Dr. Rita Cheek explains how sleep changes across women’s lives and offers hygiene tips

Dr. Rita Cheek spoke at a women’s health lecture about how sleep patterns change from infancy through older adulthood and offered practical sleep-hygiene advice for women, including when to consult a health care provider.

Cheek told attendees, “I'm here to talk with you today about, women and sleep, and it's a great honor to be here celebrating women,” and framed the talk around physiological changes across the life span that affect sleep.

She summarized the key physiological drivers of sleep: a homeostatic process tied to how long a person has been awake and a circadian clock synchronized to the light–dark cycle. Cheek said adults generally need seven to nine hours of sleep, and that a full sleep cycle lasts about an hour and a half. She noted that some people function well on five to six hours but said those are exceptions rather than the rule.

Using developmental benchmarks, Cheek described differences by age: newborns sleep about 16 hours a day and spend roughly half of that time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep; REM proportion drops through childhood to about 20…