Women report worse sleep than men and are more likely to experience insomnia. Perimenopause often worsens sleep because of hormonal shifts. In a 2023 online survey of more than 2,000 adults from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, women were nearly twice as likely as men to say they rarely or never wake up feeling well rested. Bed-sharing can exacerbate sleep problems for some people, with one small study finding women sleep more poorly when sharing a bed with a man, while men do not experience the same dip. Sleep medication use can be long-term, and sleeping alone may improve sleep for sensitive sleepers.
This essay was adapted from Melinda Wenner Moyer's newsletter, Now What. Subscribe . Ever since I can remember, I've been a bad sleeper. In my 20s, I began taking sleeping pills-Benadryl at first, then trazodone. When my kids woke me up in the middle of the night, I would sometimes be up for hours, and the meds were the only thing that helped me fall back asleep.
As of a few months ago, however, I'm sleep medication-free for the first time in 20 years. At 46, I'm honestly pretty shocked by this-I'm entering perimenopause, so shouldn't my sleep be getting worse, not better? But there is one potentially relevant factor that could help explain my sudden shift: Due to my recent separation, I'm sleeping on my own for the first time in decades.
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