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(U-WIRE) IOWA CITY, Iowa -- As if women needed any more proof, researchers are now adding another realm in which the fairer sex prevails: Sleeping.
Sharing a bed can cause decreased mental functioning in men, Austrian scientists have reported. However, men report feeling more content in a pair than when they sleep alone.
Professor Gerhard Klosch of the University of Vienna reported last week that sharing a bed, sex aside, can cause men and women to be less rested. The study monitored the sleep patterns of eight unmarried, childless couples in their 20s for 10 nights in the same bed and 10 nights in separate beds.
Researchers monitored nighttime activity with personal wrist sensors and assessed waking perceptions with questionnaires, cognitive tests, and hormone checks.
Their responses differed, with women reporting they slept worse and men reporting they slept better when in the same bed. However, women reported feeling more refreshed, suggesting that they slept more deeply when they did eventually drift off. Men's hormone levels, in contrast, reflected increased stress, and men experienced lower mental functioning the next day.
At the University of Iowa, sleep expert Mark Blumberg studies the patterns of rats and mice to uncover the mystery of sleep for all animals. A lack of sleep, he's found, has obvious negative health side effects, such as fatigue, drowsiness, and irritability.
What is more of a mystery, though, is why sleep is important and why we are compelled to do it. Some of the found benefits of sleep, he says, are improved development of cognition, immune system, the brain and nerves, and the muscular system.
UI psychology Professor David Watson said he would not have predicted the Austrian findings, because men are generally more disruptive in sleep than women. With greater tendencies toward snoring and sleep apnea, men would be more likely to disturb than be disturbed.
The many disadvantages of sleeping with someone, he said, are twitching, tremors, tossing, and turning. When one person may be active, another may be in light sleep. The exception, he said, is those who find comfort and security if sleeping with a trusted partner, such as long-married couples.
Still without conclusive answers, researcher Blumberg and thousands of sleep experts around the world are studying sleep to identify all the reasons we sleep. Better yet, he asks, why do we wake?
(C) 2006 The Daily Iowan via U-WIRE
