Washington Post: When we talk about getting better sleep, why aren’t we talking more about hormones?
According to the National Sleep Foundation, the lifetime risk of insomnia is 40 percent higher for women than it is for men. Blaming this discrepancy entirely on hormones oversimplifies it — women also tend to take on the bulk of household worrying and emotional labor, and they tend to experience higher levels of anxiety.
But according to Mary Jane Minkin, an obstetrician-gynecologist and clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale School of Medicine, anecdotal evidence and studies suggest that hormones likely play a role.
If you look at the curve of hormonal secretion throughout the average menstrual cycle, Minkin says, you’ll see varying levels of estrogen and progesterone throughout the month, with a big drop of estrogen occurring right before menstruation.
