Tag Arvhies: Louann Brizendine

Why Women Don’t Understand Men

Posted on by

When a woman cries her man’s face either goes blank or shows panic.

“From childhood on, males learn that acting cool and hiding their fears are the unwritten laws of masculinity,” writes Louann Brizendine, MD, in her book The Male Brain. By age 13 or so, as his testosterone levels surge, looking cool becomes extra important, even essential, because then he looks confident. Boys practice keeping their emotions hidden from an early age and have trained their face muscles into a mask to hide fear from other males.

Face muscles are controlled by the brain’s emotional circuits. Researchers used electrodes on smile muscles and on scowl muscles of men and women and recorded electrical activity as volunteers looked at photos chosen for emotional content.

The scientists were surprised to discover the men, after seeing an emotional face for just one fifth of a second, so briefly that it was still unconscious, were more emotionally reactive than the women.

But then, at 2.5 seconds, well into the range of conscious processing, the men’s facial muscles became less emotionally responsive that the women’s.

The women’s facial muscles became more emotionally responsive after 2.5 seconds.

So what does this tell us? Well, scientists are suggesting that we have been in training since childhood. Men have trained themselves to automatically turn off or disguise facial emotions from boyhood to be acceptable among men. Females, whose Mirror Neuron System stays on longer, express empathy and mirror back the emotions through smiles or frowns and even exaggerate the facial expression, and are more interactive in the empathy stage.

So a blank face may be preferable or even an essential trained reflex for men amongst men, but in personal relationships with women it is easily misinterpreted as lack of interest or caring.

So going out of empathy mode into fix-it mode fast is normal and feels natural for men while building and maintaining empathy over a longer time before going into fix-it mode is normal and feels caring and natural for women.

This is estrogen and testosterone in action. When will we accept that yin is meant to be yin and yang is meant to be yang. They are not interchangeable. The opposites polarities, negative and positive, are essential to move energy in cells in the body for life to exist.
Why would we expect males and females to express emotions in the same way? That expectation is a mystery to me. How about you? What do you think?

Cheers
Anna
anna@annamcrobert.com.au

The Cast Of Male Neurohormone Characters

Posted on by

I’ve just bought another book, The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine MD.

The introductory list of hormones in the male body was fun.  Each hormone described has a symbolic name based on the behaviour it induces in the male.  Have a read of these and see if you recognize them action.

Louanne writes:

TESTERONE – Zeus, King of the male hormones, he is dominant aggressive and all-powerful.  Focused and goal oriented, he feverishly builds all that is male, including the compulsion to outrank other males in the pecking order.  He drives the masculine sweat glands to produce the come hither smell of manhood – androstenedione.   He activates the sex and aggression circuits, and he’s single minded in his dogged pursuit of his desired mate.  Prized for his confidence and bravery, he can be convincing seducer, buy when he’s irritable, he can be the grouchiest of bears.

VASOPRESSIN  –   The White Knight.  Vasopressin is the hormone of gallantry and monogamy, aggressively protecting and defending turf, mate, and children.  Along with testosterone, he runs the male brain circuits and enhances masculinity.

MULLERIAN INHIBITING SUBSTANCE (MS)  –  Hercules.  He’s strong, tough, and fearless.  Also known as the de-feminizer, he ruthlessly strips away all that is feminine from the male.  MIS builds brain circuits for exploratory behavior, suppresses brain circuits for female-type behaviors, destroys the female reproductive organs, and helps build the male reproductive organs and brain circuits.

OXYTOCIN  –  The Lion Tamer.  With just a few cuddles and strokes, this “down, boy” hormone settles and calms even the fiercest of beasts.  He increases empathic ability and builds trust circuits, romantic-love circuits, and attachment circuits in the brain.  He reduces stress hormones, lowers men’s blood pressure, and plays a major role in fathers’ bonding with their infants.  He promotes feelings of safety and security and is to blame for a man’s “postcoital narcolepsy.”

PROLACTIN  –  Mr Mom.  He causes sympathetic pregnancy (couvade syndrome) in fathers-to-be and increases dads’ ability to hear their babies cry.  He stimulates connections in the male brain for paternal behavior and decreases sex rive

CORTISOL  –  The Gladiator.  When threatened, he is angry, fired up, and willing to fight for life and limb.

ANDROSTENEDIONE  –  Romeo.  The charming seducer of women.  When released by the skin as a pheromone he does more for a man’s sex appeal than any aftershave or cologne.

DOPAMINE  –  The Energizer.  The intoxicating life of the party, he’s all about feeling good, having fun, and going for the gusto.  Excited and highly motivated, he’s pumped up to win and driven to hit the jackpot again and again.  But watch out – he is addictively rewarding, particularly in the rough-and-tumble play of boyhood and the sexual play of manhood, where dopamine increases ecstasy during orgasm.

ESTROGEN  –  The Queen.  Although she doesn’t have the same power over a man as Zeus, she may be the true force behind the throne, running most of the male brain circuits.  She has the ability to increase his desire to cuddle and rlate by stimulating his oxytocin.

(This is a taste of Louann Brizendine’s writing style.  Her book The Female Brain is even better.)
Cheers, Anna