“I have trouble winding down at night,” says Debi, 50. “Music helps, but the noise disturbs my husband.” She wakes easily when he leaves for work at 5 a.m., then can’t nod off again. Peggy-Sue, 46, finds her mind working overtime, too. “I close my eyes, but nothing stops my brain from thinking,” she says.Insomnia, the inability to fall or stay asleep, strikes one-and-a-half to two times more women than men, says Amy R. Wolfson, PhD, professor of psychology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, member of the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) board of directors, and author of The Woman’s Book of Sleep: A Complete Resource Guide. As women, our sleep is constantly disrupted—whether from snoring spouses, crying children, restless minds, or restless legs, she says.
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To a large degree, we are victims of our overextended lives. “It’s really hard for women to find time to sleep,” says Sanjay Patel, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “They have their historical roles of taking care of the children and the home, and then on top of that going out and working one or more jobs.”
Half of the women participating in the latest NSF Sleep in America poll claimed that, when pressed for time, sleep was the first thing they sacrificed. Merely 20 percent said they had put work aside when they were overly tired or busy.
Work is what many women, particularly high-income women, are not sacrificing. “That kind of work can’t help but create stress,” says Joyce Walsleben, PhD, associate professor in the school of medicine at New York University and coauthor of A Woman’s Guide to Sleep: Guaranteed Solutions for a Good Night’s Rest. “High earners may be accomplished and organized, but the questions are, Do they sleep enough? Can they relax at night? Or do they have too much going through their minds?”
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It’s not just work that’s on women’s minds when they struggle to slumber. Many feel obliged to take care of everything and everyone—and quite often it’s expected of them. Women who are moms and full-time workers are more likely to experience insomnia than others.
Sleep may be hard to seduce, but it isn’t impossible. Here are seven smart solutions.
1. Try therapy.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which involves examining and changing false beliefs and behaviors, soon had 57 percent of patients falling asleep within 30 minutes, one study found, compared with just 15 percent of those taking sleeping pills or receiving no treatment at all.
2. Rehearse relaxation.
Relaxing and releasing worries before hitting the sack may help improve quality of sleep, a Brazilian study finds.
3. Tune out.
Nearly 90 percent of women watch TV at least a few times a week before going to bed. Find ways to relax your brain, not stir up tension and worry.
4. Tackle allergies.
Allergy sufferers have more trouble sleeping and more sleep disorders than those without allergies, a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine reports.
5. Say “siesta.”
Just anticipating an hour-long nap may help reduce your blood pressure. A research study found that those who nap regularly are 37 percent less likely to die from a heart attack.
6. Cover the clock.
Seeing it just reinforces your wide-awake worries, says Joyce Walsleben, PhD, associate professor of medicine at New York University and coauthor of A Woman’s Guide to Sleep: Guaranteed Solutions for a Good Night’s Rest.
7. Create an afternoon worry ritual.
Take 15 minutes and a notebook, Walsleben says. Fill one side of the page with whatever keeps you up at night, then the other half with simple, doable solutions.
—JS
Pullquote
“Unfortunately, we are prone to bring all our issues to bed.”