57% women have complained about not being able to sleep during the COVID pandemic. Though the struggle of women and insomnia is an age-old problem, the number of cases has considerably spiked at the onset of the pandemic.

As more than half the population struggles with work stress and health anxiety, insomnia is a physical manifestation of the same stress.
Although everyone’s sleep cycles have been disturbed because of COVID’s anxiety and fear, women are more likely to experience insomnia and disturbed or no sleep routines than men.

So what could be the possible reasons for insomnia induced stress in women?

1) Caregiver and work responsibilities:  With everyone at home, women are pushed to carry out the caregiver responsibilities more than ever--looking after the family member’s needs, their health, worry about her children is just the starting of the list. Along with these they are swamped with work be it as professionals or as homemakers. The tasks on their chore lists are endless. The never-ending list of chores does not let the mind of the lady rest, even if the body is. At the back of the mind she is always counting what has been done and what is left to do, and thus never giving the mind a break to rest. Insomnia naturally follows.

 2) Lack of erstwhile normal lifestyle: On average, 70% of women complain about insomnia during menstrual cycle due to low hormone level. The low levels of hormones added up with even lower levels of melatonin due to being indoors the whole day as they are following the lockdown guidelines, makes it difficult to keep the sleep cycle in check. When you add these two reasons up, and couple them with the anxiety of the uncertainty all across domains, sleeping becomes an impossible a task for women. For women talking to friends, relatives or family members (outside the household) was a way to vent out about marital troubles or other issues...with social distancing norms, they are being denied this and hence all the anger, negativity, and frustration is getting bottled up inside.

3) Mental Stresses: The stressful pandemic situation has affected the women on a personal level leading to mental health issues related to self-worthiness, fear of any kind of discord with the family or with the partner, the restlessness about not knowing how the year will pan out for the children, her own feeling of losing grip on her house/life, and a constant flurry of expectations from family members being under the same roof all the time is taking stress to such a level that most women are not able to sleep. 

The never-ending thoughts about what if’s and uncertainty along with the recurrent consumption of unhappy NEWs and unverified forwards is making women restless, worried and anxious. 

For her it is important to

• Limit the consumption of NEWS, forwarded messages and social media forwards.
• Talk to her spouse, elders in the family, or with friends on phone/calls and keep expressing the concerns and emotions rather than bottling them up.
• Take care of herself along with the family. Give herself the required break from household chores and other things.
• Seek the help of a doctor, counsellor to counter the problem
• Follow a proper routine of sleep time, exercise, meal time as close as possible to pre-COVID days so that her physical and mental system does not suffer  any unnecessary jolts.