Women vs Men Stress Research: What you need to know
Hello. Good morning everybody. So I'm getting straight into this one and it's about stress. How stress can hurt women's health. So let's get into what the research says first and then let's talk a bit about it.
Speaker 1:Because if we don't tackle this, like we spoke about before, think Christmas challenge twenty twenty or yeah. We had, like, a lot of about a lot about stress. And, like, if we don't tackle the cause of stress and all, even not even tackling the causes, how we deal with our thoughts about the stress causing it to catastrophize, we're in for a world of trouble. We're gonna make a life a lot harder for ourselves. Let's get let's get into this now.
Speaker 1:So in a 02/2010 study titled stress and gender involving thousands of participants by the American Psychological Association found likely than men to report having a great deal of stress. Twenty eight percent of women versus twenty eight percent of men. Almost half of all women, forty nine percent surveyed said their stress has increased over the past five years compared to men, so forty nine percent versus thirty nine percent. Women are more likely to report physical and emotional symptoms of stress than men such as having a headache forty one percent women, thirty percent men, Having felt as though they could cry, forty four percent women, fifteen percent men, that's a huge difference, or having had an upstep, upset stomach or indigestion, thirty two percent women versus twenty one percent men. Women are more likely to report that money seventy nine percent compared to seventy three percent of men and the economy sixty eight percent women sixty one percent men are sources of stress whilst men are far more likely to cite that work is a source of stress 76% for men versus 65% for women.
Speaker 1:Married women report higher levels of stress than single women. Yeah, like don't divorce guys come on I'm not saying that. With one third 33% reporting they have experienced a great deal of stress in the past month compared with twenty two percent of single women. Similarly, I never considered, significantly more married women reported their stress has increased over the past five years fifty six percent married versus forty percent single. And single women are also more likely than married women to say they are doing enough to manage their stress, sixty three percent single, fifty one percent married.
Speaker 1:In The United States alone, nearly half of all women report higher stress levels during the holidays whilst only a third of men would say the same. So fifty percent of women, thirty three percent men. The women's health specialists at Genesis Women's have seen how high stress levels can be severely detrimental to overall wellness. There are many negative effects on women's health due to high stress during the busy holidays and thus it is essential to make a check-in with yourself. Now we're going on to menstrual health.
Speaker 1:According to the American Journal of Epidemiology, women who spend prolonged time in high stress scenarios, especially at work, have a fifty percent higher risk of experiencing shortened menstrual cycles, meaning multiple periods in less than a month that may not be predictable. Women under stress also report heavier flow than usual and more severe symptoms of pain and lethargy. Before your period begins, you may even feel severe PMS symptoms than usual, including mood swings that can feel like genuine depressive episodes. Studies on depression in men versus women have shown that women are twice as likely as men to be depressed. Women are also at a higher risk of developing anxiety disorders such as general anxiety, PTSD, and OCD.
Speaker 1:Due to our body's physical responses to stressors unmanageable stress levels can trigger all of these conditions. Okay, now we're talking about vaginal health. Yes, I'm going into it. The pH or acidity content of the vagina is determined by a balance of healthy and unhealthy bacteria. High stress levels can negatively affect your immune system lowering your body's natural defenses and throwing off this delicate balance.
Speaker 1:This can lead to higher risk of contracting uncomfortable yeast infections and various bacterial ailments. Vaginal, and that's how I say vaginal time, vaginal yeast infection symptoms include itching, burning, swelling, rashes, and thick white odorless discharge around the vagina and vulva. Okay. Sex drive and fertility. Last one, guys.
Speaker 1:Women under great stress tend to have a lower sex drive, feel distracted during sex, may even experience discomfort due to vaginal dryness. Women under stress can also have more difficulty getting pregnant, and for those who wanna build a family, this may become an additional stressor. There's a theory why all of Henry VIII's wives kept having miscarriages. They were so stressed that they had to deliver a guy a boy to deliver a guy. John comes out 55 years old.
Speaker 1:So they were so stressed about the fact that had to do a boy, otherwise you would get killed. That that that stress on top of the stress of pregnancy, they all cause miscarriages all the time. They miscarriages, miscarriages, miscarriages. Okay. So, like, women under high stress can begin to display several physical symptoms that affect various body parts.
