Women track nocturnal disturbances more accurately than men, new data show

Women are more likely than men to report poor sleep, even though objective measures show their sleep is better in many ways, according to new research from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“It’s a paradox, but we found a possible explanation for why sleep quality is perceived so differently by men and women,” says Torbjörn Åkerstedt, emeritus professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute.

The researchers investigated differences in sleep between men and women, in terms of both objective measures and perceived sleep quality. 238 women and 238 men in Sweden, aged 29-85, recorded their sleep at home overnight using polysomnography, a method that measures brain activity, breathing and movements during sleep. The next morning, participants rated their sleep quality.

The results were published in the journal sleep advances, reveal a clear pattern. On average, women rated their sleep quality as poorer than men, even though objective measurements showed they slept better. Among other things, women had fewer awakenings per hour, longer total sleep time, higher sleep efficiency, and deeper sleep than men.

Gender differences in memory

The women estimated the number of times they woke up during the night much more accurately than the men, who underestimated how often they woke up. On average, men spent less time awake each time they woke up. Men with short awakenings generally rated their sleep quality as good, while women generally rated their sleep quality as poorer, regardless of the duration of their awakenings.

When the researchers excluded men with brief, barely noticeable awakenings from the analyses, the difference in self-reported sleep quality between the sexes disappeared.

Our results suggest that men’s more positive view of their sleep may be partly because they do not perceive or remember brief awakenings during the night as well as women. However, we still don’t know why this is happening.”

Torbjörn Åkerstedt, Karolinska Institutet

The differences increased with age

The study also shows that differences in sleep between men and women become more pronounced with age. At older ages, men experienced less deep sleep and more awakenings per hour, while women’s objective sleep worsened to a lesser extent. At the same time, women continued to report poorer sleep quality than men.

A limitation of the study is that sleep was measured over a single night and does not necessarily reflect long-term sleep patterns.

The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Stockholm University and Uppsala University. Funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation. The researchers report no conflict of interest.