What is the difference between men’s and women’s brains?

What is the difference between men’s and women’s brains? This is an absolutely brilliant and hilarious TED talk by John Gray about the difference between men’s and women’s brains.

Novelty stimulates dopamine, which gives us motivation, focus and pleasure. The start of a new relationship, or the dating stage, increases dopamine production, which for men stimulates testosterone production. For men, testosterone lowers stress levels. When men have depression, they have low testosterone, and it can contribute to heart disease and prostate cancer.

Depression for men is the feeling that they aren’t needed or wanted – they want to fix, help, serve and support others. Being out of work, or unable to keep their partner happy, often causes depression for men.

When men are stressed out, all they need to do is sit down to relax and forget their problems. For women, sitting down just causes their brains to speed up! They cannot forget anything when they are stressed, as blood flows eight times faster to the emotional and memory parts of the brain. The only way to solve it is to reduce the stress.

Under moderate stress, women have stronger emotional reactions. Under large amounts of stress, men have stronger emotional reactions, and to a man this tends to be a result of a problem he can’t solve and forget. Testosterone converts to oestrogen, and men become angry or afraid.

Men require 30 times more testosterone in order to do something that takes effort than a woman does. This is why men should always reason first, and then check it out with their feelings, rather than relying on what they feel like doing. Women should check out what they are feeling first, to get in touch with their intuition, and then ask if it makes sense later. Men and women complement each other, because their brains work in different ways.

The right anterior parietal lobe is stronger in women, and is involved in intuition, relationships and emotion. Women relax by talking about, or taking part in, relational activities. The right part of the brain stimulates oestrogen and oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone that lowers stress in women, by lowering cortisol. Oxytocin, on the other hand, causes men to go to sleep!

So, the solution is for men to do oxytocin producing things to help women relax, but to realise he is also solving a problem, so that it increases his testosterone too. Women’s stress levels tend to be double that of men, and four times higher at home!

Men’s left anterior parietal lobes are double the size of a woman’s. The left brain is involved with problem solving, fixing things, technical skills, systems and formulae. Fixing things stimulates testosterone in all of us. But each time we increase oxytocin, we only get a small surge. Little things make a big difference for women, so the key is to do lots of little things, regularly.

The best way to keep a man’s testosterone levels up is to offer genuine compliments that give him a burst of testosterone. John’s top three are “that makes sense”, “good idea” and “you’re right!”

Project 365

I set up this website after deciding that I want to build a more creative life for myself, so I can give up my job and be in control of my own destiny.

I have set myself a goal of publishing an article on my website every day this year, to document my journey from employment to self-employment.

The name I chose was Project 365 because I see this as a year that I have dedicated to learning and self-development, as I countdown to freedom. It started on 1st January 2021, so I have 187 days to go!