The Brain in Love: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life by Daniel G. Amen Page A

optimistic. Unrealistic optimism is the belief that good things are more likely to happen to them than other people. If this way of thinking dominates a person’s thoughts about life, it can have both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, it is associated with better mental health as people are more hopeful and optimistic even in the most difficult times. However, this can prevent people from taking preventive measures for a negative outcome.
    Sensory Skills
    Women are better at reading facial expressions and noticing the feelings of others. Like most mammals, they are equipped with more sensitive sensory equipment. In a study by Barbara and Allan Pease, authors of Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps , they found that women were dramatically better at reading emotions than men. At a maternity hospital they collected a selection of ten-second clips of crying babies and asked the mothers to watch the clips with the sound turned down. This way the mother only had the visual information. Most mothers could quickly identify a range of emotions from hunger and pain to gas and tiredness. When the fathers took the same test, their performance was awful, less than 10 percent of fathers recognizing more than two emotions. Grandmothers also faired much better than the fathers, while grandfathers often did not recognize their own grandchildren. On the other hand men have shown greater blood pressure reactivity to sexually arousing pictures than did women.
    Women also have better peripheral vision than men, which is why they catch their guys looking at attractive women, but hardly ever get caught when they look at hot guys. As hunters, guys havebetter long-distance tunnel vision. Men are also more adept at driving at night.
    From birth, girls are dramatically more sensitive to touch, and as an adult, a woman’s skin is at least ten times more sensitive than a man’s. Women like and need to be touched more than men. In one study, a woman is four to six times more likely to touch another woman in a social situation than a man would another man. A woman’s senses of taste and smell are also more sensitive than a man’s. Men score higher on salty and bitter tastes, while women score higher on sweet and sugary tastes, which explains why there are more female chocoholics. Not only is a woman’s sense of smell better than the average male, during times of ovulation she is better at picking up male pheromones that cannot be detected consciously. The superior sensory equipment of women allows them to pick up body language, thus dishonesty, much more than men.
    She Is Thinking, Thinking, Thinking
    Neuropsychologist Ruben Gur of the University of Pennsylvania used brain scans to show that when a man’s brain is in a resting state, at least 70 percent of his brain is shut down. On the other hand, when women were resting, at least 90 percent of their brain was active, confirming that women are always thinking, thinking, thinking. The man wants the remote control and a little peace and quiet; she wants to talk.
    In another study, when asked to think of nothing, men’s brains were more active in the more primitive physical activity centers of the brain (cerebellum), women’s brain were more active in the emotional and bonding centers of the brain (limbic system). Left to themselves, men will think about sex, their golf swing, or their jump shot; women will think about their spouse, children, or parents. One common complaint from women is that they do not feel connected to their partners. Men would do well to initiate conversations about children and parents.
    As part of a national talk show on the differences between maleand female brains that I did with gender expert Michael Gurian, author of the wonderfully insightful book What Could He Be Thinking? , I performed brain scans on Jennifer and Brad. They had the typical couple complaints. She wanted more time, talking, and attention. She wanted Brad to help