Women rebound faster from lost sleep. (Getty Images)

Finally, science has declared women a winner in the bedroom. Not that kind of bedroom victory though. Heavens, no. We gals get a sleep-related award, naturally.

Preliminary research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine indicates that lost sleep affects women less potently than it affects men. When men and women only snooze for six hours or less throughout the workweek, cognitive performance takes a hit, which accumulates over time as well. Even sleeping in during the weekend isn’t enough to make up the difference — especially in men.

From ScienceDaily: “Compared with men, women were found to have less subjective sleepiness and less performance deterioration during sleep restriction, as well as greater improvements after recovery.”

In other words, women can run on fewer hours of sleep better than men and rebound from it faster. Why? Because the female body is a grade-A machine, poised to outlast the male tugboat of a physique. Deep, slow-wave sleep seems to have a more restorative effect on women, though the researchers didn’t offer a detailed  explanation for the “significant gender differences.”

If I had to place a money bet on the explanation, I’d go with maternity. Think about how mothers (and fathers, too) have to take care of infants while running on only slivers of sleep. Having never dealt with this myself, I don’t fully understand how new mothers don’t develop walking narcolepsy from having to wake up every couple hours (if they’re blessed with any catnapping at all) to feed and soothe the newborn. It seems like our ability to rebound might come in awfully handy for that, not to mention the sleep loss associated with snoring partners.

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