Transcription:
Dr. John Gray (4/27/10 TED Talk)
Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice: Life, Love, and Energy
Well it’s a delight for me to be here. I wrote
Men Are From Mars 20 years ago. I’ve been teaching it for 30 years and I recently wrote a new book because it had to be written. Although men and women’s’ bodies are pretty much the same, their roles in life are completely different. The differences that showed up 20 years ago show up today, but even more so. It’s even more confusing than ever before.
It used to be it was just women who talked too much. Now women often say, “I don’t talk at home, because if I start to talk he’ll talk too much.“
So one of the famous idea from
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is men go to their caves after a day of work. They work hard, they come home, and they ignore you. And you think, “Does this guy really love me? Am I important to him? Am I special to him?”
And today what’s happening is women are going to work, coming home, and they going to their caves, and he’s in his cave, and intimacy is suffering.
It used to be at least when men went to their caves that they would eventually come out. Today, what I’m finding is they don't. And I looked at this and I saw that relationships are actually getting worse today than they were 20 years ago, when divorce rates were at 50% of married couples getting a divorce. Today the numbers are about the same, but a bigger change is happened, which is more and more people are just not getting married. And when they do get married the chances of divorce go up even more, and even the third try it’s even more.
Is it people just not capable of loving?
I think what it takes to make a relationship work is courage, because every time our heart is broken, to open our hearts again we could be hurt again. And yet some people go, “Yeah...but it just seems to keep happening. It’s not about courage, it’s about being smart.”
If I said we had a camping trip, and we had a guide, and we were going to Yosemite, and we’re going along the trail and he says, “Ok, we’re gonna jump from this cliff to that cliff, so I’ll show you how it’s done.” And he jumps. And he’s on the other side, and your part of the group that’s about to jump, and he says, “Now 50% of you are gonna die.”
Does it take courage to jump? Absolutely, but it takes sanity as well.
So we have to look at making smart decisions. We have to figure out why our relationships haven’t worked in the past and how they can work in the future. If were in relationships we have to stop, instead of holding back on opening our hearts, which tends to happe, and start opening our hearts again and again, but using new wisdom, trying to understand, make sense of this new terrain the we‘re experiencing today, which is there’s tremendous confusion in relationships.
We set out on a path. We behaved, maybe, like our parents did, and maybe they had a good relationship, and it was successful, and they stayed together and loved each other. So we pretty much do what they did, but it doesn’t work today. The whole world is tipsy-turvy.
So I’ve written several books on relationships since
Men Are From Mars, but pretty much in the same theme. It was about six years ago that at UCLA some brave, courageous women did research showing that men and women were different from men in the way they react to stress.
You see, we’d always done stress tests, but we did it on men because with women it was unpredictable, menstruated cycles and so forth, so they didn’t do the research on stress.
What these women researchers found actually supported all my work completely, is that women have a completely different way of coping with stress. Resilience to life’s stressors, the changes, the emergencies, the problems.... our resilience to that is measured by our stress levels. So you can measure cortisol levels in a stressful situation, you can see how someone’s, .. how well they’re coping with stress. Does the cortisol rise up, and then settle down?
It’s certainly normal to have a stress reaction - alertness, fastness, fast action. Then you’re supposed to relax afterwards. Well there’s a big difference today in how men and women are coping with stress. Their research showed that women cope with stress differently, in terms of different hormonal responses. Men cope with stress differently, as we always have known, with particular hormonal responses.
“So what are those hoemones?” I thought. “I’m the expert on gender difference” and started exploring this in greater detail, and suddenly the road map to making relationships, and making sense of the craziness that goes on in many relationships became very clear. I mean, think of a time when you’ve been lost, and you’re trying to find your way somewhere, and you don’t have clear direction. It’s one of the most frustrating things there is, particularly if you expect it to be easy.
For most of us, when we start out on our relationship it’s easy, in most cases. And then it gets difficult, and we think, “Why is it so difficult? Must be the wrong person“ rather than “wrong roadmap.” And that‘s what I’m here to help people find out. In my work I’ve been dedicated for 20 years to, and I find even more confusion and more chaos today as our roles have changed.
Now I’m about to step into a realm which could sound very sexist, ‘cause I’m pointing out that as our roles have changed, as women have entered into the workplace their stress levels have dramatically gone up. It’s not me, don’t blame me, I’m just a messenger. This is research that’s shown that as women in the workplace... when they do cortisol tests, compared to men in the workplace, doing cortisol tests, women’s’ stress levels are twice as high as men’s’.
Now what happens when your stress levels are chronically high? It means your immune system becomes weaker and weaker. Your risk of breast cancer goes up. Your risk of cancer gones up. Your digestion weakens. Your body begins to gain weight faster. You crave carbohydrates. All of so many of the problems that plague us today in terms of “health” are really related right back to how we are coping with stress.
