Women are more likely than men to report poor sleep, even though objective measurements show that women sleep better in some ways, according to a new study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
“This is a paradox, but we have found a possible explanation why men and women perceive sleep quality so differently,” says Thorbjörn Åkerstedt, professor emeritus at the Karolinska Institute’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.
Researchers investigated the differences in sleep between men and women, both in terms of objective measures and perceived sleep quality. 238 women and 238 men in Sweden, aged 29 to 85, recorded their sleep at home over a single night using polysomnography, a method that measures brain activity, breathing, and movement during sleep. The next morning, participants rated their sleep quality.
The results were published in a magazine sleep progress, Reveal clear patterns. On average, women rated their sleep quality as lower than men, even though objective measurements showed they slept better. Specifically, women woke up less per hour, had more total sleep time, had higher sleep efficiency, and had deeper sleep than men.
Gender differences in memory
Women were much more accurate in estimating the number of times they woke up during the night than men, who underestimated the number of times they woke up during the night. On average, men stayed awake for less time each time they woke up. Men who had short wake times generally rated their sleep quality as good, whereas women generally rated their sleep quality as poor regardless of wake time.
When the researchers excluded men from the analysis, whose wakefulness was short and barely noticeable, the difference in self-reported sleep quality between men and women disappeared.
Our findings suggest that men’s more positive views of their sleep may be due, in part, to the fact that men do not perceive or remember brief nighttime awakenings the way women do. But I still don’t know why. ”
Torbjörn Åkerstedt, Karolinska Institutet
The difference increased as age increased
The study also shows that the differences in sleep between men and women become more pronounced with age. As men got older, they experienced less deep sleep and more wakefulness per hour, whereas women’s objective sleep worsened to a lesser extent. At the same time, women continue to report poorer sleep quality than men.
One limitation of this study is that sleep was measured over one night and does not necessarily reflect long-term sleep patterns.
The study was carried out in collaboration with researchers from Stockholm University and Uppsala University. This project was funded by the National Bank Fund, the Swedish Health, Working Life and Welfare Research Council, and the Swedish Heart and Lung Foundation. The researchers report no conflicts of interest.
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Reference magazines:
Åkerstedt, T. others. (2026) Gender differences in objective and subjective sleep. sleep progress. DOI: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpag048. https://academic.oup.com/sleepadvances/article/7/2/zpag048/8663014.
