Men and Women Experience Stress Differently

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To the women out there, have you ever tried to explain your stress to a male partner, friend, or colleague and had them look at you blankly? It can feel both frustrating and invalidating. You can start to wonder if there is something wrong with you, telling yourself that you are too sensitive, shouldn’t let things affect you so much, or should get tougher skin. You can feel that your partner doesn’t care about you or love you.

Stress-related disorders like PTSD and depression are more common in women than men, yet historically, studies only used male rodents when seeking to understand the neurological bases of these disorders. To correct this gap in our understanding, several research groups have looked at sex differences in how male and female rats experience stress.

As an example, the locus coeruleus (LC) is one of the stress centers in the brain. A study out of the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia found that in response to a blood pressure stress test, female LC neurons fire faster than those of males. Female rats also have more receptors for stress-related neurotransmitters than male rats, and their neurons don’t clear the neurotransmitters as quickly from the synapses as males do, meaning a stress reaction lasts longer in females than males.

Sex hormones also play a role, with testosterone inhibiting stress responses and estrogen sensitizing the stress system. Since estrogen levels rise and fall across the menstrual cycle, women experience more variability in their stress response reactivity. There are times when women can feel easily stressed and others when they are less affected.

On the whole, these results imply that women can have faster, larger, and longer stress responses than men.

When a man doesn’t get as stressed about a situation as a woman does, it can make her even more stressed. Take the example of a couple getting ready for a family vacation with their children. For many couples, the woman will prep for weeks and stress that she will forget something. The man will think it is fine to pack the night before and, therefore, not help. For women, this behavior can feel infuriating.

Women often perceive a man’s lack of stress as a choice to not care, when in reality, their brains may not be registering it. While there are no off-the-cuff answers for how to handle these situations, there is understanding. In the example above, the man could appreciate that the woman stresses more readily than he does and could support his partner by helping with the tasks. The woman can gut-check her level of hurt, knowing he isn’t actively choosing not to care. Instead of the age-old, “We just have to agree to disagree,” having an appreciation for our differences and supporting each other accordingly can go a long way.