Women are from Venus, and men are from Mars — the analogy holds true in matters of love… and getting great sleep. It's no secret that quality rest is critical to your physical, mental, and emotional health, but you might not know that your gender can influence your sleep. This International Women’s Day, discover how women sleep differently and learn how to optimize your sleep space to get rejuvenating rest all year long.

Sleep Changes Throughout Life

Biology plays a significant role in the different sleep patterns observed in men and women at every point during the life cycle. Children tend to sleep identically despite gender, but as puberty approaches, their sleep patterns begin to change. As girls become teenagers, they often report getting significantly less sleep than their male peers.

As women become adults, they suffer from a slow-wave deep sleep and take longer to fall asleep than men. One-third reported health issues that negatively affected their overall sleep quality.* Likewise, during pregnancy (particularly in the third trimester), expectant mothers are more likely to suffer from pain and continue to have disrupted sleep after giving birth due to hormone levels naturally dropping. Not to mention having a newborn baby waking them up every few hours!

How Much Should You Sleep?

You might be wondering how much sleep you need. Most adult women report getting around eight hours and twenty-seven minutes of sleep per night, but a new study shows even though women sleep on average approximately eleven more minutes than men, their sleep quality is typically lower.* This lower-quality sleep may be influenced by caregiving responsibilities or even napping more frequently during the day, furthering a cycle of sleep disruption.

While it might feel impossible to sleep more soundly every night, you can do a few things to make life-changing sleep achievable. Make sure your bedroom is cool, quiet, and dark to minimize irritants and interruptions. Consider adding curve-cradling pillows and soft, silky sheets to enhance your experience and help you relax. Plus, upgrade your sleep surface with TEMPUR-Material™ that intuitively adapts to your unique weight, shape, and temperature for maximum comfort where you want it and support where you need it.

But don’t just take our word for it: 95% of sleepers agree that they experience better quality sleep and fewer aches and pains on their Tempur-Pedic® than their previous mattress.‡

*Source: Sleep Foundation

‡ TEMPUR-Adapt® and breeze° collections; error rate of +/- 3%. Products not intended to treat medical conditions.