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All that Harjinder Sandhu wanted was more time with
her children.
To make more daytime hours for them, this
39-year-old mother of three worked nights as a nurse at a
convalescent center several miles from her home in Stanton, Calif.
Finishing her shift at dawn, she was sometimes too tired to drive
home and asked her husband to pick her up after work. But on a September morning last year, Sandhu
fell asleep at the wheel, veered into a light pole, and was killed
instantly. Sandhu’s accident is one of more than
100,000 caused annually by drivers who fall asleep at the wheel,
according to data from the Washington, D.C.-based National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration. In fact, 45 percent of U.S. women
are guilty of driving while drowsy, according to the
Washington-based National Sleep Foundation. Sleep experts say mounting evidence indicates
that American women are suffering from a lack of solid sleep. In
recent years, repeated studies have found that although women
average eight to 13 more minutes of sleep per night than men, the
quality of women’s sleep is much poorer. “Everyone expects women to be
caregivers, and this is making them lose precious sleep,”
says Dr. Joyce Walsleben, former director of the New York University School of Medicine Sleep
Disorders Center. “Women’s lack of sleep has become a
societal crisis bordering on a national health epidemic.”
Forty percent of American adults — more
than half of them women — have occasional difficulty
sleeping, and 15 percent suffer from insomnia, defined as
difficulty sleeping that causes significant impairment or stress,
according to the National Institutes of Health. A 2002 poll by the
National Sleep Foundation showed that women are more likely to have
symptoms of insomnia than men are (63 vs. 54 percent) and to suffer
more daytime sleepiness (20 vs. 13 percent). A 2004 poll by the Better Sleep Council, in
Alexandria, Va., found 26 percent of women have trouble sleeping at
least once a week, compared with 16 percent of men. Though 45
percent of women say they feel most refreshed after a good
night’s rest, only 16 percent are likely to sleep more to
improve their well-being.
Why do women have more interrupted sleep than
men do? Health experts say that biological and sociological factors
are both to blame. Research by the National Sleep Foundation
indicates that physical processes unique to women often result in
sleep deprivation. During menstruation, a significant number of
women have difficulty sleeping because of tender breasts (36
percent), headaches (28 percent), and cramps (28 percent). During
pregnancy, nearly 80 percent of women have sleep problems. During
menopause, 40 percent have interrupted sleep, most frequently as a
result of hot flashes. “In many of these cases, the problem is
tied to hormonal fluctuations,” says NYU’s Walsleben.
“Decreases in estrogen and progesterone before the menstrual
cycle can cause sleep deprivation, and after menopause the drop in
estrogen can have the same effect.”
Researchers say women may also suffer from
sleep disturbances because child-rearing has programmed them to
doze lightly.
A 2003 study from Penn State College of
Medicine, in Hershey, Pa., indicated that women function better
under sleep deprivation than do men, possibly their way of adapting
to the “profound demands of infant and child care placed on
them for most of mankind’s history.” A 2002 study from
the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that a
baby’s cries wake a woman sooner than they do a man. On top of these physical differences come
psychological ones. In waking life, say sociologists, women tend
to take more responsibility for household issues than men do. In
the recent Better Sleep Council survey, women said the that No. 1
factor keeping them up nights was family worries. In waking life, women earn 76 cents to the
dollar earned by men, reports the Washington, D.C.-based Institute
for Women’s Policy Research. In the recent sleep survey,
women’s No. 2 reason for losing sleep was worry over
financial issues. The Better Sleep Foundation also reports that
women are less likely than men to say that they never lose sleep
because of stress (30 vs. 41 percent). Sleep experts say that though it may be
normal for women have more interrupted sleep than men, it’s
dangerous for them to continue averaging an hour-and-a-half less
sleep than they need. In recent years, a flurry of studies have
shown that short-term sleep deprivation can lower a woman’s
glucose tolerance, increase her blood pressure, interfere with her
ability to concentrate, and contribute to excess drinking, even
during pregnancy. A 2003 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that long-term sleep deprivation can boost a
woman’s risk for coronary heart disease and that women who
get five hours of sleep a night are 40 percent more likely to have
heart problems than those who sleep eight hours. Health experts say poor sleep may help
explain why women are more likely to pack on extra pounds than men
are. In 2004, researchers at Columbia University in New York found
that people who sleep two to four hours are 73 percent more likely
to be obese than those who sleep eight hours and that those who
sleep five hours are 50 percent more likely to be obese. Authorities say a lack of sleep may also help
explain women’s increased risk for depression, which, the
National Institutes of Health reports, is twice as common in women
as men. “The link between insomnia and
depression is complex,” said Dr. Rachel Manber, director of
the insomnia program at the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic at
Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. “It most likely goes
in both directions, with each one affecting and contributing to the
other.”
Sleep experts estimate that our national
sleep deficit costs Americans $100 billion annually in lost
productivity, medical expenses, and property damage. “Telling women to keep regular hours
and establish a sleep pattern is important,” says Walsleben,
“but to really help women we need to address the larger
issues that keep them up nights. Women need more money for their
work. They need more stable home lives. Just as women need to make
sleep a priority, society needs to make women a priority so they
can finally get the rest they deserve.”
This article appears in Jan 4-10, 2007.
