We’re joined by Dr Sarah Gilchrist who spent over 20 years working in the high performance sport industry, latterly as a Technical Lead for the UK Sports Institute and Senior Physiologist with British Rowing. Her doctorate specialised in sleep and athletic performance and she now provides consultancy on a range of performance areas, particularly relating to sleep. She is a previous Chair of The Chartered Association of Sport and Exercises Sciences Accreditation committee and is a High Performance Sport Accredited practitioner. Her book, ‘The Essential Guide to Women’s Sleep: Supporting Healthy Sleep Practices for Wellbeing and Performance’ is out in October 2025.
Poor sleep in women is well reported. In 2022, The Sleep Charity reported over seventy percent of calls to their National Sleep Helpline were from women. This is a concern given sleep is fundamental to life. It is a universal experience in that all healthy humans will experience a bout of nighttime sleep every day.
As a species, humans need sleep in as much as they need food, water and oxygen, without doing so would be fatal. With poor sleep a person’s daily quality of life is certainly affected in terms of their ability to function, both physically and mentally, and this is an issue women may experience on a regular basis throughout their life.
Not to say men don’t suffer poor sleep too, of course they may do, but for women there are significant points throughout their life where sleep may become a particular problem for them.
The good news is that overall, women have better quality of sleep compared to men. Research has shown women tend to achieve longer sleep times, shorter sleep-onset latency (time to get to sleep), and higher sleep efficiency (the universal marker of sleep duration and sleep quality. It is the ratio of total sleep time to time spent in bed and is expressed as a percentage).
Yet, regardless of this, women generally tend to have more sleep related complaints across their lifespan than men (Tandon et al., 2022). A significant number of women report sleep issues later in life, and for most of their lives mother nature puts them at risk of poor sleep. In fact, it can be argued that the female human species are given to experience poor sleep through their biology. From a relatively young age, puberty onset starts, bringing menstruation (periods) which can cause sleep issues amid a variety of symptoms such as pain, heavy bleeding or premenstrual syndrome. From then on throughout life, a woman’s sleep can be compromised further through major hormone transitions, for example, during pregnancy where, for example, as the unborn baby grows, getting comfortable to fall sleep can be hard. Post birth brings its own challenges whilst nursing a newborn baby, recovering from the birth and possibly having other children to care for. Finally, the menopause transition brings a whole host of symptoms, most notably sleep difficulties, which may continue into later life post menopause with an age-related decline in sleep.
It’s not just hormone transitions that compromise a woman’s sleep either. Women are forty percent more likely to suffer from the common sleep disorder, insomnia, than men (Pacheco & Callender, 2024). This manifests as either a persistent inability to fall asleep or persistent night wakening’s over several weeks and can be extremely troublesome, affecting quality of life for many women.
Women are also more likely to experience other sleep disorders such as restless leg syndrome where uncomfortable sensations in the legs, such as itching, prickling, pulling, or crawling create an overwhelming urge to move the legs and periodic limb movement, which involves repetitive jerking, cramping, or twitching of their lower limbs during sleep. Rather annoyingly this can occur every five to ninety seconds for up to an hour (Pacheco & Callender, 2024).
Later in life women are likely to experience sleep disordered breathing which is a term for a broad spectrum of sleep-related breathing disorders. In particular, sleep apnoea, an ailment where disordered breathing causes the body to have a lack of oxygen, can cause the individual
to wake up repeatedly during the night, rarely establishing deep sleep and therefore experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness.
In addition to hormone transitions and sleep disorders, with reference to the workplace, the fastest growing industry sector in the UK is health and social care, of which women make up the majority of roles. For example, seventy seven percent of health and social care occupations, such as nursing and midwifery, are held by women and many of these positions involve shift work which can also negatively affect sleep (Trade Union Congress, 2018, Francis, Devine & Hutton, 2024).
The hormone transitions, type of employment and sleep disorders can be coupled with the fact that overall, women tend to take on the brunt of family and domestic tasks, often alongside paid employment. Also, the sandwich generation of caring for younger children and aging parents often means the share of responsibilities falls to women with a possible subsequent effect on sleep. Pain may also be a reason for women not getting sufficient sleep. Women are more likely to report pain which may be due to a chronic condition or menstrual cycle related.
