Journal of Student Research 2014

Sleep Patterns & Marital Satisfaction

falling asleep, fewer nighttime awakenings, and less restless sleep (Pringerson, Maciejewski, & Rosenheck, 1999). A common sleep disturbance among married couples is children. As Medina, Lederhos, and Lillis (2009) found in their research, there is a postpartum decline in marital satisfaction, especially during the first year of their child’s life. Their research argues that as people transition into parenthood they face new demands, emotions, and stressors. Interestingly, the cognitive skills needed to cope with this transition are those also most affected by sleep disturbance. Troxel et al. (2009) conducted an in-depth study of the link between marital happiness and sleep disturbances in middle-aged women of multi-ethnic backgrounds and found that an individual’s sleep disturbances corresponded with self-reported marital satisfaction rates. Therefore, the fewer disturbances a spouse had at night, the more satisfied they claimed to be in their marriage. Due to finding scant research investigating sleep and marital satisfaction, we decided to include an international study from southeast England. The research conduct, elements, and results of this study abide by international ethical standards, therefore we feel this survey is relevant and provides adequate information to aid our research (Portaluppi, Touitou, & Smolensky, 2008). The study compared variables such as ideal bed time and ideal wake time to the participant’s actual bed and wake times. The study also took into consideration the amount of times a participant woke during the night, the effect of light and dark on sleep, and idealized sleep efficiency. The research study concluded that sharing a bed with a partner can be the cause of daytime drowsiness and sleep deficiency throughout the night. In general, a demand has grown in research to look at the differences in males and females in pair sleep as females often report experiencing more sleep issues than males (Krishnan & Collop, 2006). It has been hypothesized that because females are more sensitive to emotions, marital problems and negative interactions within a marriage project differently in a female’s life. Women actually experience lower-quality free time and less free time in general than men due to many women juggling multiple roles. Because of this, it has been hypothesized that women are more impacted by scheduling, having the least amount of ‘refreshing free time’ (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001). If women are not experiencing relaxing free time during

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