Gender, Headaches, and Sleep Health in High School Students

The effects of gender, headaches, and their interaction on sleep health (sleep duration, sleep onset and continuity, and indications of hypersomnolence) have not been well studied.

For American adolescents, we contrasted sleep health variables between males (n = 378) and females (n = 372) and between individuals with chronic headaches (n = 102 females and 60 males) and without chronic headaches (n = 270 females and 318 males) using data from surveys.

Not all measures of sleep health differed between groups, but the following patterns were observed for the measures that did differ. Females reported shorter sleep durations on school nights (p = 0.001), increased likelihood of sleepiness on school days (p < 0.05), and higher hypersomnolence scores compared with males (p = 0.005). Individuals with headaches reported shorter sleep durations on weekends (p = 0.009) and higher hypersomnolence scores (p = 0.009) than individuals without headaches. Interestingly, females with headaches reported worse sleep health than females without headaches for multiple measures. Males with headaches did not differ from males without headaches, except for greater waking at night (p = 0.04).

These results are consistent with other studies of gender-based differences in sleep health and emphasize the importance of recognizing the risk of headache in female adolescents and treating that condition to prevent additional sleep health issues.