The million dollar question, who is grumpier in the mornings, women or men?
Science says women are definitely the grumpier sort if they get insufficient sleep.
North Carolina scientists also say that sleep deprivation also increases women’s risk of heart disease, stroke and depression, but a man’s health is barely affected by his lack of sleep.
According to Dr Breus, sleep-deprived women are angrier, more hostile and more aggressive.
“We found that women had more depression, women had more anger, and women had more hostility early in the morning,” Dr Breus told the Daily Mail.
These mood swings can be easily blamed on sleep deprivation.
If you feel like you could be affected, Dr Breus advises taking strategic naps.
But he warned that those naps should be either 25 minutes or 90 minutes long. These lengths are in tune with your sleep pattern and any other length will make the snoozer feel worse when they wake, he said.
This is not the first time experts have suggested that women need more sleep than men. A sleep research centre found that women actually need 20 minutes more shut-eye. This is because of the female multi-tasking brain.
“One of the major functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself,” said Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University.
“During deep sleep, the cortex, the part of the brain responsible for thought, memory, language and so on, disengages from the senses and goes into recovery mode.
“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.
“Women tend to multi-task, they do lots at once and are flexible, and so they use more of their actual brain than men do.
“Because of that, their sleep need is greater.
“A man who has a complex job that involves a lot of decision-making and lateral thinking may also need more sleep than the average male, though probably still not as much as a woman.”
