Biological sex-specific sleep differences: insomnia in women, apnea in men

Men usually tend to suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, while women usually tend to experience insomnia and report poorer sleep quality. These are the outcomes of a literature review published within the journal in April Sleep Medicine Reviews. The researchers got here from Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Southampton within the United Kingdom

This research is about each precision medicine and sleep differences between the sexes, says co-author Renske Lok, PhDPostdoctoral researcher at Stanford Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences.

“We’re trying to move away from the one-size-fits-all solution,” she says Assets. “[Medicine] needs to be more tailored.”

Understanding how and why biological sex affects various sleep disorders is a vital step toward individualized treatment. However, the long-standing lack of inclusion of ladies in biomedical and behavioral research is an obstacle. The National Institutes of Health didn’t require studies to be considered Gender as a biological variable until 2016.

“The biggest takeaway is that we absolutely need to better include women in our research designs,” says Lok. “In the past, women were not included as often as men, partly because it was always assumed that results from men would automatically be transferred to women. And we’re starting to find out more and more that that’s not the case.”

Sex and circadian rhythms

The mental, physical and behavioral changes that your body experiences inside 24 hours are known as Daily rhythm. Almost your entire organs and tissues have their very own rhythm and together form a form of biological master clock that is especially sensitive to light and darkness.

At night, your brain produces more of the sleep hormone melatonin, which makes you are feeling drained. In a study According to a study by Lok and her colleagues, women released melatonin earlier within the evening than men. This agrees with other research shows that men are typically later chronotypes; that’s, they go to bed later and stand up later than women. Therefore, men are likely to have more social jet lag when their biological clock doesn’t align with the normal timing of social demands, equivalent to a 9 a.m. to five p.m. job.

Another study showed that core body temperature – which is highest before sleep and lowest a number of hours before waking – also peaked earlier in women. Other research found that girls’s circadian periods were about six minutes shorter than men’s: 24.09 hours in comparison with 24.19.

“Although this difference may be small, it is significant. “The misalignment between the central body clock and the sleep-wake cycle is about five times greater in women than in men,” Lok said in a study Press release concerning the work of their team. “Imagine someone’s watch consistently going six minutes faster or slower. Over the course of days, weeks and months, this difference may cause a noticeable misalignment between the interior clock and external signals equivalent to light and darkness.

“Disruptions in circadian rhythms are associated with various health problems, including sleep disorders, mood disorders and impaired cognitive function. Even small differences in circadian periods can have significant impacts on overall health and well-being.”

“Cognitive behavioral therapy is a way to jump-start your circadian rhythms—especially if your biological and social clocks aren’t aligned,” he says Alaina Tiani, PhDa clinical psychologist at Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center.

“It varies from patient to patient, but we have them take melatonin (supplements) earlier in the evening and then have them use some bright light in the morning,” Tiani says Assets, which refers to nighttime owls who should stand up earlier. “These two things help anchor their sleep window while they work to change things.”

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Stress at work can affect women’s insomnia

You have probably experienced bouts of acute insomnia, stressful periods throughout your life by which you could have had difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting a superb night’s sleep. They could have lasted just a number of days and even a number of weeks. However, chronic insomnia occurs when these sleep problems occur a minimum of 3 times every week for greater than three months, the study says National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. In addition, chronic insomnia can’t be explained by other health problems.

Insomnia is about 1.5 times more common in women, previous research has shown. Lok and her colleagues suspected that this could possibly be because of certain risk aspects which are more common in women, equivalent to anxiety and depression.

Dr. Eric Sklar is a neurologist and medical director of the Inova program for sleep disorders in Northern Virginia. Insomnia is one of the crucial common sleep disorders he treats, and the outcomes of the study didn’t surprise him.

“There is a high association with underlying psychiatric disorders and insomnia,” says Sklar Assets. “Some of the underlying societal stressors for men and women may be different.”

Women are still often thrust into the role of caregiver while concurrently climbing the profession ladder, notes Sklar, not to say life’s other stressors. In addition, evening rest periods are essential for a healthy circadian rhythm and ladies sometimes should fight harder for this, he says. And when so-called “revenge bedtime delays” include screen time, women could also be disrupting their internal clocks even further.

The report shows that, by objective measures, women sleep higher than men. Women have higher values Sleep efficiencywhich refers to the share of time in bed actually spent sleeping. Women entered dream-heavy rapid eye movement (REM) Sleep phase earlier and spent about eight minutes longer in it Non-REM sleep. However, women self-reported poorer sleep quality as men.

While latest parents face quite a lot of sleep problems, Tiani shares Assets A majority of their postpartum patients and ladies with young children report reduced sleep quality.

“Almost as if her brain was half-listening to her children in the middle of the night, in case they needed something,” Tiani says. Patients who serve in other roles as caregivers have reported the identical thing, “listening at night.”

Why do men and ladies sleep otherwise?

Women caught a break with a standard sleep problem: obstructive sleep apnea, when the upper airway becomes repeatedly blocked during sleep. The disorder is almost 3 times as common in menHowever, it is barely connected to 1 increased risk of heart failure in womensays the review.

“It is known that men are at higher risk,” says Sklar Assets, adding that biological sex is used when assessing sleep apnea risk. “Men tend to have larger necks, and neck size is also a risk factor.”

Lok’s review also noted, amongst other things, these sleep differences between the sexes:

One key factor remained inconsistent across the nearly 150 studies Lok and her colleagues analyzed: women’s menstrual phases. Menstruation is accompanied by quite a few changes that affect sleep, equivalent to increased body temperature during menstruation Luteal phase of the cycle. Additionally, some research didn’t take subjects’ oral contraception into consideration, which could have led to biased results.

“It’s difficult because if someone doesn’t use hormonal contraceptives, for example, that means you have to include women in the same menstrual phase,” Lok explains Assets. “Otherwise you end up with all sorts of variations due to changes in hormone levels.”

Having overcome a few of the hurdles that stood in her team’s way – namely, thin evidence for some biological sex differences – Lok is confident concerning the future.

In some cases, “we’re not sure if there are gender differences because no one has ever paid attention to them,” Lok says. “At the same time, it is a very encouraging article because it clearly shows where there are still gaps.”

More details about biological sex and health: