Читать книгу Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improve Your Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress - Джон Грей, John Gray - Страница 19

A woman’s brain has a larger corpus callosum, the bundle of nerves that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This link, which produces cross-talk between the hemispheres, is 25 percent smaller in men. In practical terms, this means men do not connect feelings and thoughts as readily as women do. In a very real sense, women have superhighways connecting their feelings to speech, while men have back roads with plenty of stop signs. Some researchers believe that the integration of the two lobes may be the source of “women’s intuition”—in other words, whole-brain processing.

This stronger connection between different parts of the brain increases a woman’s ability to multitask. When she is listening, she is also thinking, remembering, feeling, and planning all at the same time.

A man’s brain is single-focused, while a woman’s brain tends to multitask.

A man’s brain is highly specialized, using a specific part of a single hemisphere to accomplish a task. A woman’s brain is more diffuse, using both hemispheres for many tasks. This neurological difference allows men to focus and to block out distractions for long periods of time. On the other hand, women tend to see things in a broader context, from a larger vantage point.

Men tend to do one thing at a time in their brains and in life. When a man is under stress, he can easily forget his partner and her needs. He may be focusing on how to get that promotion, so he forgets to bring home the milk. A woman can easily misinterpret his forgetful behavior as uncaring. After she has misunderstood his behavior in this manner, it is even harder for her to risk asking him for more support.

This insight can help a woman not to take it personally when he is at his computer and seems annoyed when she asks him a question. For her, it is a simple task to shift her attention when she is interrupted, but for him it is much more difficult. If he seems annoyed, she can remember that it is much more difficult for him to shift gears rather than take it personally.

In a similar manner, women become annoyed when a man tries to narrow down the focus of her conversation to a single point. He may interrupt her and ask her to get to the point, or ask what she wants him to do when she is still just connecting all the dots of what she is talking about. Quite commonly men will say, “I understand,” but a woman hears that he wants her to finish talking.

He feels she doesn’t have to continue, because he understands. Since she is still in the process of discovering what it is she wants to say, she knows he cannot fully understand. There is not just one point when she is expressing herself. By taking more time to listen to her many details, a man helps his partner to come back to a more centered and stress-free perspective.

Likewise, when a woman minimizes her interruptions of a man’s focused activities, she helps him to keep his stress levels down. Leaving a man alone and ignoring him is sometimes the best way to support him. Understanding that these tendencies are based on our brain differences frees us from taking things personally and reveals practical ways to support our partners in coping better with their stresses.

Leaving a man alone and ignoring him is sometimes the best way to support him.

Men separate information, emotions, and perceptions into separate compartments in their brains, while women tend to link their experiences together, reacting to multiple issues with their whole brain. This is one of the reasons a woman has a greater tendency to become overwhelmed with too much to do when she is under stress. While women tend to reach out to take in more information, under stress men tend to focus on the most important thing to do.

While women tend to reach out to take in more information, under stress men tend to focus on determining the most important thing to do.

This difference in brain structure 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.