Hi All,
Women may have an additional response to stress as well as the traditional 'fight or flight' response and it's 'to nurture'
A landmark UCLA
> study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade
> of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain
> friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that
> has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on
> men---upside down. "Until this study was published,
> scientists generally believed that when people experience
> stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body
> to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible,"
> explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant
> Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University
> and one of the study's authors. "It's an
> ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were
> chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.
>
> Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger
> behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight."
> "In fact," says Dr. Klein, "it seems that
> when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress
> responses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or
> flight" response and encourages her to tend children
> and gather with other women instead. When she actually
> engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that
> more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and
> produces a calming effect. This calming response does not
> occur r in men", says Dr. Klein, "because
> testosterone---which men produce in high levels when
> they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of
> oxytocin. Estrogen", she adds, "seems to enhance
> it."
I've been hearing about this piece of research for a while and was prompted to go and find the background for it after my Mum sent me an email summarising it (Is she nurturing me? is she under stress?).
All the references to the research are here:
http://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/pub.htm#Tend_and_Befriend
How might this info be applied in learning or your training?
I shall certainly be looking at various sessions we've got on beliefs and handling stress and updating them.
Warm regards,
STella
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