Thankfully, Quadro is my best friend as well as SO. As I said in SC's thread, I really do wish I had more in the way of other friends, however. I think the health benefits can also be associated with the idea that women do talk about stresses and things more easily, they're VENTING, thus they're healthier not keeping stuff bottled up. Men typically don't vent the same way, thus they are not as healthy.
Quote:
In fact, for women, there is some evidence that a male partner, in times of stress, can make things worse. In a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine in 1995, German researchers found that when subjects were given a stressful task — in this case, preparing a speech for delivery in front of an audience — men who were joined by their female partner for the preparation period showed much lower stress levels than those who had no support. For women, it was a different story. When women preparing their speeches were joined by their male partners, their stress hormones surged.
Taylor of UCLA surmises that findings such as this may reflect a major difference between the way men and women give support. Men's support to a friend or partner tends to take the form of advice, she says. Women's support more frequently comes in vaguer forms of encouragement, validation and acceptance. That, in turn, may let a woman work out her own solution to a problem, with less pressure to satisfy the expectations of her advisor.
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I found this really resonated with me. Quadro may not mean it, but there are lots of times that I feel his advice just puts even more pressure on me. It's as if, once given, you must follow that or you don't get to vent anymore, or be upset anymore. Poor Quadro, he only tries to help. :*