Essay Example on Stress: Effects on Men & Women's Physical & Mental Health

Stress is a natural human experience that affects both men and women physically and mentally. Among the impacts of stress during the fight or flight response includes increased heart rates and heightened breathing patterns. Other symptoms include tensed muscles and improved short-term memory. Stress also causes mental conditions, including anxiety and depression. Even so, both the physical and mental impacts contribute to negative impacts on the heart, immune, and metabolic functions. Men and women have different levels of impact of stress, both physically and mentally. The inequality in experiences of stress is evidenced between adolescence and adulthood. Women experience higher levels of impact of stress compared to men, especially due to their biological orientation, which can be explained partly by the differences in hormones between the two genders. Among other contributing factors to high levels of impacts of stress include social factors, including gender inequality that contribute to depression. Women and men experience different levels of stress because of the varying morbidity rates, differences in health patterns, differences in hormones, vulnerability, response to social stressors, gender roles, and gender inequality, behavioral expectations, differences in subjective perceptions, and coping strategies.

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Research conducted by Mayor concluded on the disadvantages of morbidity associated with women compared to men. Women are the most victims of stress compared to men, as explained by a female-male health-survival paradox in the field of medicine. Women across all ages, including puberty and the elderly, face high rates of physical and mental conditions as a result of stress. According to Case & Christina, women report the highest number of hospital stays and are the most financially disadvantaged because of the mental and physical conditions caused by stress. Similarly, Matud noted a difference in the impact of chronic stressors such as chronic pain and the loss of a loved one or loss of a job between men and women. Women tend to have more threatening impacts as a result of chronic stressors compared to men.

Women are more disadvantaged in terms of their health compared to men, a reason they receive intense impacts of stress compared to the men counterparts. Stress response relies more on the genetic orientation of a gender, which interacts with the environment to effect changes meant to cope up with the health disadvantages. Feinberg noted that the different genders feel different impacts of stress as a result of the different genetic orientation. Additionally, the environment carries with it various stressors that are related to the exacerbation of the impacts of stress. A physical or mental disorder could only manifest itself where there has been an environmental stressor. Even so, men and women respond differently to the stressors, which then reflects on their abilities to cope up with the stress experienced. Strong genetic adaptation associated with the male gender makes them feel fewer impacts of stress by coping more effectively with the environmental stressors compared to women.

Women have lesser abilities than men to address stress than men also because of the different releases of stress hormones to mitigate a stressful situation. Some of the stress hormones pertinent to both genders include cortisol and catecholamines. The hormones are released from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axis parts of the brain, which are not any different across the genders. Women tend to release more cortisol that increases a woman’s capability to deal with diseases and infections related to stress compared to men. Some other times, women could release high levels of catecholamines, which could contribute to various conditions, including hypertension and depression. Men are, however, capable of releasing only the acceptable hormone levels, which make them feel lesser intense stress levels compared to women.

Women are also more vulnerable to various underlying conditions resulting from stress than men, which later intensify the associated effects of stress. For instance, women are more vulnerable to psychosomatic and psychiatric conditions compared to men. Women are more susceptible to multiple conditions as a result of their weak immune systems. Besides, they also show the most cases of aggressiveness and high blood pressure, which translate into the intense effects of stress. The female sex hormones are the main attributing factors to the underlying stressing conditions felt more intensely than to men. Male sex hormones are adapted to cope effectively with stressful conditions in a way that they could desist easily from conditions such as autoimmune diseases that could exacerbate stressful conditions. The pattern is common across the genders over all age groups from the adolescent stage to maturity. Even if attended to from similar conditions, women would prove to be weak in advancing their conditions compared to men.

Various other social conditions contribute to high levels of stress for women compared to men. For instance, a woman and man at the same level of socioeconomic status could experience different ways of coping with daily challenges. Most of the differences are non-physiologically related, such as morbidity. Women are associated with higher morbidity compared to men, which expose them to higher levels of stress compared to men. Oksuzyan, Henrik Brønnum-Hansen, and Bernard connoted that women experience stress in a way that they could report more risks of mortality and morbidity from chronic conditions such as stroke and heart failure. Even though unaccounted for though reported, there are high rates of morbidity and mortality associated with stress amongst women compared to women. An assessment of the impacts of Heart Failure from stress yielded that women are the most potential victims to succumb due to the intense effects felt from various stressors such as the environment. Besides, morbidity and mortality can be well-associated with stress among the various genders.

