You only need to surf the internet a bit to find people complaining about the alleged excessive sleepiness that some women display.
However, what once seemed like mere laziness and/or lack of action can now be scientifically proven, as a study conducted in the United States indicated that women need sleep more than men.
Find out more about it in the topics below!
basis for this information
A study conducted by Duke University, in North Carolina in the United States, was responsible for proving that, yes, women need more sleep than men.
However, women don’t need more sleep just because they’re more tired than men or anything like that, but because their brains work differently and need more rest time.
The study, conducted in 2008, evaluated 210 men and women, and collected valuable information regarding the need for brain rest. One of the data collected by the sample indicates that women suffer more than men when they do not sleep properly.
“We found that for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with higher levels of psychological distress and an increased incidence of feelings such as hostility, stress and anger,” said Edward Suarez, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. who led the study.
Echoing Suarez, Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University, who reviewed the Duke study, succinctly explained the effects of sleep on the brain.
“One of the main functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself,” he began. “During deep sleep, the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain responsible for memory, language, etc. – shuts down from the senses and goes into recovery mode,” Jim continued.
“The more you use your brain during the day, the more it needs to recover, and therefore the more sleep you need. Women tend to multitask and therefore use their brains more than men. Because of this, the need for sleep is greater,” the specialist said.
More study details
In the study conducted by Duke University, it is still possible to verify some details that prove that, in fact, the female brain works differently from the male brain.
According to analysis by Jim Horn, women’s brains are “wired” differently. “Women’s brains are different from men’s brains and are more complex,” he said.
Regarding extra sleep, the expert also indicated the average amount. “The average is 20 minutes longer, but some women may need a little more or less than that,” he said.
Other factors that burden the female brain are:
- dual trips with work and home commitments;
- hormonal changes, such as those that occurred around the time of your period;
- Problems resulting from accumulated fatigue.
Although the average indicated an extra 20 minutes by experts, the correct rest for a woman should be at least an hour more than expected, jumping from 8 hours to 9 hours of sleep per day. That extra hour can make a huge difference to a woman’s health.
