Well, it certainly seems like it. According to Pamela Paul's piece in Sunday's New York Times,
Mother's little helper of the new millennium may in fact be the sleeping pill -- a prescription not likely to inspire a jaunty pop song anytime soon. Nearly 3 in 10 American women fess up to using some kind of sleep aid at least a few nights a week, according to "Women and Sleep," a 2007 study by the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit research group.
And anecdotal research indicates it's not just mothers who are starved for shut-eye, but women in general:
Sleep-medicine practices are overwhelmingly dominated by female patients. Dr. Nancy Collop, director of the Emory Sleep Center in Atlanta, said three out of four insomnia patients at the clinic are women ...
In the 'Women and Sleep' study, 80 percent of women reported being just too stressed or worried to turn out the proverbial lights.
In a word: unshocking. I myself am firmly in the Fall Asleep Fine But Wake At 3 And Can't Get Back to Sleep camp. I don't have kids, but I do have several jobs, and a life. Last night I worried over the writing deadlines I have this week, the speaking engagement I have on Wednesday halfway across the state, and the new coaching client whose appointment I'm going to have to reschedule in order to travel to said speaking engagement ... not to mention the shopping list, the whipping wind's effect on the palm tree that sways outside my front window, the doctor's appointment I've been meaning to make for, oh, the past five months, what I'm going to wear to said speaking engagement ... I could go on -- but I'm guessing you catch my drift. More than likely, it would seem, you do exactly the same thing. As Paul wrote:
According to IMS Health, a health care consulting firm in Danbury, Conn., the use of prescription sleep aids among women peaks from 40 to 59. Last year, the firm said, 15,473,000 American women between those ages got a prescription to help them sleep, nearly twice the number of men in that age group.
Those figures do not include those who are prescribed anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications, frequently used off-label for insomnia. Nor do they include women who zone out with a glass of wine.
The question is, how is it that men aren't similarly affected?
Well, I'd guess there are more than a couple factors at play: It's personal, and it's political. Women hold ourselves to high standards -- we internalize the messages that bombard us from all directions, from the media to our mothers. We want to be perfect: perfect employees, perfect partners, perfect moms, perfect friends, perfect looking, perfect yogis, chefs, decorators, you name it. We were weaned on the messages that we could have it all and that we could do anything -- and so we fill our days with our valiant attempts to do it all, running at full speed ahead, from this to that and back again, so adrenalized that the only way to unwind, it seems, is to dive into a bottle, whether of pills or Pinot.
But it's not only our tough inner critic that's to blame. The fact is, the modern workplace -- of which women are now the majority -- is still set up as though the workers who fill it were Don Draper clones, men with a full-time Betty at home, able to take care of all of the stuff that keeps a life running smoothly. But the ladies (and gentlemen) of today don't have a Betty. So we do our best Don -- and then we make the time to get Betty's job done, too. We work our full day -- and then we fold the clothes. And do the grocery shopping. And pick up the dry cleaning. And attempt to cook healthy items (or contend with the parking lot at our favorite take-out joint), to exercise, to socialize, to sleep. To quote Germaine Greer:
When we talk about women having it all, what they really have all of is the work.
... and none of the Zzzs.
So, what to do? Being a little easier on ourselves would certainly be a start. Asking for help might be another. And then: start thinking bigger, recognize the deeper truths for the eye-openers that they are. The world has changed, but the workplace and expectations haven't. So maybe what we really need to be thinking about is what we can do to change that.
Just, hopefully, not at 3am.