Differences between male and female university students in sleepiness, weekday sleep loss, and weekend sleep duration

Abstract

Introduction: Women and men experience sleep differently and the difference in intrinsic desire for sleep might underlie some of the observed male-female differences. The objective of this crosssectional questionnaire study of university students was to determine male-female differences in self-reported sleepiness and sleep-wake patterns. Methods: Five questionnaires were completed by 1650 students at four Russian universities. Results: Compared to male students, female students reported a lower subjective sleep quality score, had a higher morning sleepability score and lower nighttime and daytime wakeability scores. They more often reported excessive daytime sleepiness and expected to be sleepier at any time of the day with the largest male-female difference around the times of sleep onset and offset. On free days, they reported a longer sleep duration and an earlier sleep onset. Free-weekday difference was larger for sleep duration and smaller for sleep onset. Such male-female differences showed similarity to the differences observed in university and high school students from different countries around the globe. There was no signiicant male-female difference in weekly averaged sleep duration, weekday sleep duration, hours slept, midpoint of sleep on free days, freeweekday difference in sleep offset, social jetlag, and morningness-eveningness score. Therefore, when studies rely on these self-reports, the most salient male-female differences might not be immediately evident. Conclusions: It seems that the intrinsic desire for longer sleep duration might contribute to a higher susceptibility of female students to weekday sleep loss. Among these students, negative effects of reduced sleep duration might be more common and more detrimental.

Caffeine Intake among Undergraduate Students: Sex Differences, Sources, Motivations, and Associations with Smoking Status and Self-Reported Sleep Quality

“…Therefore, caffeine intake could modify the common circadian rhythm of melatonin, leading to sleep disturbances. Previous studies also reported worse values for different parameters related to sleep quality in female than in male students [16,17]. This is similar to the findings of the present study, showing worse subjective sleep quality in women.…”

“…However, most of the studies examined the association of subjective sleep quality with prevalence of caffeine sources' consumption rather than with the overall daily caffeine consumption as a continuous variable. In addition, the influence of sex should be considered when determinants of subjective sleep quality are analyzed because a poorer subjective sleep quality in women than in men has been commonly found, at least among university students [16,17].…”

Sleep during “lockdown” highlighted the need to rethink the concept of weekend catch-up sleep

“…The number of published samples was not big enough to perform multiple tests of the model’s prediction, and to confirm this result by several separate examinations for subsets of data representing two genders and several distinct age groups. Although the difference in intrinsic desire for sleep might underlie some of the observed male–female differences in sleep duration [ 27 ], much of the gap between men and women was explained by gendered time tradeoffs and by work and family responsibilities [ 28 ]. This gender gap might be further increased in the condition of “lockdown” in some of age groups.…”

Is It Time We Stop Discouraging Evening Physical Activity? New Real-World Evidence From 150,000 Nights

“…Being strongly affected by social factors and daily schedules, both sleep and PA patterns may vary as a function of their timing within the week. Previous work has demonstrated delayed sleep timing and increased sleep duration on free days compared to workdays (15,(18)(19)(20). PA patterns have also been shown to vary throughout the week, with some individuals demonstrating a "weekend warrior" pattern, in which most or all of weekly PA is performed on weekends (21).…”