Do Women Need More Sleep Than Men?
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You’ve probably heard that eight hours of sleep each night is ideal.
But TikTokers are calling it into question, saying the advice is rooted in research on men. “Us girlies need nine to 10 — minimum,” Alexa Simpson, who uses the TikTok handle @alexasimpson34 (218.6K followers), said in a video she posted. “Who has time for that?”
The video brought in nearly 945,000 likes and 8,742 comments, mostly from women who felt validated. “No wonder I’m still tired even tho I try to sleep 7-8hrs every night,” one follower posted.
But sleep experts say that when it comes to sleep duration needs, the difference between men and women from night to night is minimal.
Indeed, according to Shelby Harris, PsyD, a clinical psychologist in White Plains, New York, who is certified in behavioral sleep medicine, the notion that women require hours more sleep than men is “totally and completely untrue.”
Here’s what science does say — and doesn’t — about sleep differences between men and women.
How Much More Sleep Do Women Really Need?
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The guidelines don’t differentiate sleep needs by gender or sex.
The data (collected between 2003 and 2007) showed that women reported sleeping, on average, about eight hours and 27 minutes a night while men got closer to eight hours and 16 minutes — a statistically significant, but small, difference of about 11 minutes.
But that gap fluctuated across ages, and the study authors say they are mostly explained by work and family responsibilities and “gendered time tradeoffs.” For example, men spent more time working outside the home and on leisure activities than women. And women were more likely to nap (which, the authors posit, is less stigmatized among women) and report interruptions at night — especially if they had young kids.
The study authors suggested therefore that men may be more likely to use their extra waking hours (or in this case minutes) to work and play, while women may be logging more hours in bed, but doing so to compensate for more fragmented sleep.
“The gender gap in sleep time favoring women is relatively small for most comparisons and should be considered in light of the gender gap in leisure time favoring men at all life course stages,” the study authors wrote.
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And, keep in mind, this study is based on people’s self-reported sleep duration. It captures how much sleep people say they get — not how much they need.
Unfortunately, there’s no good way to study the latter (yet), says Michael Grandner, PhD, a clinical psychologist who directs the sleep and health research program at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Even if researchers isolated people and allowed them to sleep as much as they wanted until their patterns stabilized, that number wouldn’t necessarily translate to their real-world sleep needs, he says.
“We have no idea how much sleep people need in general, and also — need for what?” Dr. Grandner says. “For example, how much sleep you need to maintain consciousness across the day might be different from the amount of sleep you need to have an optimally functioning immune system — which might be different from what you need for ideal mental health.”
You have to experiment to find your own sweet spot in the context of your life and goals, regardless of gender, he says.
Do Women Really Use More of Their Brains Than Men (and Therefore Require More Sleep)?
Another idea circulating on TikTok is that women need more sleep than men because they “use more of their brains” during the day, per @nicole.bendayan (825.2K followers). The video claimed that women’s “brains are wired differently” and they “tend to multitask a lot more,” therefore requiring more sleep. The post attracted 2.7M views and thousands of comments.
“I didn’t need extensive research to tell me we use our brains more than men,” one commenter wrote.
But there’s no research, in fact, supporting this belief, experts say.
“From an evolutionary standpoint, multitasking is more ingrained for women because of the caretaker role, and so I do think women are better at multitasking more generally,” says Annie Miller, a licensed therapist at DC Metro Sleep and Psychotherapy in Cabin John, Maryland. But the idea that women need more sleep because of this is a leap research has yet to confirm — or deny.
As Grandner puts it: “We all use 100 percent of our brains all the time.”
Other Gender Differences in Sleep
While it’s unclear whether women need more sleep than men and, if so, exactly why, it is clear that sleep differences exist across genders.
Differences in Incidence of Sleep Disorders
Women may also be more prone to delayed diagnoses and misdiagnoses in part due to stereotypes that persist even among medical professionals themselves, says Emma Cooksey, a patient advocate who serves on the board of Project Sleep and is the host of the podcast Sleep Apnea Stories.
Cooksey struggled with excessive daytime sleepiness, anxiety, depression, and morning headaches throughout her twenties, but clinicians chalked it up to a stressful job, then pregnancy, then new motherhood. It wasn’t until Cooksey fell asleep at the wheel with her baby in the car at age 30 that doctors took her seriously and diagnosed her with sleep apnea.
“I had a lot of relief that I had answers, but I also felt a lot of annoyance and anger at all the medical professionals I’d seen for 10 years who had missed this,” says Cooksey, who’s now 46 years old and living in Saint Augustine, Florida.
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Differences in Symptoms of Sleep Disorders and Sleep-Related Problems
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Differences Due to Menstruation, Pregnancy, and Menopause
Hormones govern the sleep-wake cycle. “[So], there are many stages throughout life, from the beginning of menstruation to pregnancy to perimenopause to menopause, that can impact sleep,” Harris says. “Changes in estrogen and progesterone, as well as psychological and physical stressors like pregnancy and childbirth all influence sleep.”
Hormonal changes can also contribute to symptoms that affect sleep.
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