Why being a moody bitch is GOOD for a woman

Bad news for your man! In a new book, a top brain doctor reveals

WOMEN today are anxious and frazzled, depressed and burnt out. our mood and libido are at rock bottom, our energy drained as we struggle to keep up with work , family demands and hundreds of ‘friends’ online.

We blame ourselves for how bad we feel — for the times we’re grumpy and snap at our families, thinking we should be able to handle it all.

But women were never designed to be even-tempered and in control the whole time. Emotionally, we are designed by nature to be constantly changing , cyclical and, yes, moody . ‘Moody bitches’ might sound like an insult, but what most women don’t realise is that moodiness is our strength, not our weakness.

Unlike men, who have stable hormone levels throughout most of their lives, women’s hormones ebb and flow over a month-long cycle and wax and wane throughout decades of fertility.

But we have evolved this way for good reasons; our hormonal fluctuations are the basis for a sensitivity that allows us to be responsive to our environment, and empa - thetic and intuitive to our children ’s and our partner’s needs. This makes us flexible and adaptable. Being fixed and rigid does not lend itself to survival. In nature, you adapt or die. Moodiness — being sensitive, caring deeply, and occasionally being acutely dissatisfied — is our natural source of power.

Yet, more than ever, we are being invited to medicate away our emotions. The number of antidepressants dispensed annually in England rose from 15 million in 1998 to 40 million in 2012, a study last year revealed, with around two-thirds of all NHS antidepressants prescribed to women.

And, of course, there’s the Pill — designed to trick the body into thinking it ’s already pregnant — which artificially flattens our moods completely.

From my own experiences as a 48-year - old working mother of two, and in my role as a psychiatrist with almost 20 years’ experience, I see daily how overmedication has robbed us of our sense of control, and how modern life has separated us from the restorative rhythms of nature.

We need to tune in to our discomfort, not turn it down. Being sensitive, irritated and vocal about our needs and frustrations will improve our lives.

If only we’d learn how our bodies and brains are supposed to work and then let them behave naturally , there is tremen - dous wisdom and peace to be found.

Ultimately, the body , undisrupted, is powerfully intuitive and worth listening

to. Our moods are our bodies’ own amazing feedback system. embracing them will, in the end, make us happier.

Here, I will try to explain just how much our hormones rule our lives and our moods — and what can happen when we mess around with nature and don’t let ourselves be the ‘moody bitches’ we’re meant to be.

You’re not bored with your husband, you’re ovulating

YOU might have a good career and insist you don’t need any man, but a woman’s brain is more like a cavewoman’s than we’d like to admit.

Our bodies are naturally designed to seek out a mate. This means we’re programmed, regardless of our own wealth, to seek out men with money, power and social rank and who will share it — in other words, those with resources who’ll stick around to help with child-rearing.

But even more powerful is the evolutionary urge to find the finest, fittest mate to donate his genetic material to our lineage. So around ovulation a subtle shift occurs. Because when we’re fertile, it’s all about genetic material, not social graces.

Research has shown that women find classically masculine faces more attractive when they’re ovulating, as well as men who act in dominant, competitive ways. In short, at this time of the month, we’re particularly attracted to alpha males — those who make the best hunters but aren’t necessarily good sharers.

So even if you’re happily married, you may find yourself flirting with an alpha male around ovulation. Our evolutionary inheritance means that, mid-cycle, we can’t help but be attracted to a man who could pass on his exceptional genes to our next offspring. It doesn’t mean your marriage is on the rocks!

Never date online -- you can’t sniff your man

WOMEN have a keener sense of smell than men and more brain space devoted to processing it, all thanks to oestrogen.

It’s oestrogen that helps us to detect pheromones — the signature scent of a potential mate — especially during ovulation, when levels of this hormone are highest.

For optimal mating, we need someone who’s different but not too foreign. Pheromones from male sweat glands allow us to make this distinction.

In fact, research has shown that women prefer the smell of a stranger’s armpit to that of a family member — an ageless signal to prevent inbreeding.

In 1995, Swiss researcher Claus Wedekind performed a study that has come to be known as the ‘ sweaty T- shirt’ experiment.

He asked women to sniff T-shirts that men had been wearing for three days without showering or using aftershave.

most of the women were attracted to the scent of men whose major histocompatibility complex ( MHC) was markedly different from their own.

The MHC indicates a range of immunity to various diseases. When you’re mating, you want someone with different immunities to you, so your offspring can benefit from the variety and be more resilient to disease.

So when a patient tells me she has a new boyfriend, I usually ask her if she likes the way he smells. You’d be surprised how often the answer is a resounding ‘yes’, and I know they’re a good match.

This is one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of online dating. Pheromones help us to pick ideal mates for ourselves, and this process is based primarily on genetics, not on Photoshopped selfies.

Finally, the next time you’re mad at your other half, smell his armpit or T-shirts and see if that doesn’t help you feel a bit better about him.

Don’t fall in love when you’re on the Pill

BUT when you’re on the Pill, these laws of attraction don’t apply.

As far as the brain is concerned, the deed is already done — there’s a bun in the oven, so there’s no need to attract a baker. There’s no fertile phase and no surge in oestrogen or testosterone stoking desire. The mid-cycle preference for the chiselled cad is gone.

Pill-users show weaker or no preferences for facial and vocal masculinity.

Because they act like women who are already pregnant, their focus is on men who will stick around.

But research has shown that women who were taking oral contraceptives when they chose their mates scored lower on measures of sexual satisfaction and partner attraction.

This could be because women on the Pill don’t seem to show the same responsiveness to male scent cues as women not taking hormonal contraception. Instead, they tend to pick mates who are more similar to them.

