Girl, Go To Bed!

Black Women Aren’t Getting Enough Rest at Night, and Our Health Is Suffering Because of It. Here’s How to Catch the Z’s Your Body Needs

- Niema Jordan

You’ve heard the recommendations, but the truth is, getting a full night of sleep can seem like an impossible task at times. Yet it’s imperative—especially for Black women. “Sleep is the foundation of health,” notes Tiffany Lester, M.D., medical director at Parsley Health in San Francisco. “You can eat kale salads all day, work out twice a day and have a fulfilling, engaged life, but if you don’t give your body the opportunity to fully rest and detox, then it hardly makes any difference.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that one-third of Americans are clocking fewer than the seven to nine hours of snooze time advised for adults. Poor quality of sleep plagues Black women even more than our counterparts and undermines our overall health. “Blacks and Latinos tend to be poor sleepers, getting fewer than six hours on average per night—which is not enough, because poor sleepers are at greater risk for cardiovascular disease,” explains Girardin Jean-Louis, Ph.D., professor of population health and psychiatry at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Lack of shut-eye is also linked to diabetes, obesity, depression and a host of other chronic illnesses.