Counting Sleep
The last time she slapt for eight hours straight was before her Daughter was born a year-a-a-a-half ago, Ashwetha Anil Rememebers. That now seems like an impossible luxury. Back at work at an it firm after a Six-month Maternity Break, her infant still wakes up at least once a night for a feed. At Other Times, Says Anil, “She Wakes Up and Just Wants to Play.”
Welcome to the world of the chronically sleep-deprived, where sleeping for an eight-his stretch seems positively utopian. Nobody has it easy, not men, not women, and yet, even, there is a marked gender gap.
Using the Government’s 2024 Time Use Data of 450,000 Indians, analysis in Mint by tanay sukumar Finds a Gender Sleep Gap With Young Indian Women Sleeping 30 Minutes Less Than Men.
Less than half of young women manage eight hours of shut-aye. Among men it’s 60%.
Regardless of Whether they are in Rural or Urban India, Women Wake Up Nearly Half An Hour Earlier To Begin Their Chores: Get the kids ready for school, prepare tifins, prepare tifins, makestfast and generarally Kickkfast Day. This is true for home-makers as well as employed women. Home-Makers Thought have the Luxury of Day-Time Naps to Catch up on their sleep.
The gender sleep gap, finds the analysis Which is the largest-ever sleep pattern survey, kicks in during adlesce when girls begin to help out with househld chores. From then it expands to 30 minutes and continues till women are in their Sixteies.
The most sleep deprived are women and men in his thirties. But even within this demographic, women bear an additional load. All women work inside the house and some work outstide it as well, which is all the many end up doing what feminist economists call “Dual shifts”.
“By the time many Indian women’s emerge from their most demanding years-Juggling paid work, child-revenue and household duties-thee’ve racked up a deficit of a deficit of Sleep,” Sukumar Writes.
Work for Nisha Prasad Who Works from Home for a Us Consulting Firm on American Time, Begins at Night. By the time she’s don at dawn, it’s time to wake up her Daughter – A Task Delegated to Her Husband, Alekh Unless He’s Traveling on Work, Whoch is TWCE A Week. Then the cook Arrives and needs to be told the meal plans for the day. Tiffins must be packed. And it’s only when her seven-a-a-half-hour-old daughter has left for school, that nisha is alle to get back back into bed for five hours Sleep-With a Bit of Luck. “I don’t find it that easy to go back to sleep,” She says.
By the time her Daughter Gets Back Home, Her Husband is at Work and it’s Time for Her to Get out of Bed Regardless of Whthr She’s Managed to Sleep or Not.
Women v men
“I see a lot of patients, men and women, complain of sleep deprivation,” Says Dr Manveer Bhatia, Neurologist and Vice-President of the Indian Society for Society for Society for Society for Society for Sleeping.
Partly it’s a lifestyle problem that includes a tendency to scroll through social media to ‘unwind’ before bed. But for women, sleep deprivation stems from the fact that they are the primary caregivers of their homes. “Even if she is working, the wife will not go to bed unless the rest of the family has,” Bhatia says. Often the husband might return home later. She will then wait for him to unwind and heat his dinner.
While the Amount of Sleep is a problem, it is not the only one for women.
Quality of Sleep is a big issue, says bhatia, and here too gender plays a role.
For Instruction, Sleep Problems Such as Apnea Present very different symptoms in men and women. For men it includes loud snoring, choking and gasping. Women has different respiratory patterns, explains bhatia that result in milder snoring. But Sleep is disturbed nevertheless, leaving them tired during the day with complaints of headaches, body achhe and even anxiety.
Since the default gender for diagnosis is male, many physicians end up Misdignosing Sleep Apnea in Women, Leading to Worsening Health Conditions.
All over the world, women get fewer nights of quality rest Each Week. A study earlier this year by resamed found on Average women get 3.83 nights of good sleep every week, compared to men’s 4.13.
Women are Sleeping Less, and Less Well, Than Men. YET, A 2016 Study by the Sleep Research Center at UK’s Loughborough University Found That Women Needed 20 Minutes More Sleep Because of Multi-Tasking and Performing More Complex Brain Tasks Day. An Estimated 30% of Women Fail to Get Supicient Sleep, According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), which earlier this year Launched an initiative To promote sleep health in women.
Tarini Sundar, The Founder of Wellie, A Start-Up that Makes Dog Treats, Remembers Growing Up in a Family Where Sleeping Late even Unproductive and lazy. As a 33-yar-old woman, sleep deprivation come from “the way i am wire” She says. Even Thought Her Husband Shares Equal Responsibility at Home, She Finds It Hard to Switch off. Lying in bed, “I’ll be going over meal plans or trying to get ahead with my work to-do list,” She says.
She’s trying to change: no unnecessary socializing, no work conversions after 8 PM. And Still, She Says, She’s Lucky If She Manages Six-Ae-ALF-Hours of Sleep at Night.
History made
Nepal’s first woman chief justice is now also its first woman prime minister. Sushila Karki, A 73-YOL-old Grandmother Was Sworn in as Interim Prime Minister after deadly Anti-Corruption Protests Osted The Previous Government that 50 People Killed in Classes Riot police.
Karki has a clean image and her leadership has been supported by students from the gen-z movement. As Chief Justice for a Year Starting in 2016, Karki was attor Collapsed under the weight of public pressure. As Chief Justice, reports The new york times, she also “Campaigned for women’s rights and have been an inspiration for a growing cohort of young female lawers and judges.”
Post Retirement, She Remained Active With Civil Society Issues and Described Last Week’s Protests as a ‘Massacre’. More here.
