Most people would agree that men and women handle stress very differently. But now it seems that there might be some scientific evidence for why this is a fact. A team of researchers has been looking into the ways men and women deal with stress in their lives to see if they can pinpoint the factors that make this the case.
The team from Michigan Technological University published their findings in the American Journal of Physiological, Heart and Circulatory Physiology. The results claim that younger women’s bodies are better prepared to handle stress than young men’s, but that this is not the case later on in life.
It is well-known, for example, that men are more susceptible to high blood pressure early in their lives. However, is not so commonly held that the problem may actually be worse for women after they have been through the menopause.
The team tested 34 men and women at rates of five minutes of mental stress and five minutes of rest, inserting a microelectrode needle into a nerve in the subjects’ legs. They then measured their heart rate, blood pressure and limb blood flow.
The results showed that during mental stress, women often experienced widening of their calf blood vessels. For men, however, no such widening occurred. It seems that this widening of the blood vessels could be what allows women to deal better with stress.
This research is very interesting as we know that stress can take a huge toll on the human body and lead to problems with your overall wellbeing. The authors of the study indicated that this was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can learn about how our bodies cope with stress. Nevertheless it is very interesting that men and women’s bodies respond in different ways.
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