Study reveals men find stressed-out women less attractive

According to a new study, stress impacts women’s physical features and makes them less attractive to men.

Smiling woman

For some women, the absence of a partner to cuddle up on the sofa with is a source of deep stress. Unfortunately, research shows that these women aren’t doing themselves any favours.

Men who were asked to flip through photos of women rated those with the highest cortisol levels the least attractive. Cortisol is the hormone associated with stress; the higher the levels, the more stressed-out the individual feels.

Stress can make women put on weight (we’re all guilty of a comfort snack now and then), it can damage skin (smoking, wine and sleepless nights could be to blame), making them look older.

Scientists hypothesize that women who look older, pack a bit of a paunch, or appear particularly stressed out are less attractive to men because all of these things happen to impact fertility.

When people look for mates, they are generally looking for individuals with the strongest genes so they can create strong babies. The male participants found younger women who were neither too fat nor too thin the most attractive and researchers attributed this to the fact that young women with an average body weight tend to be the healthiest and therefore the most likely to produce strong offspring.

Stress can be caused by a number of things – trouble at work, problems with family, money worries and even weight and health issues. The best way to tackle stress is to look at the things in your life you can change.

Could you change your job? Could you start a weekly budget? Open a savings account? Start a new hobby? There are always small ways to improve ourselves. In life coaching this is called personal development. Often, the most fundamental changes in our lives start slowly, with one or two small adjustments.

If you would like to talk to a life coach about reducing the stress in your life, then why not visit our Personal Development page?

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Written by Zoe Thomas
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Written by Zoe Thomas
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