Friendship hormone saves women in home insulation more than men

Laila Ali

Women are the most emotionally and socially affected in the isolation due to the Corona virus, but why are men not affected equally? Are women social beings while men tend to be isolated?

Perhaps the answer lies in the results of many scientific studies that confirm that women obtain their needs for support and support from girlfriends, while men receive them from their wives and life partners, and that women prefer social life while men tend to be isolated.

Men don't support
, journalist Melissa Healy says - in an article on the Seattle Times - that there is some evidence that a husband in times of stress can make matters worse, so women resort to their friends, not their husbands.

In a study published in the Journal of Physical Psychiatry in 1995, German researchers found that when people were assigned a stressful task, the men their wives joined had significantly lower stress levels compared to those who had no one to support them.

While the opposite was true, for women whose husbands were joined, their stress hormones increased.

The social neuroscientist at the University of California, Shelley Taylor, believes that these results may reflect a significant difference in the way men and women provide support to each other, and says that men's support for others takes the form of counseling, while women's support comes in a frequent form of encouragement, acceptance, verification, and effectiveness.

Men prefer isolation, and
another study, "Gender and Social Isolation" in 2012, examined gender and social support. She revealed that men were more isolated than women, and researchers attributed the reason that men generally get their emotional needs from supporting their wives, while women often get their emotional needs from supporting their friends.

"Why is isolation higher among males?" Asked social psychologist Nathan Heflick in an article on "Psychology Today".

He says that a research paper published in 2018 led by Peter Helm at the University of Arizona aimed to answer this question. The researchers conducted a survey to see if this could be explained by gender differences in terms of loneliness, but they discovered that both sexes experience a feeling of loneliness in the same way.

Heflik says that this corresponds to a wide range of research that shows that males are restricted in the range of emotions that are socially acceptable, because being warm, gentle, and emotional is not considered desirable by males, so males feel isolated because they do not accept social norms that really hinder their ability to communicate with others .

Women's friendships baffle scientists The
current isolation at home may prevent women from communicating with their friends, and this may affect them more than anyone thinks. Melissa Healy explains, "Women's friendship strengthens and protects them, because they relieve life difficulties, reduce blood pressure and enhance immunity and recovery. This may help explain why women - on average - have lower rates of heart disease, and have an average life expectancy longer than Men".

"Women keep each other's secrets, and reinforce each other's trust, through laughter, tears, and an inexhaustible river of words," Healy says. "This has raised questions for male anthropologists."

"Women are more social in the way they deal with stress, while men are more likely to deal with stress with a reaction such as a fight, flight, aggression or withdrawal," she says, "while aggression and withdrawal have a psychological impact on men, then Friendship brings comfort that reduces the negative effects of stress on women, this difference alone contributes to the difference in longevity. "

The "oxytocin" friendship hormone
Researchers believe that the hormone oxytocin is a hormone for women, and is the elixir of friendship and health for them.

According to a study published in the journal Nature in 2005, “the hormone oxytocin is present in men and women, but it increases in females after birth and when breastfeeding. It also rises in times of isolation and stress. When oxytocin interacts with estrogen, studies show that it drives Females seek solemnity with others. "

"We call this hormone a thermostat, or a social regulator. It tracks female social support, but we don't see the same mechanism in men," Taylor says.

When oxytocin levels are high, stress-related reactions are reduced. According to Taylor, at least 22 studies have concluded that obtaining social support reduces responses to tachycardia and increased blood pressure.