleep you need, make sure you are taking the necessary measures to make getting that much sleep easier.
As long as you are resting deeply, you should be able to get all the sleep you need each night!