A beautiful woman is the envy of many. While being beautiful does have numerous advantages, there are also disadvantages – one of which is being harmful to men’s health.
It has long been said that beautiful women are hard on men’s hearts and therefore, getting in contact with them might be harmful to men’s health, raising stress hormones to dangerously high levels, says a new study.
According to the study which was carried out by Spanish researchers, when men are in the presence of a beautiful stranger they view as “out of their league,” the risks are even higher, with cortisol levels rising so high that heart attacks and strokes become real possibilities.
“This is another case of hard science proving the obvious,” said a psychiatrist, Irvin Wolkoff, who was involved with the study.
In carrying out the study, the researchers tested 84 male students by asking each one to sit in a room and solve a Sudoku puzzle. Two strangers, one male and one female, were also in the room.
The outcome of this experiment showed that when the female stranger left the room and the two men remained sitting together, the volunteer’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol did not rise. But, when the volunteer was left alone with the female stranger, his cortisol levels rose, as measured by a saliva swab.
The researchers, also explained that for most men, the presence of an attractive woman may induce the perception that there is an opportunity for courtship.
It all boils down to evolution. Since cavemen days, men have been hardwired so that when they see an attractive woman, their cortisol response kicks in to tell men to seek out that woman for mating purposes, Wolkoff says.
Even though today’s man is sophisticated and enlightened, underneath, when he sees an attractive female, he feels stress about wanting to mate with her, and worrying about whether she might already have a mate or be unresponsive.
“So by definition, sexual encounters are in the same general category as fighting or fleeing. These are stressful situations,” he says.
Wolkoff says there’s nothing wrong with feeling cortisol or andrenaline in small doses. But he says if elevated levels are sustained over extended periods of time, stress can be very unhealthy.
Dr Charles Agadu, a physician explains: “When a man sees a beautiful lady, his cortisol level rises and when the level gets too high it could lead to cardiac problems”.
Cortisol is a one of the hormones secreted by the adrenal glands in the body and this hormone is also called the fright hormone, i.e the hormone that also produces the very well known adrenalin, Agadu said.
Facts have it that when some men spend just 5mins with a beautiful lady, it causes so much stress which is not good for the heart. So for such men ,their anxiety rate will be very high as their cortisol levels will rise even higher .This might cause heart attacks and strokes because exposure to physical and psychological stresses for a long time may chronically increase cortisol levels, Agadu explains further.
Agadu stated however that, cortisol impairs the immune system thereby worsening diabetes, hypertension and impotence. But this is not to say that on sighting a beautiful woman a man just develops heart attack on the spot, but constant contact and exposure to beautiful women over time is what could make cortisol level to rise to dangerously high levels to the extent of posing a threat to a man’s life.
An Abuja based psychologist , Rukayat Jubril says that naturally, when we see beautiful things we stop to look.
According to her, this is not particular to men alone because even when a woman sees a fellow woman that is very beautiful she stops to look and admire her. If a woman experiences this, then one should expect a more spontaneous reaction from the opposite sex.
"When a man sees a beautiful woman, what comes to his mind is an imagination of what she would look like without clothes. Again, he could get worried whether if he approaches her for a relationship she would accept", Rukayat pointed out.
Fear of rejection is what can easily trigger a heart attack , especially when a man is crazy about a particular woman. There is always this fear that he might be rejected. Living with the situation for a long period of time could eventually result in the cortisol level rising gradually until it gets too bad to trigger heart problems.
This is not to say that the heart starts malfunctioning as soon as a man sets his eyes on a beautiful woman. In a situation where this suddenly happens, then the man must have had an underlying critical heart condition, she stated.
Mindset has a great role to play in his situation. There are some men that are not moved at all when they get in contact with women while some on just seeing them get aroused. It all depends on individual, the psychologist concluded.
Written by RALIAT AHMED-YUSUF....... Olu famous
