Stressed generation
SLEEPLESSNESS is disproportionately affecting Gen X women.
Compared to women of other generations, including Boomers and Millennials, and men of all generations, women born between 1965-1980 are not getting enough sleep.
Not only do they have more trouble falling, and staying, asleep but a third get less than seven hours a night.
Author Ada Calhoun is one of those women and her new book, Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis, investigates why.
It takes in the unique, modern-day stressors of the lives of Gen X women. Nearly 60 per cent say they are stressed about finances and caring for loved ones as they become part of the Sandwich Generation – caring for young children while also looking after ageing parents.
While Gen X women enter their 40’s with children who are, on average, teenagers, previous generations were empty nesters that had less midlife stressors such as kids who still needed a lot of attention and full-time jobs.
Balancing the needs of children, work in the home and paid employment means middle-aged Gen X women “generally incur this double whammy precisely while hitting peak stress in both career and child-raising; in 2017, a major Gallup poll found that the two biggest stressors women reported were work and children, with a compounding effect on those having both,” Calhoun writes.
The cost of living and the rise of the gig economy also means Gen X carries more debt than previous generations. Calhoun believes that this combination of stressors, plus the hormonal changes as Gen X women head into menopause, all affect sleep.