Her 11 minutes;
minding the gender (sleep) gap
In Paulo Coelho’s novel, 11 Minutes, the heroine, Maria, a young prostitute, makes an interesting time deduction. Stripped off all its trimmings, she distills the act of sex to taking 11 minutes. Interestingly enough, those 11 minutes men pay Maria for in the book, are 11 minutes of sleep women would pay for. Sleep science has made the deduction women need more sleep than men - 11 minutes to be exact.
In the same book, Paulo Coelho writes: “Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.” It is interesting sleep did not make that list. Not only is deprivation of sleep a well-known form of torture, but it may also be the leading cause of death - when taking into consideration the ways in which it contributes to the leading causes of death such as car fatalities, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The average human needs 7-9 hours of sleep per day. And this is not negotiable (except for an almost negligible percentage of the population with a rare sub-variation of gene DEC2). Many people simply state that they “actually do not need a lot of sleep”. However, many mental health issues seem to have a direct link to lack of sleep. Even with one shorter night of sleep, the amygdala response in the brain is amplified. This can result to feelings of stress, anger, hypervigilance, hostility, anxiety, and interpersonal sensitivity [9] and even to a dicreased ability to discern emotional cues from facial expressions.
It may come as a surprise to read that women may need more sleep than men - 11 minutes, though it may only be. Many of us know, either through a mother, friend or personal experience, how, in order to fulfil all her roles, a woman may cause her own sleep deficit. In fact, even when women do sleep, their sleep has on average been studied to be less deep, and, hence, less healing than that of men.
Research reveals that women are 40% more likely than men to suffer from insomnia. The causes could be hormonal changes, menstruation, pregnancy, hot flashes and night sweats experienced by 75%-85% of women. Women are also more likely to have a host of health issues, and middle aged women have been reported to be the most “unwell” segment of the population.
Chronic pain is reported more in women than men. In the case of fibromyalgia, in which sleep problems are a common symptom, 75%-90% of sufferers are women. For many fibromyalgia sufferers, sleep disturbances exacerbate their symptoms and lead them into a vicious cycle of pain and poor sleep. Unsurprisingly, women are also twice as likely to report stress, depression and anxiety, conditions closely connected to insomnia as well as to chronic pain conditions.
Can anything be done? Keeping a sleep log to notice one’s sleep and restfulness is a good start. Practicing good sleep hygiene and adopting healthy sleep habits can alleviate even some fibromyalgia-related sleep issues. Minding one’s motion and nutrition is obvious. No caffeine or naps after 2pm, no blue light for at least one hour before bed, consistent sleeping and waking times, and keeping high impact exercise to the earlier parts of the day. It is good to bear in mind that alcohol, as well as sleep medication itself, though helping one drift off faster, will compromise the depth of one’s sleep. The bed should only be used for two things: sex and sleep. And the room around it should reflect that. So remove from view the TV or work station.
Mindfulness practices, including Yoga Nidra, can help with both ends of that rope - accepting that pain does not need to equal to suffering and becoming friends with sleep again. Therapy can help get to the bottom of issues in the tissues and emotions of stress, anxiety and depression contributing to the sleeplessness.
As for Paulo Coelho’s reference to the torture of loneliness, it turns out that in the case of sleep, it may actually be desirable. Kings and queens seem to have known something about this, and the current king of sleep himself, Mathew Walker, admits to enjoying separate beds for sleep with his longtime partner. In fact, though it may be a taboo, more and more couples sleep separately. Sleeping separately, and better, could in fact increase your chances of not being lonely in your waking life.
It is time we decriminalise sleep to face the sleep pandemic. Even our pet cat would tell us.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6425926/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122651/
Information greatly derived from Why We Sleep, by Mathew Walker