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To: HG who wrote (423)	9/15/2006 10:34:57 AM
From: HG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 536

Stressed Women Tend-and-Befriend rather than Fight-or-Flight By Deena Beasley mentalhealth.about.com LOS ANGELES, May 19 (Reuters) - Stressed-out women are likely to seek social contact, rather than indulge in the "fight-or-flight" behavior that has long been considered the principal way both sexes cope with stress, researchers said in a report released on Friday. "We have been myopic about how we think about stress--focusing heavily on fight-or-flight and failing to recognize coping methods that center on the social group's protective effect against stress," said Shelley Taylor, the lead investigator of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) study. Fight-or-flight responses triggered by stress--ranging from aggression to withdrawal, depending on the perceived threat--have been tied to ailments ranging from hypertension to alcoholism. After compiling data from thousands of biological and behavioral studies of humans and animals, UCLA researchers identified a broad pattern, they termed "tend and befriend," that women use to cope with stress. The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Psychological Association's journal. This pattern shows that females of many species, including humans, respond to stressful conditions by protecting and nurturing their young, and by seeking social contact and support from others--especially other females, Taylor said. Befriending methods range from talking on the phone with relatives or friends, to such simple social contacts as asking for directions when lost, the study found. Just as the fight-or-flight response is based on biological changes that occur in response to stress, the UCLA researchers theorized that the tend-and-befriend pattern may have a biological basis in the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is generated, like adrenaline, by the bodies of both genders when faced with stress, but it is enhanced by the female hormone estrogen and appears to be inhibited by male hormones, Taylor said. "Animals and people with high levels of oxytocin are calmer, more relaxed, more social and less anxious. In several animal species, oxytocin leads to maternal behavior and to affiliation," the researcher said. The different ways that men and women respond to stress may also help researchers understand why men are more vulnerable to the adverse health effects of stress. "Because the tend-and-befriend regulatory system may, in some ways, protect women against stress, this biobehavioral pattern may provide insights into why women live an average of seven and a half years longer than men," Taylor said. In one study, when the typical father came home after a stressful day at work, he responded to stress by wanting to be left alone, enjoying peace and quiet away from the stress of the office. When office-related stress was particularly acute, a typical response would be to react harshly or create conflict with his wife or children, the UCLA report said. When the typical mother in the same study came home from work bearing stress, she was more likely to cope with her bad day by focusing her attention on nurturing her children. Until five years ago, when the federal government mandated broad representation of both men and women in agency-funded medical research grants, most studies on stress focused on males. "Women were largely excluded in stress research because many researchers believed that monthly fluctuations in hormones created stress responses that varied too widely to be considered statistically valid," Taylor said. "We need to identify a broader range of what people do to respond to stress," she added.