Researchers in the psychology department at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered a major difference in the way men and women respond to stress. This difference may explain why men are more likely to suffer from stress related disorders.

Until now, psychological research has maintained that both men and women have the same“fight or flight”reaction to stress. However, the UCLA research team found that men and women have quite different biological and behavioral responses to stress. While men often react to stress in the fight or flight response, women often have another kind of reaction which could be called “tend and be friend.” That is, they often react to stressful conditions by protecting and nurturing their young (“tend”), and by looking for social contact and support from others—especially other females (“befriend”).

Scientists have long known that in the fight to stress, an important role is played by certain hormones (激素) released by the body. The UCLA research team suggests that the female tend or be friend response is also based on a hormone, whose name is oxytocin (催产素). But now it is being studied for its role in the response of both men and women to stress. According to the principal investigator, Dr. Shelley Taylor, “Animals and people with high levels of oxytocin are calmer, more relaxed, more social, and less anxious. While men also secrete (分泌) oxytocin, its effects are reduced by male hormones.”

The study also showed how fathers and mothers responded differently when they came home to their family after a stressful day at work. The typical father wanted to be left alone to enjoy some peace and quiet. For a typical mother, coping with a bad day at work meant focusing her attention on her children and their needs.

The differences in responding to stress may explain the fact that women have lower frequency of stress related disorders such as high blood pressure or aggressive behavior. The tend and befriend regulatory (调节的) system may protect women against stress, and this may explain why women on average live longer than men.

How to Learn from Your Regrets

Regret’s benefits don’t come to us by chance. 【小题1】 . Here are three steps you can take the next time you find yourself thinking carefully about your past missteps.

Kill the ghost (鬼魂).

People often say their regrets keep coming to their mind. This suggests that regret is like a ghost. Bring your ghost out of the shadows by making a list of your regrets. Write down why each one still bothers you and its bad effects. 【小题2】.

Forgive yourself.

【小题3】, but sometimes you just can’t stop blaming yourself. Perhaps you dropped out of school decades ago and are constantly calculating today how much money you would be making if you had pressed on to graduation. Now is the time to declare: “I will not waste my life reliving a decision that cannot be changed.”

Collect your diploma.

Regret is like a school run by human nature. If you never experienced regret, you would keep repeating the same behaviors that led you to miss opportunities. 【小题4】. Next. list all the ways that you can invest in your own skills and improvement right now — and get started.

Regrets may hurt. 【小题5】, while trying to live without them is a lost opportunity to grow. Life is a journey full of pleasures and pains. To live it well and fully means learning from every bit of it, including the mistakes, and moving forward.

You wake up in the morning, the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then the telephone rings,you say hello,and the drama starts.The person on the other end has a depressing tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to.You are still in a wonderful mood?Impossible!

Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness. It may not change what you think, but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time.

Life brings ups and downs,but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer. They only feel glad when they make others feel bad. No wonder they can hardly win others' pity or respect.

When you communicate with positive people, your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted. When the dagger（匕首）of a negative person is put in you, you feel the heavy feeling that all in all, brings you down.

Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people. This could be a coworker, or a relative. In this case, say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person, but all this does is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that.

Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized. The negative words of another at the start of the day can cling to（附着）you throughout the rest of your day, which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness. Life is too short to feel negative. Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible.