Women Get Much Less Sleep Even if They Spend Longer Hours in Bed: STUDY

Women get far less sleep than men, even if they spend more time actually lying in bed, a new study suggests.

According to the researchers, this is because women tend to struggle more when it comes to falling and staying asleep.

Published in the journal Sleep Medicine, the study looked at approximately 8,480 people between the age of 45 and 90 from the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC) Norfolk, who were surveyed between 2006 and 2007.  

The scientsts, from Cambridge University, found that 39.6 percent of women said they never had any trouble falling asleep, compared to 63.3 percent of men. Nine percent of men and 14.7 percent of women reported that they suffer from middle insomnia - waking up in the middle of the night and then having trouble sleeping again.

However, when it comes to waking up early, men were the ones who said they struggled the most, with 11.7 percent reporting a problem, versus 4.7 percent of women. 

The researchers found, however, the sleep problems were less likely to occur among people who were in good health, who were working, who had higher education levels and who were young.

They concluded that there are a number of contributing factors associated with the amount of time spent sleeping and the amount of time spent in bed. For instance, women in poor health had a worse proportion of time in bed to time spent sleeping.