Speaker 1:Some of these symptoms include stomach and bowel issues. IBS is also twice as common in in women and stress can trigger flare ups. Heart problems, prolonged stressful situations can lead to high blood pressure and headaches. Women are more prone to tension headaches severe migraines than men both related or worsened by stress. Now as a lot of information come at you, more you need to understand from that is it's overall women get more stressed out than men, and overall women show their stresses as manifestations through IBS like flare ups or potentially looking into it.
Speaker 1:Some they're looking to stress causing these things. So we're not we can't run away from stress. Okay. When we get stressed, the frontal cortex, the decision making part of your brain can speak to the rest of the brain and say wait now, hold on, don't catastrophize you this is fine, let's calm down a bit and it can work. That can calm yourself down.
Speaker 1:The stress response can chill out. Okay? And I'm speaking to Dean about this as well. It's like when you're in the moment of actual complete and utter anxiety, like, you know, Dean's been through it over Christmas, Louise Ryan. Can we control that?
Speaker 1:Or is it not about controlling? It's about acceptance that you're stressed and being aware of why the stress has been activated and actually then rationalizing it and bringing it down. Dean says what worked for him is really talking. And what talking does is you basically rationalizing things yourself. You're talking to someone, you talk through the process, and actually you come to terms, you're talking, the brain calms down, the stress response remains at its peak a few minutes in length.
Speaker 1:The problem is when a stress response is on throughout the day all day. Right? That's the problem we have. Now when you get stressed and I've spoke about this multiple times and it's very important to reiterate this. When you get stressed you're getting ready for fight or flight.
Speaker 1:You're getting your body is now mobilized to run, punch, whatever it may be doing. Your senses are sharpened. Blood glucose in the muscles rapid, boom to the thighs, you're ready to run. Adrenaline, the course into the body, heart rate fly in. You are ready to run.
Speaker 1:Okay? But what most of us do is we're sitting down. We have thought this up. We've thought psychologically the psychological stress is a problem. We have thought of something, caused ourselves to have a stress response, kept the stress response on for ages.
Speaker 1:The body's been mobilized to run, glucocorticoids are going through the body which are good in the short term, but if they're always there really, really bad. Stress is one of those things that like in acute short term we need it to survive, we absolutely need stress to survive. We need it to be able to run, fight, whatever that we need it. But when we turn it on it's the actual complete opposite. Your immune system, acute stress shoots up.
Speaker 1:Immune system, chronic long term stress throughout the days goes way down. Our desire to eat goes goes to zero when we're stressed. Why does the body need to digest anything when it needs to survive and run? Digestion stops. Muscle tissue building everything stops.
Speaker 1:Because why you what's the point building when you need to survive? Right? Long term stress causes appetite to go up, causes you to desire more salty and fatty foods. That's not good. That's not good at all.
Speaker 1:So glucocorticoids long term in the bloodstream can actually merge or mix with fat cells and cause blockages in the arteries and stuff as well. Raising blood pressure. It's not to scare you, it's like what can we do about stress? There's a few simple things we can do. I think we need to start thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Is that if you start thinking about your stress and this is where sometimes when you look at stress, anxieties, is it that we become tense and then stressed psychologically doing that? Because if you take a muscle relaxant drug and you have your muscles are all relaxed, your anxiety literally melts away. Tension goes in the body, you're not tight, anxiety goes, you're not tensed. Okay, that's what happens and it's gonna work out well. If that happens then is it a bodily thing causing it?
Speaker 1:So the first thing is to do right now check-in on yourself. Where are you tensing up? Relax for a minute. Drop the shoulders. Where are you tensed up?
Speaker 1:Think about it now. Look at your body, examine it. Where is the tension? Are you tensed all the time? Is your jaw clenched?
Speaker 1:Your fist clenched? Like are you always you know tighten up? Do we need to be more aware day to day to actually check-in with ourselves go right okay, let me just check my body, I'm tensed up, am I ready to go, let's relax a bit. That's gonna help. The second thing that's gonna help is if you are stressed and you've triggered the stress response, your heart rate is flying.
Speaker 1:Okay? Is it can you at the peak of that actually stop it immediately? Probably not. You are now ready to run, fight, punch, workout. Go and do that thing.
