Couples Who Don’t Sleep Together

Nearly one in four American couples sleep apart, either in the same room or in another one, a recent telephone survey of adults by the National Sleep Foundation says. Some sleep experts will tell you it’s probably even more than that, maybe as much as 33 percent. (The foundation doesn’t break down the numbers by sexual orientation of couples, by the way.)

Meanwhile, an article this month in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms found that men sleep sweet and sound when they sleep with women. Women, however, sleep less well when they sleep with men.

What do we make of all this?

The State Of . . . you couples out there. You sleep better with or without your mate? Some scientists say that women sleep lighter than men because of their traditional role as care-givers–listening for babies and saber-tooth tigers that lurk in the dark–and their hormonal changes. And men snore.