Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improve Your Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress. John Gray

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ between men and women has another important effect on stress relief. A man can more easily disengage from his serious, responsible left brain and allow it to rest and regenerate. When a man is stressed, he can simply change his focus to a hobby or watching TV and he begins to relax. He shifts from using his left brain, which is logical, practical, and reality-based, to his right brain, which is feeling, risk-taking, and fantasy-based. By making this shift, he automatically disconnects from the stress of his responsibilities. In this manner, a man can shift gears and disengage from everyday worries with greater ease.

      A woman does not have this luxury, since the connective tissue between the two hemispheres of her brain won’t allow her to disengage as easily. When she is on the right side of her brain, trying to relax or have a fun time, she is still connected to her analytical and rational left brain.

      On a practical note, understanding this difference helps men to recognize the futility of making comments to a woman like “Just forget it” or “Don’t worry about it.” She can’t make this shift the way a man does, but she can talk about what is bothering her. On Mars, if a man can’t solve a problem, his way of coping is to forget about it until he can do something about it. On Venus, if a woman can’t solve a problem, then she feels, “At least we can talk about it.” Talking with someone who cares about her well-being has the power to stimulate the neurotransmitters needed to reduce stress levels in a woman’s brain. By remembering her problems, a woman can actually free herself from their gripping hold on her and her mood.

      White Matter vs. Gray Matter

      Men and women possess two different types of brains, designed equally for intelligent behavior. Men have approximately 6.5 times as much gray matter as women. Women have almost 10 times the white matter that men do. Information-processing centers are located in gray matter. The connections or networks among these processing centers are composed of white matter. These differences explain why men tend to excel in tasks involving gray matter local processing— like mathematics—while women excel at integrating and assimilating information from gray matter regions, required for language skills, because of their abundance of connecting white matter.

      This physical difference in our brain composition helps explain why we communicate so differently. A woman’s brain is busy connecting everything. The more she cares about something, the more she connects it to other things going on in her brain.

      For example, when she sees a movie or visits a friend, she may have a lot to say about it. Meanwhile a guy may have nothing to say unless the movie happens to hit a particular area of interest. She assumes that he does not want to talk about the movie, but he actually has little to say. With this new insight, she can be assured that he is interested in hearing what she has to say, even though he has little to offer in return. When a woman gives up expecting her partner to talk more, not only does he appreciate her willingness to talk, but gradually he begins to share more.

      When men have little to say, women often take it personally, as if he doesn’t want to share.

      This same idea applies to asking a man about his day or a trip he has taken. When he has little to say, he is not intentionally hiding what happened; he just doesn’t think that much about it, and as a consequence he doesn’t remember much. She looks forward to explaining how everything connects. The process of communicating actually helps her brain reduce stress levels, while it has little benefit for him.

      Why Talk Is Big on Venus

      Two sections of the brain, Broca’s area in the frontal lobe and Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe, are associated with language. These areas are larger in women, and that explains why women are so verbal. Researchers have located six or seven language centers in both hemispheres of a woman’s brain, but for men, language is only located in the left hemisphere. Since men have fewer language centers, it is not only harder for them to express what they experience, but they do not feel the need.

      A man’s language centers are particularly activated when he is solving a problem. Some men will talk more at the beginning of the relationship, because at that time a man is primarily introducing himself, and talking is a way to “solve the problem” of letting her know about himself and how he feels for her. Once that problem is solved, his language centers are not easily activated. Likewise, his listening center is most active when he is solving a problem.

      Women’s brains are constructed to communicate and express feelings. Compared to a man’s brain, a woman’s is much busier, always articulating reactions and perceptions. Many parts of her brain are fully engaged when she is talking. Men have a harder time connecting their emotions with their thoughts and articulating what they feel. This difference is a source of much friction in relationships. Understanding that a man is not withholding when he is silent can release a woman from the frustration of getting her partner to talk about his day in greater detail.

      With practice, a man can learn to be a good listener, which is actually one of the most potent ways to help a woman lower her stress levels. A woman may like it when a man opens up and shares, but unless she first feels heard, it will not lower her stress. As men get better at listening to women and women get better at appreciating this step, men become more open and share more.

      Math vs. Feelings

      The IPL (inferior parietal lobule) is a region on both sides of the brain, located just above the level of the ears. The size of the IPL correlates with mathematical ability. An enlarged left IPL was found in Albert Einstein’s brain, as well as in those of other physicists and mathematicians. The left IPL, more developed in men, is involved with perception of time and speed and the ability to rotate 3-D figures. These abilities have a lot to do with the Martian love of video games. More than 90 percent of video game users are from Mars.

      This is also why men seem to rush women to the point when they are talking or making decisions. He is acutely aware of the time she is taking to talk. While listening, he is also working hard to determine what needs to be done to solve her problem as soon as possible. This is not because he doesn’t care about her, but because he does. He wants to help, but doesn’t realize it would be an even greater help to ask more questions rather than rush to the point.

      When women talk, a man is acutely aware of the time she is taking and feels an inner urgency to help her solve her problems.

      In women, the right side of the IPL is larger. The left side of the brain has more to do with more linear, reasonable, and rational thought, while the right side of the brain is more emotional, feeling, and intuitive. Men are typically drawn to solving problems, while women have the tendency to understand the dynamics of a problem, the various relationships between the different parts of a problem.

      Women can also become frustrated when someone is taking too long to get to the point. By multiplying this frustration by ten, you have what the average man experiences listening to his wife complain about a list of problems in her life. This does not mean that she cannot share her feelings, but it does mean she has to do so in a manner that will work for him as well. We will explore this art in chapter 9.

      The IPL also allows the brain to process information from the senses, particularly in selective attention, like when women are able to respond to a baby’s crying in the night.

      Studies have shown that the right LPL, dominant in women, is linked to the memory and manipulation of spatial relationships. It is also related to the perception of our own feelings—a driving force on Venus.

      While men are particularly good at following the ball on a football field at a distance, women are adept at noticing subtleties СКАЧАТЬ