Gender roles have also been a contributing factor in the impacts of stress on men and women. Men have been entitled to work more while women work less as homemakers. While men are resource providers, they tend to work more compared to women, a reason they face fewer impacts of stress compared to women, both mentally and physically. Women, as homemakers, have been proven to experience more stress because of the lack of exposure to social conditions as men. Besides, women without official employment and who only provide care to their families, especially their family members, feel more stressed than those who work as well as men who do not still have official employment. The caregiver effect, explained by Beach, Richard Schulz, & Sharon, can be used to explain the intense levels of stressors experienced by women as caregivers. The female gender is strained more as soon as they are exposed to various life activities and circumstances compared to men, a condition that affects both their physical and mental health more compared to men.

Gender inequality in the contemporary era has also placed men at a high-status position compared to women. Therefore, men tend to experience fewer levels of stress compared to women who strain to reach the positions, and even those associated with such corporate positions. Many governments across the world are demanding that women be incorporated into seating, such as parliaments and other executive posts, including clerical positions. Even so, Bakker & Evangelia noticed a difference between the levels of stress between men and women in similar executive positions. However, many women have been incorporated into the governance systems and high authoritative posts, they still show low coping mechanisms to stress, making them feel stress more intensely compared to men who share the same posts. Apparently, due to the differences in physiological responses, women still appear to be associated with low statuses while working off the same responsibilities as those of men, a reason they feel higher impacts of stress compared to their male counterparts.

Women also experience high levels of stress compared to men because of the behavioral expectations taught to them throughout life. While growing up, everyone is taught the behaviors that are desirable to society according to one's age. In most societies, women are taught to be domestic keepers, whereas men are taught to be breadwinners. With maturity, both men and women realize their duties, which are reflected in their conduct. Therefore, an individual’s behavior is more often associated with their gender traits, which include femininity and masculinity. Both femininity and masculinity are traditionally oriented but still reflected in the future. The teachings made to women are more intense compared to those of men as men are only expected to provide for their families. Therefore, women grow with pressure on how to keep their homes, which translates into their physiological responses. More pressure is then reflected in advanced health conditions such as anxiety and depression as a result of stress. Some other females could also show low social activity as a result of stress compared to their male counterparts.

Gender disparities have also been identified with various subjective perceptions, including psychological stress. Women are more aware and anxious about their environment more compared to men. For instance, when the external environment requirements exceed those which could be provided by a certain gender, they should develop the relevant mechanisms that align with their adaptive capacities. Women may be seen to get stressed over various circumstances and issues, including sleep disorders, relationships, lack of nutrition, among others. However, men respond effectively to psychological stress because of the difference in the etiology of the underlying effects compared to women. An etiology of an underlying condition such as Cardiovascular disease could reveal better coping mechanisms from the fewer effects presented by men. Men are also more active, both physically and mentally, compared to women, and also show enhanced sedentary behaviors compared to women, a reason they could cope easily with psychological distress resulting from external influences. Therefore, the agility of men towards external influences let them feel less pressure from stress compared to women.

Women also have weak coping mechanisms to stress, a reason they feel intense impacts of stress on them compared to their male counterparts. The coping mechanisms of stress could be perceived as being either emotionally or problem-based. Men tend to rely more on the problem-focused approach to coping with stress, which lets them mitigate the related effects easily. For instance, methods such as action planning and active coping are associated with various benefits of coping with stress. Apparently, only a few women can rely on the problem-focused approach to cope up with stress. Therefore, they would rely more on emotional strategies, including avoiding stressing situations and desisting from various stressors. However, there is little evidence that emotional coping mechanisms reduce the impacts of stress compared to the problem-focused approach. Men, therefore, tend to maintain a positive thought regardless of the situations faced with compared to women, who rely on avoiding the situations, applying more negative thoughts to the situation. With men being more vigorous in coping with stress, they, therefore, feel lesser impacts compared to women.