This is a bit unbelievable to say, but the science has confirmed that women have more complex brains than men, suggesting that they need more sleep. The director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, professor Jim Horne, has a very specific explanation on the subject of sleeping.
According to him, for the women, the poor sleep is tightly associated with the high levels of psychological distress and a great feeling of depression, anger and hostility. These feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in the men. The professor has a specific explanation on the importance of sleeping. He also wrote a book on this particular subject.
One of the main reasons we get some sleep is to let our brain recover and repair itself. During the sleep, the cortex, the part of the brain which is responsible for the thought memory, language and so on – disengages from all the other senses and goes into a mode of recovery.
The more you use your brain during the day, the more it needs to recover during the night. Consequently, you need more and more sleep. Women as we are all aware of, tend to multitask, they are very flexible and can do a lot of stuff at the same time, and thus they use more of their actual brain than the men do. This is why they require more sleep during the night than men.
The man who has a complex job which involves a lot of decision making and lateral thinking may also need a bit more sleep than the average sleep time required for an optimal function of the brain and the body, but it is still not even close to what the women need. This is all because the brains of the men and the brains of the women are wired differently, making the women more complex, which requires a better and more sleep. Even though the average is only 20 minutes more, some women may need a bit more than this.
Women also need more sleep than just eight hours
We are fully aware that the recommended sleeping time should be about 8 hours, and usually 7 hours will do just the trick too, but professor Horne explains that because the brain of the women is wired differently from the brain of the men, their sleep needs to be a big longer.
Unlike men, the women are used to multitasking, exposing their brains to more complex situations and activities. This all means that the brain of a woman needs more time to recover completely in order to fully and optimally function the following day. But what happens to the tired men? Well, the professor further explains how even though there are some men that are involved in hard decision making at their work places, they still don’t need that much time for their brains to recover like the women do.
Want to improve the quality of your sleep?
If you are seeking a way how to improve your sleeping time, there are a lot of ways you can achieve that. Just make note that these tips will not work for each and every one of you, because we are all different.
- Routine sleep – set a sleeping routine so that your brain would recognize the need to slow down a bit and relax. This will get you to sleep much better at night.
- Avoid stimulating foods – some foods may act as a stimulant, and you need to make sure you avoid them before going to sleep. This involves caffeine, cacao, chocolate, sugar, because all of these stimulants often lead to insomnia, thus affecting the quality of your sleep.
- Meditation – the brains of the women work non stop. This is the reason why a lot of women have a hard time sleeping at night, and meditation can help with that. It will help the brain settle and get in a state of deep relaxation.
- Yoga – the yoga postures can prepare the body for a good night of sleep, this is why the yoga is often recommended to people who are suffering from insomnia.
- Melatonin – experts all claim that the melatonin will help you sleep better. Doses from one to three mg will work best for you, taken an hour before bed time.
