Have you noticed that your husband or even your sons tend to have more energy when they get up, or that they get up before you? Perhaps this has an answer from the hand of science: Women tend to require more sleep than men because of their more “complex” brains, according to recent research.
Why do women need more sleep than men?
Scientists discovered that about 20 minutes more sleep is what a woman usually needs compared to a man, according to the scientists, this may be due to the woman’s brain being exposed to greater stress and work during the day. The study was carried out in a cluster that included 210 middle-aged men and women.
” One of the main functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself ,” said study author Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University.
Increased brain activity, longer recovery time
During deep sleep, the cortex (the part of the brain responsible for memory, thought, language, among other functions) is detached from the senses and enters recovery mode. The amount of sleep is necessary according to the complexity and intensity of the brain activity to which it has been exposed during the day. The more the brain is used during the day, the more it needs to recover, and as a result, sleep will last longer.
Women tend to multitask (they tend to have different tasks and these are done at the same time, because their way of processing information makes them more flexible) this excessive use of the brain differentiates them from men (although there are always exceptions are mentioned as generalities). But this may be the main reason why women need more sleep than men .
” The average is 20 minutes longer, but some women may need more or less than this .” They point to the data produced by this study.
However, he said that men who have complex jobs that involve a great deal of ” decision making and lateral thinking ” are also likely to need more sleep than the average man.
However, women’s brains are wired differently from men’s and they are more complex, so their need for sleep will be slightly higher than men’s, on average overall.
The average adult needs between six and eight hours of sleep at night, but individual needs can be very different, while for some people 6 hours of sleep may be sufficient, there are others who need 8 hours or more if they want to perform intellectually and physically at the same time. another day.
The study also found that poor sleep among women was linked to a number of side effects. Increased levels of psychological distress and heightened feelings of nervousness, depression, and anger are all found in women who slept poorly, however, not in men who also suffered from insomnia or sleep problems. Read more information in Daily mail online (English)