#Title

Why can’t women sleep as much as men?
Sleep aids us in everything, from the proper functioning of the immune system to memory development. According to some physicians, getting enough sleep may solve more than half of our physical and mental issues. And yet women, who make up more than half of the population, suffer from lack of sleep almost throughout their whole lives.
When it comes to getting enough sleep, there is an alarming gender discrepancy worldwide. The World Health Organization advises that adults of all ages sleep for at least eight hours every day, yet only a small percentage of women can do so. Neuroscience suggests that women need to sleep for a bit longer than men, and according to the National Library of Medicine in the US, roughly 40 percent of women suffer from insomnia. According to one UK survey, women on average sleep three hours less than men every night, which tallies up to 1,095 hours of lost sleep per year. It also found that more than half of British women feel constantly sleep-deprived.
There are several physical and psychological factors contributing to women’s sleep deprivation. Although, until puberty, significant differences in terms of ideal sleep patterns between boys and girls cannot be observed, girls begin to be deprived of sufficient and good sleep after puberty, around the time of beginning menstruation. There is an informal term for this: “periodsomnia.” This is caused by hormonal fluctuations, mood swings, increased body temperature, abdominal pain, and other factors. A large percentage of women experience difficulty sleeping during menstruation as a result of period leaks.
Women’s insomnia rates also rise during pregnancy. Aside from other physical and emotional issues, sleeping gets increasingly more difficult as the baby grows larger in the womb. The lack of sleep often triggers postpartum depression. Although men and women are expected to share the parenting burden equally in modern societies, even now, the mother is primarily responsible for taking care of the baby. Some dads even sleep in separate rooms so that they don’t have to hear the infant’s cries, while the moms give up their rest.
Apart from all the physical and psychological issues, traditional gender roles, which lead to issues like unequal division of household chores, also explain women’s sleeplessness globally. It has been found in many studies that men spend only a fraction of the time women do on household tasks. Perhaps this is why UN Women claims that if women’s development continues at its current pace, it will take at least another 300 years to achieve worldwide equality between men and women.
In his poem “ Jodi Konodin ,” Subhash Mukhopadhyay wrote: “In 26 years, I’ve never seen when mother goes to sleep, or when she wakes up; she has no festival, no afternoon gossip sessions.” After reading this poem, I became aware of my mother’s sleepless eyes for the very first time and began to perceive lack of sleep as a gendered issue.
I’m now 26 years old. In all these years, I’ve hardly ever seen my mother go to sleep or wake up. She has no holidays. No matter if there is any festival, joy, or celebration, she has to follow the same routine: wake up early and go to sleep late. After ensuring meals for everyone in the house, my mother goes to sleep and wakes up early in the morning and faces the task of making breakfast. In contrast, my father usually wakes up later in the morning. By the time he freshens up, Ammu’s other chores – like doing dishes, washing clothes, and cleaning the house – are accomplished. Don’t mothers sometimes wish to wake up late? Don’t they want to put things aside and go to bed early? After all, they’re humans just like our dads, not what we treat them as: machines.
And what is the status of working women? Can they get enough good sleep? Of course not. According to several studies, working women’s sleep patterns are also poorer than men’s. They face the double-burden of doing housework and also performing at their job. Since they expend so much more energy than their male colleagues, working women are required to sleep for longer. But these requirements almost always remain unfulfilled.
Some may say that asking for the right to sleep well is a luxury when, in countries such as Afghanistan, women’s basic rights of education and healthcare are being denied. But remember that sleep is a vital component of our lives – a prerequisite for doing well in day-to-day activities. Ensuring adequate sleep will certainly help alleviate a lot of the issues women face, and then they will be able to not only survive but can also thrive.