Happily Married Women Have Less Trouble Sleeping, Pitt Study Finds

Main Category: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Psychology / Psychiatry;  Mental Health
Article Date: 26 Jan 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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It is no secret that a good night's sleep can lead to a well-balanced and healthy lifestyle, but the age-old question of how to get a decent eight hours still remains. However, a University of Pittsburgh study finds that a happy marriage can lead to a better night's sleep for women. The findings are reported in the current issue of Behavioral Sleep Medicine.

The Pitt study finds that women who believe they have happy marriages reported less difficulty falling asleep, less likelihood of waking up during the night or too early in the morning and less restless sleep compared to women who report less happiness in their marriages.

"Women consistently report more sleep problems than men, but most research has focused on how husbands' sleep problems, such as sleep apnea or snoring, affect their wives' sleep quality," said Wendy Troxel, Ph.D., lead author and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "These findings, however, provide an understanding of how having a happy and fulfilling marriage can affect women and their sleep habits."

The study examined the association between marital happiness and sleep disturbances in multiple ethnic groups of married or partnered women. Researchers found that Caucasian and African-American women had more sleep complaints than the Japanese, Hispanic and Chinese women. Caucasian and Japanese women reported the highest marital happiness.

In assessing the effects of marital happiness on sleep, the researchers took into account many other factors that might contribute to sleeplessness, such as a woman's social support network, depressive symptoms, economic hardship and employment status, alcohol and caffeine consumption, presence of children in the home, sexual activity, age and hormonal status. The results showed that even after taking into account all of these factors that are known to influence sleep, the level of marital happiness emerged as an independent risk factor for the existence of sleep disturbances.

"General social support was not associated with sleep disturbances, which suggests that there may be something specific about happiness in one's marriage that is associated with better sleep, rather than a general reflection of one's support network," added Dr. Troxel. "The findings further suggest that feeling happy in one's marriage may present benefits for sleep that go beyond being a "happy" or well-adjusted person."

Co-authors of the study include Daniel J. Buysse, M.D., Martica Hall, Ph.D., and Karen A. Matthews, Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC.

Study participants were from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a multi-site study from seven sites across the country comprised of an ethnically diverse sample of middle-aged women, with grant support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health. Dr. Troxel is supported by funding provided by the Pittsburgh Mind Body Center and an Early Career Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) is considered to be one of the nation's foremost university-based psychiatric care facilities and one of the world's leading centers for research and treatment of mental health disorders. WPIC houses the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and is the flagship of UPMC Behavioral Health, the psychiatric specialty division of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center