Hi there it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. I really wanted to hear all

about insomnia from a real clinician who is treating insomnia patients daily.

Dr Michael Grandner.

I was going to ask about the question, and it is mechanistically related, how we think about the difference

between insomnia across different sexes, so how are men and women different in terms of the

insomnia susceptibility?

Obviously both groups need to be highly aware

but tell me a little bit about that and perhaps why, if there are any differences, why you think that that may be the case.

Historically, and by that I mean, anytime anyone's really looked women tend to experience more

insomnia than men on average with the asterisk that the definition of insomnia

requires a willingness of the person to say they're having difficulty with something.

And we also know that women tend to be a little more willing to say that they're struggling with something. So do women have more insomnia? The

scientist in me says, well, the data suggests yes, but there are some assumptions in the data that I don't know exactly how true they are.

But that said, women are more likely to present in the Insomnia Clinic,

they're more likely to report insomnia symptoms, but they're also, if my clinical experience

generalizes to anybody else, I get really excited when someone shows up on the schedule

who hasn't been bounced around the system for 20 years because

for women what seems to be the case is they'll get every diagnosis except insomnia for decades

whether it's depression or stress or anxiety or fatigue, a lot of fatigue or pain,

and the clinicians are sort of focusing on those things and then the insomnia remains because at that point you have conditioned arousal anyway.

So one thing I should say is insomnia is likely more prevalent in women, especially as you get older because

there's more that can get in the way of sleep as you get older.

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