Women need more sleep because their brains work harder, says study

Women snooze the alarm clock and sleep away because you need it! A research has proven that women need more sleep than men because of the way a woman's brain is structured. A study from England’s Loughborough University revealed that since most women are multitaskers, they utilise and require higher amount of brain activity using more regions of the brain than men do. As a result, of the ongoing brain activity, women need more sleep.

According to sleep expert and researcher John Horne, “One of the major functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself. 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.”

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Women’s brain is wired differently 

The results also showed that the female brain works in more complex ways as women tend to multitask. The findings of a women's brain in comparison to men showed that men tend to focus deeply on one task at a time while the female brain was better at performing multiple functions simultaneously. This fixation of one task at a time in men could also explain the “tunnel vision” in some men and superior multitasking ability in some women. 

"Women’s brains are more complex than men’s, so their sleep need is slightly greater," said Professor Jim Horne, the study’s author.
Another study conducted by Dr Apostolos Georgopoulus, the director of the Brain Science Centre at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center also added, “Women’s brains are definitely different from men’s brains… What we have found is that women, in many different tasks, process information about five times faster than men, and use much less of their brain to do identical cognitive performance.”

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An average adult needs 6-8 hours of sleep to recover from fatigue and exhaustion from the activities carried out throughout the day. Women need only 20 more minutes of sleep to allow the brain to repair itself and wake up renewed. The study also stated that when this limited amount of rest in women is deprived, it can have worse effects on the health of women such as cardiovascular problems and diabetes, depression, stress, or anxiety.
 
In conclusion, with 20 more minutes of sleep and a good rest, you can be that cheerful and multitasking woman whom everyone admires.
So reset your alarm clock and sleep an extra 20 minutes... you need it!