Women are twice as likely to complain of insufficient and poor sleep as men, according to a number of questionnaire and interview studies of young to middle aged men and women. In addition, women report a greater need for sleep, greater daytime sleepiness, longer total sleep times, more trouble maintaining sleep, and greater consumption of sleeping tablets than men do, whereas men report than it takes them longer to fall asleep including my own husband, who complains an awful lot about his poor sleep and his difficulties falling asleep.

It is noteworthy, however, that women often attribute their poor sleep to psychological factors, and while men blame their sleep difficulties on work related issues. Other studies have examined sex differences in the architecture of sleep. It appears, according to a small number of studies, that a few sex differences in sleep architecture do exist. A relatively recent study demonstrated that slow wave sleep decrease at a later beginning to assess the influence of estrogen, progesterone, and other hormones on women’s sleep.

This article is focused on the sleep wake pattern changes that occur in many women over that course of their menstrual cycles. For example, recent research concludes that during menstruation women tend to get less restful sleep, and that after ovulation (i.e, when progesterone levels begin to increase) some women find it more difficult to fall asleep.

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