The Missing Half
You get seven hours of sleep and wake up exhausted. You are not imagining it.
A 2024 review by an all-women research team at Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Southampton found that women consistently rate their sleep quality lower than men, even when total hours are equal. Across the menstrual cycle, estrogen and progesterone shift the architecture of sleep itself. Women's internal circadian clocks run on a slightly shorter cycle than men's, and the resulting misalignment between body clock and sleep-wake rhythm is five times larger in women than in men. The tiredness is real. The brain is working against a mismatch that standard sleep advice never accounts for.
This is one symptom of a broader problem. Until 1993, women were routinely excluded from clinical trials in the United States. Much of what we know about the brain, including how it handles sleep, stress, and mood, was built almost entirely from male subjects. The female brain, which runs on a monthly hormonal rhythm that changes cognition, focus, and emotional regulation, was treated as a footnote.
On April 21st, our founder Jiali will sit down with Dr. Emilė Radytė, co-founder and CEO of Samphire Neuroscience, for an intimate fireside chat on what it means to build brain-first solutions for women's health, and what it tells us about the future of neuroscience when we finally build it around every brain.
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Through Clarity, by Soma, we hope to answer your most pressing questions about the brain and cognitive health. Submit your questions here.
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