Scientists Say: Married Women Sleep Better Than Single Women
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
If you want to have a regular good sleep, instead of using sleeping pills and counting sheep till the morning you should try to find your soul mate. Recently, the scientists came up with the idea that married women or the women with a stable life-partner usually have better sleep than divorced or single women. A long-term research leaded by Wendy Troxel, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, brought the scientists to the conclusion that women in stable relationships sleep better than women who are divorced and lonely. The results of the study were recently presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
During 8 years the researchers worked with about 360 American women, recorded their relationship status, as well as the specifics of their sleep activities. The scientists noticed that single and lonely women displayed the results indicating having the lowest quality of sleep. In this context, the specialists are certain that the absence of a stable life-partner is one of the leading reasons for modern women to suffer from insomnia and have regular restless sleep. Married women, instead, can not only enjoy the benefits of regular good sleep, but they are also under much lower risks of having their sleep affected by such common negative factors as stresses and depression.
Some experts criticized the results of this study, pointing on the fact that many more other important factors usually play a role in how good we sleep. Besides, they say that many married women who are unhappy in their marriages have to face regular serious sleep problems and disturbances. In contrast to them, a lot of newly divorced women who hated their marriage and chose to get divorced, feel a psychological relief and start sleeping better though they sleep alone. In my opinion, there is some subjectivity in all these speculations. No need in scientific evidence of the fact that happy people always seep better than unhappy ones, regardless of their marital status. And, certainly, having a loved one next to you, who can share your ideas and protect you against many troubles, makes you happier – and a better sleeper!
It is hard to find someone on earth who does not know what insomnia is all about. Insomnia can be a serious problem for some people, and there are lots of reasons and causes of it. For decades scientists have been studying the influence of such factor as heredity on insomnia or other sleep disorders, and a great deal of the specialists have been trying to find out the connection between parental insomnia and sleep patterns of the children. A year ago, Dr. Xianchen Liu, an expert at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School presented to the audience of the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies the results of his most recent study.
Moreover, the specialists published quite alarming statistics showing that 17% of children affected by parental insomnia have regular depression and suicidal thoughts, and 9.5% of such children reported about having clear suicide plans and even suicide attempts. Donna Arand, clinical director of Kettering Sleep Disorders Center in Ohio and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine commented on the results of this study as the following: “We have known just in the last year or so that having insomnia makes that individual at high risk for major depression later in life, but this is, to my knowledge, the first time we’ve looked at offspring and realized we have a significant problem.”
1. Do you have difficulties with falling asleep or maintaining good sleep all night long?
There are four main types of insomnia that are connected with:
Now, we are living in the epoch when good and comfortable sleep became one of the main pleasures in our life. At the same time, overwhelming majority of people who live and work in modern metropolises can not benefit from this pleasure anymore. Our fast life easily turns “larks” into “owls”. Every evening we stay awake till deep night, trying to finish some urgent work, chatting with friends online or watching Conan O’Brien and other late night TV shows. Every morning we try to convince our mind to wake up and make the body move, but there is no feeling that our organism have had some rest and got some refreshment. We go to work or to school, and it usually takes hours to pull ourselves together and collect some energy to go on with our daily routine.