Therefore, a woman’s sleep can be challenged throughout her life. Having strategies to aid sleep can help and there are lots of useful sleep tips throughout The Sleep Charity’s website and my book ‘The Essential Guide to Women’s sleep: healthy sleep practices for wellbeing and performance’. Referral to a clinician may also be necessary or signposting to further organisation may be useful and some are listed at the bottom.
We’ve been given a special 15% off discount for Dr Sarah Gilchrist’s book: ‘The Essential Guide to Women’s Sleep: Supporting Healthy Sleep Practices for Wellbeing and Performance’. Use code: TSPSG15 at the checkout here: https://uk.jkp.com/products/the-essential-guide-to-womens-sleep. This code is valid until 20/10/25 11.59pm. A donation from the sales will be given to The Sleep Charity.
Book overview: Maintaining good sleep is a crucial yet often underrated pillar of a person’s wellbeing and general health. Despite this, there is limited guidance on how and why the various phases women experience in their lifetime may impact their quality of sleep, and what can be done to improve it.
This practical and accessible guide for health professionals introduces the concept of female sleep health across the lifetime, including key stages such as menstruation, fertility, working life, birth, perimenopause, and menopause. It also addresses sleep disorders, pain, and the impact poor sleep may have on mental health.
Readers will benefit from practical and detailed strategies on improving sleep, guidance on sleep aides and technology, and signposts to when clinical intervention is needed. Published: Oct 21 2025
References
• Tandon, V, R., Sharma, S., Mahajan, A., Mahajan, A. & Tandon, A. (2022). Menopause and Sleep Disorders. Journal of Mid-life Health, 13(1),26-33
• Pacheco, D. & Callender, E. (2024). Woman & Sleep: Needs, Disorders & Recommendations. Available at: Women & Sleep: Needs, Disorders, & Recommendations (sleepfoundation.org)
• Trade Union Congress (2018). Number of people working night shifts up by more than 150,000 in 5 years. Available at: Number of people working night shifts up by more than 150,000 in 5 years | TUC.
• Francis-Devine, B. & Hutton, G. (2024). Women and the UK economy. Available at: Women and the UK economy – House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)
Organisations
• Alcohol Change UK www.Alcoholchange.org
• Anxiety UK National charity helping people with Anxiety – Anxiety UK
• Association for Post Natal Illness APNI – Association for Post-Natal Illness | Post Natal Depression
• Bed Advice UK Home – Bed Advice UK
• Calm. An app for guided meditation and sleep stories www.calm.com
• CPAP. A free public information resource for those seeking to learn more about sleep apnoea and snoring and for those who are existing sleep apnoea patients on CPAP therapy www.cpap.co.uk/
• Ending endometriosis starts by saying it | Endometriosis UK (endometriosis-UK.org)
• Hope2Sleep A registered charity run by sleep apnoea sufferers, CPAP and non-invasive ventilator users and sleep professionals – all of whom are passionate and committed in supporting people to get the safe restful sleep they deserve www.hope2sleep.co.uk
• Menopause Café
• Menopause Matters
• Mental Health First Aid England Mental Health First Aid starts with you · MHFA England
• Mind.org.uk
• My Menopause Centre (My Menopause Centre | Information & Advice from Menopause Experts)
• National Bed Federation (NBF) www.bedadvice.co.uk
• NHS CPAP Guide https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/A-guide-to-yourCPAP-easy-read.pdf
• PANDAS Foundation UK Perinatal mental health – PANDAS Foundation UK www.pandasfoundation.org.uk Antenatal and postnatal depression information and support for women and families.
Support groups and helpline
• Royal College of Psychiatrists Perinatal mental health services – what are they (rcpsych.ac.uk)
• Sleepio CBT-I Sleepio | Can’t sleep? Get to sleep and stay asleep without pills or potions
• The Active Pregnancy Foundation Home | Active Pregnancy Foundation
• The Active Women’s Clinic The Active Women’s Clinic (theactivewomensclinic.com)
• The Better Sleep Clinic Sleep Disorder Clinic | The Better Sleep Clinic
• The Good Sleep Clinic Sleep Clinic Psychology Therapies – The Good Sleep Clinic
• The Menopause Charity The Menopause Charity – Menopause Facts, Advice and Support
• The Sleep Charity website www.thesleepcharity.org.uk
• YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity for Children And Young People | YoungMind