The Real Reason Women Are Tired

By John Gray

Regardless of whether a woman has children or not, her body is designed for endurance.

Recent research reveals that a woman's body has almost twice the endurance of a man's.

A man has nearly 30 percent more muscle mass than a woman does, but his muscles break down much faster than a woman's - at almost twice the rate.

This distinction was discovered by NASA researchers. In space, men would lose so much muscle mass that upon landing they had to leave their craft in wheelchairs. When women went up, their muscles did not break down as men's did.

This is one of the reasons a man needs to make so much more testosterone. Besides lowering stress, testosterone rebuilds a man's muscle mass. As we have already explored, it is rest that allows his body to rebuild testosterone levels.

The more stress a man experiences during the day, the emptier his mind becomes.

It is inconceivable to women that a man can quite effortlessly sit and not think about things. He just needs one focal point, and his mind goes blank.

This doesn't occur for women, because their muscles don't break down like a man's and rob the brain of the amino acids required to think. The more a man feels stressed, the more he needs to recover. Positive messages from his partner lower his stress and lessen the time he requires to recover.

A woman's body is very different from a man's in other ways. Having 20 to 25 percent more body fat than a man gives her the potential for lasting energy to remain active during her waking hours. A woman's higher fat-to-muscle ratio enables her body not only to make extra hormones for childbearing but also to provide additional energy. By burning the fat stored in her extra fat cells, she can produce up to twenty times more energy than a man. This extra energy supports her brain, which never rests, churning away nonstop to create a never-ending to-do list.

Women become exhausted not because their muscles are breaking down but because they are not making enough oxytocin.

As their stress levels rise and their bodies produce more cortisol, their bodies are unable to burn fat for energy, but process carbohydrates and sugars. In their red-alert state, they are left with cravings for carbohydrates, caffeine, or sugar for short-term energy, which then very quickly leaves them even more exhausted.

The solution for women is not taking more time to rest, but finding oxytocin-stimulating activities to lower stress levels.