Women need more sleep than men because their brains are “more complex”, a new study has found.
The research, from Loughborough University in the UK, found women generally need around 20 minutes more shut eye each day because of the way their brains are wired.
Professor Jim Horne established the results after studying 201 men and women.
“Women’s brains are wired differently from men’s and are more complex, so their sleep need will be slightly greater,” he told Metro UK.
“The more of your brain you use during the day, the more of it that needs to recover and, consequently, the more sleep you need.
“Women tend to multi-task – they do lots at once and are flexible – and so they use more of their actual brain than men do.
“Because of that, their sleep need is greater.”
The study also found women suffer from a greater lack of sleep than men and feel the effects associated with this more.
Professor Horne found, for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with greater feelings of hostility, depression, and anger, and high levels of psychological distress.
“In contrast, these feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in men,” he says.
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