Speaker 1:If you have sat on a chair 10:45 a. M, got your phone up and you've seen Dean Leakers text you and you're like, oh, Dean Leakers a knob and you text your message, oh, Dean Leakers, he's pissed me off with this message. And you get worked up, you got six messages from your friends going, yeah, you tell him he's a knob, do you know, you know, you're working up, you're gonna send you're about to send this message, you can't send it to him, your head's going all over the shop. Are you gonna tell him everything he's and then you're in this frenzy state of stress, yeah, And you've activated it. Is the next two minutes chilling out a big and help?
Speaker 1:You know, your heart rate's still risen. So what you wanna do there is get up off the chair, go for a walk, a brisk walk, go and do a ten minute workout, go and do a you need an outlet. You need an outlet at this point, which is vital. So that outlet will be able to reduce stress. And it is a grim image, but Robert Sapolsky talks about this.
Speaker 1:When when the world goes worse and the economy tanks and men lose their jobs, their egos get hurt, They're at home. And the lockdown proved this. Domestic violence increased. So when men were out of control and stressed, chronically stressed, their outlet was domestic violence. They managed to get their stress out on their partner and it was grim.
Speaker 1:Right? But that stopped them getting ulcers, but gave the ulcers to the partner. Am I making sense? So they were able to release their stress, get rid of it, but at the same time stressing their partner out in the worst conditions, thus causing their partner to be chronically stressed and then the partner actually having the negative effects of having stomach ulcers and all that when being chronically stressed. Okay.
Speaker 1:So there is this transference of stress and now domestic violence is unacceptable of course it's fucking these people need help. But if you can channel the stress into an outlet such as maybe a punch bag or a workout or a brisk walk or something, you can kind of unleash the stress out and not hold her in. And if we're holding her in, it's not gonna be good for our bodies, but we can release it. That's a vital part. I'm speaking to Dean yesterday as well.
Speaker 1:Really good chat, talking about the mind. Fascinating stuff. This will be coming on our morning talks on the on the octagon challenge. Some deep stuff, but normal stuff, obviously, having a laugh. We spoke about Cecilia, but Dean.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, Dean, let me put it this way for you. You're you're you're in bed. You're trying to sleep. One part of you is your body's racing, heart rate's going, thinking crazy stuff.
Speaker 1:The other side of you is going, fucking hell, Scott. Shut up. What are you taking shit for? Stop thinking about Wales England College Wales, man. Get to sleep.
Speaker 1:Stop thinking about you're gonna overthrow the Christmas to come from him. Go to sleep. Okay? So you're gonna talk to yourself in your bed, but it never works, does it? We're just up for hours.
Speaker 1:The Dean is saying is, well, if in that state, is basically a stress response state, you wanna get up and do something, you wanna get out of the bedroom, you wanna start you wanna journal, you wanna do it, you wanna do and read in, you wanna do spot something, you wanna get out of the bedroom because if you start connecting that bedroom is a place where you start feeling thinking of these things as a habit, oh, when I'm in a bed, I'm gonna start thinking about all my life problems. If you are connecting bed to life problems, every time you go to bed, you're gonna have them and you won't be able to sleep. So sleep is for two things Dean said from his book, is for sleeping and sex. That's what Dean said. Dean says only for sex, apparently.
Speaker 1:He doesn't sleep anymore. But Dean's that's the two things. So if you start thinking too much in your bed, get out. Go to living room as I'm in. Think that's quite a good tactic as well.
Speaker 1:So when we're stressed, we wanna safe and, yeah, we wanna safe and predictable outlet for it. If we ask if we're if sleeps get impacted, wanna make sure we're not trying to fight through that in the bed. Wanna go out, let it happen, then go back to bed when we ask that we're ready to sleep. So the sleeping pattern is better. We're gonna catastrophize, psychologically catastrophize our stress.
Speaker 1:We're realize the impact of because this is the thing. It's like smoking. You speak to smokers. You go, you know, smoking is bad for you. You go, yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's not one smoke, and it's not one faggot's gonna do it. It's not they smoke one faggot, next day they've got lung cancer. Something happens gradually for ages, it just it just creeps up on them. So because it's not an instant thing, they don't care so much about it. It's the same as stress.
