Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Half Life of the Autonomic Nervous System

So, first a little bit of an update.  I did write back to the Handyman's suggestion (hey that sounds like a good book title...anybody want it?) and I told him I was glad he took the time to find my e-mail and write since I thought that he didn't like me.  I hope that didn't sound snarky, but I needed him to know how I was affected, I thought.  I wished him well in getting through the semester and that I hoped things went well.  I tried to be kind and thoughful and of course I haven't heard from him.

I am still chatting with a couple of other men. I might even manage to meet a couple of them.  It seems that some of them like the endless e-mailing and texting, but never want to actually meet.  I'm not sure what that means.

So on to the title of my post.  I heard on the radio the other day about the autonomic nervous system and its role in arguments.  Now stay with me!  So apparently when you argue your autonomic nervous system gets involved and you start to tense up, your heart rate increases and your adrenaline starts to surge. Both men and women have the same response.  The difference is that men calm down faster from that than women.  Which means that after an argument, men are pretty much done, but women remain "feeling angry" even though they logically know that the argument is done.  So, they look around for other reasons why they still "feel angry" and that usually results in them bringing up other things to argue about.  The article suggested ways men can diffuse the situation after the argument. I am sure that each of your HOHs out there have their own way of that... :-)

Here is the link to that short article:

http://dylan.tweney.com/2007/01/11/half-life-of-the-autonomic-nervous-system/

I think I'm going to find that information pretty useful.