Women Need More Sleep Than Men Because Their Brains Work Harder

Sleep in the name of science! Women need more Zzz’s than men because their brains are more complex, a new study from England’s Loughborough University reveals.

“For women, poor sleep is strongly associated with high levels of psychological distress and greater feelings of hostility, depressions, and anger,” professor Jim Horne, director of the university’s Speech Research Center, told Metro UK. “In contrast, these feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in men.”

According to Horne, the reason why women are more heavily impacted by a lack of sleep is because their brains are called upon to perform more complicated tasks on a daily basis.

“Women’s brains are wired differently from men’s and are more complex, so their sleep need will be slightly greater,” he said. “The more of your brain you use during the day, the more of it that needs to recover and, consequently, the more sleep you need.”

Horne added that women tend to multitask more often, which also involves more stressors on the brain.
Though there are men who perform complex jobs that involve “a lot of decision making and lateral thinking,” Horne said, the amount of sleep they need is “probably still not as much as a woman.”