How Men and Women Deal with Stress

The Stress of It All

I wanted to make you all aware of a recent study carried out by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine about stress. Men and women deal with stress in different ways.

There is a great writeup at New Men Vs. Women Brain Study: Active Part of Brain During Stress  that gets into all the details. In summary, men go into “fight or flight” mode and women go into “friend or befriend” mode.

The evolutionary explanation would go something like this; men have been the hunters and the warriors and women have been the nurturers who must depend on each other. I’m not trying to present an argument for or against family values here. This is not my opinion. I’m obviously not trying to be politically correct. This is hard science. The brains of men and women react differently to stress.

In a previous post titled The Science Behind Why Anxiety Kills Meditation, I discussed how the brain reacts to stress. The men’s right brain in the front is fired off and doesn’t let the rest of the brain have much control. Remember, its fight or flight. Researchers found that a women’s brain is affected in the limbic system(the amygdale, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, thalamus and more), which is the emotional seat of the brain. Women are looking to make an emotional connection and soothe each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for a future post that will discuss how stress affects peak performance.

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