Speaker 1:You can say to yourself today, yes, Scott, I'll I'll tackle stress tomorrow. I'll I'll think about tackling my stress next week. There is no next week. There is no tomorrow. There is no.
Speaker 1:Can we be free from these stressors or made up psychological fears? No. That's the question. Because if we can, which we should try to, and it's not actually there's no trend that it just is, we're not gonna go through all the stats I just said to you just earlier in this voice note. All the stats, they should be quite scary.
Speaker 1:Don't run away from them. That's the the science. That's the fact is as a woman, most of you listening are women, you are more stressed than men and you have more the the the more negative impacts on you than men when it comes to stress. So you better start dealing with it now because if we're not going to deal with the most important things that impact our health what are we doing? I mean is work more important than your mental and physical health?
Speaker 1:No. And this is I'm gonna finish this. The research is clear. When you're stressed your frontal cortex is impaired. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:The frontal cortex is the logical part of your brain. When we're stressed that doesn't work properly, severely impaired. You can't make good decisions when you're stressed. You make terrible decisions when you're stressed. So if you really want to start thinking we're sorting your life out, if that's the term you wanna use, or improving your life in any way, you're not gonna improve your life following the same silly path of overworking, over analyzing everything, overstressed, making everything making everything everyone says to you impact you, every negative thing that comes towards you, taking it to heart, being stressed about it, being in the middle of gossip all the time, talking about gossip, blah blah blah, all the shit.
Speaker 1:If you keep being in our state, listening to the news all the time in stress, gossip columns, this reality, like all the things that make you stressed, you keep going on our plan, your decision making abilities impaired, the fully rational self, the full intelligence of your being cannot be used because you've impaired it with chronic stress and you're going be hungrier and you're going to be just you're going to be developing health conditions and the general path of your life is going to get gradually worse. It won't be happening tomorrow, it'll gradually get worse. So it's of vital importance to start thinking about our stress. And that's where you need to start thinking one big thing today. How stressed really are you?
Speaker 1:How many times do you trigger your stress response every day? How many times do let something get to you and your heart starts racing? Stoicism comes in. Stoicism can limit that. Stoicism is not a 100% the answer, but stoicism can limit that.
Speaker 1:Our perception of things in my autism happens to us and it's a story about that, what what what triggers whatever inside us, not what actually happens to us as, you know, I know some people won't agree with it, but it's the truth. And another okay. This one I'm leave you with. Me and Dean were talking, and we're like, right. Dino, if we dumped you on an alien planet or a desert island right now on your own, you had no clock.
Speaker 1:Right? You're just on this desert island. No clock, no clothes, no time. You're in a coma. You don't know what what year it is.
Speaker 1:When you wake up, do you worry about what you're wearing in this alien planet on your own or on a desert island on your own? No. Do you worry if you're five pounds heavier than if you were you were a year ago? No. Do you worry about needing to achieve something by 35 years old?
Speaker 1:No. Because you didn't even know your age, you can't even think about it. I should do this by then. You don't even know. You don't even know your age.
Speaker 1:You can't say I wanna do a spin. There's it's not it's not there. It's not possible. Are you worrying about yesterday? No.
Speaker 1:Are you worrying about tomorrow? No. So in that fact, on on your own desert island or an alien planet, all these fears that we work up, the security we demand and the things we're trying to become are all made up in our own mind. Because if you can be free on a desert island, right, can you have that freedom, right, so there's no one in today's in the world now, right now? Is that possible?
Speaker 1:Because if it's possible on a desert island and we know nobody's there, but can we bring that perception to now? Yeah. We can. So in that regard, if we can do that, we can start eliminating a lot of these fears that cause a lot of stressors. Guys, oh my god.
Speaker 1:There's twenty minutes I gotta go, Gotta leave you to it. Start thinking about it. Start thinking about it today. Enjoy yourself. Obviously, have a smile on your face.
Speaker 1:It's a new day, beautiful day yesterday, blue skies. It wasn't a cloud in the sky. Unbelievable. I absolutely did Dean on an Instagram story. He thought I was doing a photo shoot for him.
Speaker 1:He was smiling, pausing. No, Dean. It was a video I done you. Top of mindset coach Dean, I read you like a book. But guys, enjoy your day.
Speaker 1:Speak to you tomorrow.
