Why in the world would there be gender differences in the way people perceive sleep?

A new study points to that being the case.

Before we accept this conclusion, let’s note that the sample population was “elderly” women ages 59-97. That is an extremely wide age range to be treated as a single patient population.

In addition to that, in general, 59 is not considered “elderly” any more— or, at least, not in America.

Medicare slots people at 65 as “elderly” simply because that is the age for eligibility for benefits.  That is likely to change. People are aging differently than they used to.

Whether one is “elderly” or lot has more to do with function than a number as many people live healthier, longer.

In the second, with each decade, doctors note changes in sleep patterns.  Many older people tell their families and their doctors that they need less sleep than they used to.

Stay tuned.

The New York Times

“Elderly women may complain about insomnia, but they really get more sleep than men their age.

“Yet when men and women were asked about the quality of their sleep, women were more likely to report it as poor.

“What we found is that men completely overreport their sleep — they have a strong tendency to make it sound better than it was,” said Dr. Henning Tiemeier, associate professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and principal investigator for the study, published in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Sleep.”

Citation: Sleep, Volume 32; Issue 10, Pages 1367-1375