Women are more likely than men to say they sleep poorly, even though sleep tests show they often sleep better, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet.
"It's a paradox, but we have found a possible explanation for why sleep quality is perceived so differently by men and women," commented Torbjörn Åkerstedt, professor emeritus at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.
Researchers at Stockholm University and Uppsala University studied the sleep of 238 women and 238 men in Sweden, aged 29 to 85. Participants spent one night sleeping at home while their sleep was monitored using polysomnography, a method that records brain activity, breathing, and body movements during sleep. The next morning, they were asked to rate their sleep quality. Analyses were also adjusted for factors such as gender, age and alcohol consumption and smoking, which may affect sleep.
The findings, published in the journal Sleep Advances, showed that women generally reported worse sleep than men. However, the sleep recordings told a different story. Women had fewer awakenings during the night, slept longer overall, had better sleep efficiency, and spent more time in deep sleep compared with men.
The study also found that women were more accurate in estimating how often they woke up during the night. Men tended to underestimate the number of times they were awake. On average, men's awakenings were shorter, and those brief interruptions had little effect on how they rated their sleep. Women, however, were more likely to rate their sleep as poor regardless of how long they were awake.
"A key reason women may complain of having a worse nights' sleep than they objectively had may therefore be the amount of time they spent awake when they woke up, making it easier for them to notice. Likewise, men may overestimate their sleep quality because they've spent less time awake when they've woken up, so they don't remember it happening," Åkerstedt explained.
The researchers further noted that sleep differences became more noticeable with age. Older men experienced less deep sleep and more frequent awakenings, while women's sleep quality declined less over time. Even so, women continued to report poorer sleep than men.
However, one limitation of the study is that sleep was measured for only one night, which may not accurately reflect a person's usual sleep habits.
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