In our relationships, particularly in our relationships at home it turns out, are the most powerful way we have of coping with stress. But we don’t have time for relationships at home.
So what we have to do is focus on “What is this new phenomenon?”
Well, when women are in the work world, which I encourage of course because I have three daughters, they’re all educated, they all have jobs, responsibility - but what happens when women go into the work world, the work world is designed with speed, bottom line, with sacrifice, getting to the point quickly.
Women can do all of that. They’ve proven they can do all of that. All those myths are busted. What they haven’t proven is at night.
Women today, I’ve seen it over the last 20 years, I’ve been a therapist for over 30 years. This new phenomenon started happening as women started to enter the work world. As they’re feeling overwhelme, overwhelmed by too much to do. Well what if this “overwhelmed “ feeling? Well, you can look at it on a brain scan.
You can see that under mild to moderate stress, which we would call our normal work life, a woman’s brain becomes 8 times more active in the emotional part of the brain than a man’s. She has a much greater reaction to stress, and there are certain hormone that will help her lower that stress. That hormone’s called oxytocin.
Oxytocin’s the nurturing hormone. For women’s lifestyle for thousands of years was designed, whether consciously or unconsciously through activities that stimulate this hormone oxytocin. Routine activities, nurturing activities. Sharing, loving, caring - those types of activities stimulate this hormone oxytocin, and it lowers a woman’s stress levels.
Today women spend their lives almost in a competitive environment of urgency, emergency, where nobody really cares about them, they just care about getting the best deal, the job done, and so forth. While women can certainly thrive in that environment in terms of success and pay their bills, they don’t produce a lot of oxytocin in those types of activities, those activities that.. I call them testosterone-producing activities, activities that involve urgency, emergency and sacrifice for a noble cause.
So you’re making sacrifices, but it’s for a noble cause. Everybody likes that. It’s greatness. But greatness stimulates testosteron. Testost is a hormone that lowers stress in men. Testosterone doesn’t lower stress in women. This is just physiological reality. Stimulating testosterone in women can actually lower their oxytocin, which lowers stress for women.
Which is why I said a woman can be very successful but unless she finds balance in her life, in her relationships to stimulate oxytocin she’s not gonna sleep at night. And she’s gonna get sick. And this is the new prognosis, is that women used to outlive men. With this new direction we’re going, will suddenly start not outliving men, but dying before men.
And as well, the new research is showing that when women’s cortisol levels go up in the workplace, when they come home, as soon as they reach the door the cortisol levels double again So this is a tragedy. The home, which should be the most nurturing environ Kent, is no longer a nurturing environment for women.
And why is that? Two reasons. One is, as she goes home all these nurturing activities are no longer nurturing, because she’s on a deadline. There’s not enough time. There’s a sense of emergency, urgency, not enough help, not enough support. Whenever you’re in a situation of emergency testosterone goes up. When you feel you have plenty of time then oxytocin levels go up if you’re doing something you love to do.
With this knowledge women can have the courage to do the things they love to do, balanced by the sacrifices of the workplace.
One of the problems for women, one of their vulnerabilities is when their stress levels go up, as opposed to men as well,... when our stress levels are very high blood flow goes to the back part of the brain. This is our reactive part of the brain, so we can react faster. It stops flowing to the front part of the brain. This is where we make smart decisions. This is where we make creative decisions.
So what happens with couples is when they’re stressed out they just react and react. What they interpret they react back, rather than thinking a situation through. If I yell, if I criticize I’ll get yelling back. Why...what good would that do? Well we’ve become reactive rather than responsive to what our partners need at that time, and most important for women to recognize, to be responsive to what she needs at that time.
So the challenge for women today is they’re so deprived of this hormone oxytoci, they go to the movies and they see this incredible scene where the guy saves the day, and there‘s an emergency and he rescues her and cares for her, or he has some amazing poem that he expresses to her, which has been written by five different authors, filmed five different times so it’s perfect at the right moment, and she gets a surge of oxytocin and she says, “I want romance!”
And then she comes home and her husband is sitting on the couch. And of course, now her stripes levels go even higher, ‘cause she feels like “It’s all up to me.”
When we understand these hormonal differences, then a man realizes, “Emergency actually increases our testosterone, women need us more than ever.”
The irony is, the more independent women become the less they think they need a man. The truth is, you need a man even more if you’re heterosexual. Why? Because you need help. You need big-time help, but you don’t know how to ask for it, because that becomes the challenge now for women, is how to change the cultural norm?
