Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improve Your Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress. John Gray

more developed in men, is involved with perception of time and speed and the ability to rotate 3-D figures. These abilities have a lot to do with the Martian love of video games. More than 90 percent of video game users are from Mars.

      This is also why men seem to rush women to the point when they are talking or making decisions. He is acutely aware of the time she is taking to talk. While listening, he is also working hard to determine what needs to be done to solve her problem as soon as possible. This is not because he doesn’t care about her, but because he does. He wants to help, but doesn’t realize it would be an even greater help to ask more questions rather than rush to the point.

      When women talk, a man is acutely aware of the time she is taking and feels an inner urgency to help her solve her problems.

      In women, the right side of the IPL is larger. The left side of the brain has more to do with more linear, reasonable, and rational thought, while the right side of the brain is more emotional, feeling, and intuitive. Men are typically drawn to solving problems, while women have the tendency to understand the dynamics of a problem, the various relationships between the different parts of a problem.

      Women can also become frustrated when someone is taking too long to get to the point. By multiplying this frustration by ten, you have what the average man experiences listening to his wife complain about a list of problems in her life. This does not mean that she cannot share her feelings, but it does mean she has to do so in a manner that will work for him as well. We will explore this art in chapter 9.

      The IPL also allows the brain to process information from the senses, particularly in selective attention, like when women are able to respond to a baby’s crying in the night.

      Studies have shown that the right LPL, dominant in women, is linked to the memory and manipulation of spatial relationships. It is also related to the perception of our own feelings—a driving force on Venus.

      While men are particularly good at following the ball on a football field at a distance, women are adept at noticing subtleties of their own feelings and others’. One of the problems women have is accurately interpreting a man’s feelings. For example, he looks frustrated, and she thinks he is not interested in what she is saying. In truth, he is simply trying to make sense of what she is saying so that he can be of help. She is correct in noticing his frustration, but her interpretation can be completely off the mark.

      Our Brains Differ in Response to Danger

      The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure found toward the front on both sides of the brain just beneath the surface, determines our brain’s response to danger. The amygdala operates differently in men and women. The right side is more active in men, with more connections to other areas of the brain, while the left side is more active in women. In a man’s brain, there are more connections from the amygdala to the visual cortex, which means men are more reactive to visual stimuli than women.