Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Sleep: Men vs. Women

In the sleep battle of the sexes in one corner we have women who may or may not need something

called beauty sleep and men who may or may not want to admit they also want something

called beauty sleep.

For round one of sleep: men versus women, who sleeps more? According to a recent study

out of Cambridge University women actually spend fifteen minutes more time in bed each

night but we sleep eleven minutes less than men. Ladies what are we doing in bed? Candy

Crush, obviously. Oh. Do women make up for that missed sleep by napping more than men?

Cat nap. Again no. A survey conducted by the Pew Center for Research found that 38% of

the men that they talked to had taken a nap in the past 24 hours compared to only 31%

of women. Again ladies what are we doing? For round two of the sleep battle of the sexes,

does one group need more sleep than the other? According to one Professor Jim Horne who is

the leading British sleep researcher, women in fact need 20 minutes more deep sleep every

night than men. Because we're dainty princesses who need our beauty sleep, right? Wrong. Apparently

the multitasking female brain needs a little bit more deep sleep to rest and rejuvenate

its cortex, it gets super active during the day as we're trying to quote unquote 'have

it all'. Whereas what women really need is more sleep because according to Duke University

Study in the round of who wakes up grumpier if they don't get enough zzzs, women win.

If by winning you mean feelings of grumpiness, irritability and hostility from not getting

enough sleep. Is this ringing any bells guys? Who woke me up? Where are my pajamas?! If

at this point women seem to be on the losing end of the sleep battle of the sexes, well

you're right because even when it comes to insomnia women are 50% more likely to suffer

from it. Why? Hormones. Because periods aren't enough. Female insomnia is often linked to

hormonal fluctuations of our menstrual cycles, pregnancy and menopause. In other words women

can never really escape it until we sleep forever which is death. Women are also likelier

to suffer from things like fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, restless leg syndrome, all of which

can cause secondary insomnia. Compounding this problem even more, some research suggests

that a lack of sleep takes a harsher toll on the female body leading to things like

diabetes, cardiovascular problems, heart disease, depression and anxiety. Thinking about this

is giving me a little bit of anxiety. Hah. But there is one are where men have it tougher

and that is sleep apnea. Men are less likely to sleep throughout the night because they

are twice as likely to suffer from this condition that causes a shortness of breath during sleep

which then awakens the brain from its deep sleep which might be why men are also likelier

to accidentally fall asleep during the day. This isn't to say that on an individual basis

that every woman has a hard time sleeping, that every man can sleep just practically

anywhere, these are simply the overall population findings of a number of sleep studies. I think

it's pretty clear that in a sleep battle of the sexes men, you're clearly coming out on

top. Or at least a little bit less tired and grumpy. You win a victory nap. Actually no

can we just give a pity nap to women? Ladies need some sleep.