Women have come from the culture of Venus, where you never ask for things, you just give and give and give, and when you’re not getting you give more, and other people are supposed to give to you. You give a lot to a guy he just sits down, goes, “OK, thanks. That’s why I do the tough stuff.”
Men are completely designed differently. We need testosterone. We need 30 times more testosterone in a day than a woman does. Solving problems.. solving problems increases testosterone levels, releases testosterone, lowers his stress. When he runs out of testosterone, how does he rebuild it? And at the end of the day men lose their testosterone. How do you know? Because they’re sitting on a couch.
Ever see a man sitting on a couch? He is rebuilding testosterone. Now suddenly it makes sense. Otherwise women are thinking, “What a creep! What a jerk! I don’t love him!” And their stress levels go up even higher. Then with this knowledge we can learn how to support him in getting the testosterone he needs, for her, getting the oxytocin she needs, and one of the biggest secrets here is for men to leave the world of the work world thinking women are the same.
In the work world you do big things, you get big rewards. You get to speak at TED. You do little things you don’t. So it’s as simple as that. Men know, “Do big, get big.” But on Venus, on the world of love, it’s a whole different rule. In the world of oxytocin hormone it’s totally different. Every act of love scores equal to every other act of love, big or little.
So what does this mean? You bring her 36 roses, a guy goes, “OK, that should last three months.” First of all, it only lasts a week. It’s cut flowers. They die. Which is why women want the cut flowers. ”Don’t think this is gonna last that long.” And he also thinks, “That’s worth 36 points.” No, that’s 1 point. It’s an act of love. So bring 1 rose, you get 1 point, or bring 36 roses you get 1 point. So how do you get 36 roses? You do the math. One rose 36 times. That’s causing..l every time you bring a rose, a surge of oxytocin. Every time you give her a compliment, a surge of oxytocin. Every time you tell her you love her, a surge of oxytocin.
Men think, “I already told you I love you. What do I have to tell you for? Why do I keep having to tell you you’re beautiful? Why do I have to keep telling you I’m attracted to you, and all these wonderful things?” Why does he have to keep saying these things? Because they stimulate oxytocin
Now a woman goes, “Of course you say those things. You love someone.“. But on Mars you don’t! I don’t wake up every morning and go, “Hey honey, I’m John Gray, in case you’ve forgotten.“. So for men communication is a matter of conveying information, but on Venus it conveys information, but it also conveys love.
And so it’s learning a whole new way for us to orient ourselves in our relationships with women. Now my dad didn’t know that, and he had a great relationship with my mom. Why? Because in their generation men did their job description. He was a good provider, a gentleman, he respected her. What more could a woman want? She got to do what she loved to do. She had a wonderful neighborhood to raise her children. Her stress levels were low all the time, and she raised 7 kids all by herself. With help.
So that’s a whole different world. We don’t go back to that world. We understand why was she filled with energy? Because her stress levels were low. When a woman’s stress levels are low she has twice as much energy - a physiological fact. Women are born with 25% more fat cells. It’s not a curse, it’s a source of extra energy to fuel your brain. Your brain is way more active than a man’s. His goes to sleep at the end of the day. Yours never goes to sleep, and you can see this in brain scans. Way more activity happening in a woman’s brain than a man’s brain.
Again, as I mentioned, moderate stress is 8 times more activity in the emotional part of the brain. Which goes to where? The hippocampus, the emotional memory, where under times of stress she forgets any good thing he’s ever done, and remembers every mistake he’s ever made.
It’s important for men to learn the little things it takes in order to raise the oxytocin, for women to realize it’s not his job. His job isn’t to make her happy. His job is to make her happier. Women have to learn how to balance the success in the work world with the emotional support they need in their personal life, and they can’t look to men for all of it, otherwise we’ll continue to have dissatisfaction in relationships.
It’s a whole new chapter in understanding, for men to understand how, in a variety of ways, we can, without a lot of effort and energy create the oxytocin in her, and how she can welcome him into her world and stimulate his testosterone so he’s more motivated to have energy in the home. Otherwise, he’s lost in his cave, and the more she digs into the cave, he’s digging tunnels to get out.
So we’re in an incredible time when we have the make and the female coming closer than ever before. And this is the time when we need courage and resilience and the knowledge to apply our sense of courage through learning how to ...learning how to cope with stress effectively through greater resilience. It’s knowledge that is power. It is knowledge that gives us this power. It’s new knowledge that allows us to make new changes in our life.
And then we can look forward to a world where people are experiencing greater intimacy, greater partnership, greater sharing, and only from the mixing of the male and the female energies in that waycan we give birth to the new world that we’re all expecting, envisioning, which is why we’re all here today.
Thank you very much.
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Must be time for a wake ‘n bake. Haven’t indulged yet this morning. Lol!