Scottish researcher Tony Little found that women’s assessment of men as potential husband material shifted dramatically if they were on oral contraceptives.

When he carried out a sweaty Tshirt experiment, he found that women using birth control pills chose men’s T-shirts randomly or, even worse, showed a preference for men with immunity similar to their own.

One worrying conclusion is that a woman on the Pill might come off her contraceptives only to realise that she is with someone who is more like a brother than a lover.

I recommend to my patients that they come off the Pill for three or four cycles to make sure the man they met while taking it is still the man they will find attractive year after year.

Why women are better at finding things

yOUR husband isn’t useless at such tasks. Rather, when women become mothers, a surge in oestrogen ensures that their brains are rewired so they can protect their babies.

Spatial learning is particularly affected, as it was vitally important to recall where food was when foraging on the savannah. This is probably why mothers are best at finding missing things.

Why the winter blues are useful

IT might not sound likely, but being a worrier and depressed gives us an advantage when it comes to our survival and that of our offspring.

An anxious, obsessive forager will not only find more food but will get home safely. She is also more like to keep her children out of harm’s way. Likewise, a depressed woman will more quickly withdraw from wasted enterprises and conserve her energy.

This may be the basis for seasonal affective disorder, causing lower energy and motivation when food supplies are most scarce, and could explain why recent research revealed that British women are 50 per cent more likely to suffer from SAD than men.

. . . and the baby blues are useful, too

ThERE are probable evolutionary reasons for mood variability being tied to hormone fluctuations.

In the second half of a woman’s menstrual cycle, progesterone levels rise, surging even higher if an egg is fertilised.

This hormone is implicated in PMT, increased depression and anxiety during pregnancy and immediately after birth.

But being more depressed in the second half of the cycle helps to protect the product of conception by keeping the woman passive, cautious and out of danger.

Similarly, depression in the first trimester of pregnancy and postpartum comes during crucial periods for the baby, when more cautious and isolating maternal behaviour can help to ensure an infant’s survival.

PMT? Rest assured, it’s not you, it’s them!

IT’S no surprise that in the week before their periods, many women get easily irritated by things, become more unpredictable and let loose with words and actions we wouldn’t use during the rest of the month.

This is all to do with the frontal lobes that usually inhibit the emotional centres of the brain.

These lobes require a certain amount of serotonin — but, close to our period, serotonin levels drop, so we are less inhibited when things annoy us. And, yes, we are getting upset over real things: it’s just that we usually hide it better.

This is thanks to higher oestrogen levels during the rest of the month which leave us feeling more resilient — we are designed to allow for others’ needs, keeping our children happy and our mate satisfied.

But in the week before menstruation our oestrogen levels drop, serotonin drops and that veil is lifted. I say, let it be a lesson to you. Perhaps you should be putting up with less all month long.

I stress to my patients that the feelings that arise at this time are genuine. If you feel overwhelmed or unappreciated, the chances are it’s true — it’s just that thanks to higher oestrogen levels we can usually cope with it.

Being pre-menstrual is a great time to heed your intuition. Sensitivity is dismissed in our culture, but it really does have its advantages. Trust your PMT bitchiness and put it to good use the rest of the month — when you’re feeling more diplomatic and calmer — to enact changes at home.

It’s good to be a cry-baby

CRyING is normal. It doesn’t mean that we’re weak or out of control. It allows us to acknowledge what we’re feeling and move on. yes, sometimes it’s inconvenient to cry, but there are other times when it’s to our advantage.

Women are designed to cry more than men. This may be because men are constructed to discern anger and aggression. They are not built for intuiting emotion in the way we are.

Women pick up subtle signs of sadness in others 90 per cent of the time, but when men are trying to decide whether their female partner is sad, they are right only 40 per cent of the time.

Letting yourself cry is a clear sign to your partner that you’re upset. As for families, sometimes it’s a good idea to let your children see you cry, especially if they’ve scared you with reckless behaviour. Tears can underscore lessons in how their behaviour affects others.

Being sad can also help us to make clear-eyed assessments of our lives. Medication such as antidepressants make a bad situation tolerable and mask the need for change. The symptoms of depression, unpleasant though they may be, can be the clarion call to action.

‘Baby brain’ really does exist

SOME women complain that ‘baby brain’ saps their concentration and ability to multi-task when they become pregnant. But this isn’t because you suddenly become more stupid the moment you’re expecting. Rather, it’s because your brain is being reorganised.

Neurons multiply at a rate of 250,000 a minute as your brain is improved for learning the new skills of motherhood.

The increased oestrogen levels during pregnancy put neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections — into overdrive in the brain’s memory centre, the hippocampus, as new behaviours are prepared for, such as feeding, protecting and caring for offspring.

The upside of the menopause

IN OUR fertile years it seems as though we live for our family and ‘Whatever you want, darling’ is the mantra we chant to our partners and children. We thrive by cultivating relationships and nurturing those around us. This is down to oestrogen — the hormone of accommodation.

But when oestrogen levels fall in menopause, we start slowly to change from the self- sacrifice of ‘OK, darling, I’ll take care of this’ to a more assertive ‘ Do it yourself’.

While it might shock those around us, this may coincide with the time when children — adolescents in particular — are ready to take on more responsibility, so perhaps there is a benefit for everyone in changing that family dynamic.

The most interesting thing about menopause is what happens afterwards.

Truly, this is a time when women can come into their own. The hormonal ups and downs of the menstrual cycle have been replaced with something more solid and consistent. Now we can redefine and refine what we want to accomplish during the rest of our lives.

ADAPTED by Clare Goldwin from Moody Bitches, by Dr Julie Holland, published by Harper Thorsons, at £12.99.