Ep 194: Sex Hormones and Your Teen’s Brain

Dr. Louann Brizendine joins us to talk about how sex hormones
affect teen’s behavior. Plus, how teens establish a social
hierarchy with their peers and why seemingly simple conversations
with teens sometimes turn into full blown arguments.


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Full show notes


When our kids are being moody and dramatic, we tend to just roll
our eyes and chalk up their behavior to hormones. We know their
bodies and brains are changing…so they’re going to have some
growing pains! But when we say the word “hormones”, do we know
what it really means? Beyond just affecting our kids' emotions
and physical development, how do these chemicals really work
within our teens' bodies as they evolve from kids to adults?





To understand how hormones affect our teens, we’ll have to go way
back…all the way back to conception! Hormones have been affecting
our kids since they were little more than a fertilized egg.
Understanding how hormones act on the mind and body throughout
the human lifespan can help us understand what’s going on during
the teens years–and why teens can be  so angry, sad,
confused and angsty!





To help us get to the bottom of all the hormonal changes, we’re
talking to Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of both The Female Brain
and The Male Brain. Louann is an endowed professor of clinical
psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, where
she also founded the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic. She’s
dedicated her life to studying how hormones change human
behavior, thoughts and emotions.





In our interview, Louann is helping us understand our kids’
hormonal timeline, from the womb to adulthood. We’re also
discussing the difference between female and male social behavior
during the teen years, and how hormones can cause simple
conflicts to escalate into intense  arguments with teens.


The Hormone Timeline


Although we often associate hormones with the teenage years,
these chemicals are  powerful forces that shape our
kids  before they’re  even born! Louann explains that
our hormones, especially testosterone, begin to have major
effects on humans when a fetus is only six weeks old. If the
fetus carries XY chromosomes, its entire body and brain will be
marinated in testosterone after six weeks, says Louann, creating
male anatomy. For fetuses with the XX chromosome, this
testosterone is absent, leading them to develop female features
as a default!





Louann explains that males face an intense influx of testosterone
as they go through puberty. For boys, testosterone levels go up
steadily for their entire childhood, hitting a peak around age
fifteen. During adolescence,  Louann says that boys see a
250x increase of testosterone, making them rather eager to begin
mating! This is the period in which young men begin to find
themselves interested in females, says Louann, something that’s
incredibly normal. In the episode, we discuss how we can help our
sons understand that all these new feelings are simply a part of
getting older, not something to be ashamed of.





For young women, a hormonal timeline tends to look more cyclical,
especially after menstruation begins, says Louann. In the
episode, we talk a lot about the hormone cycle women go through
every month. You might be worried when your daughter suddenly
starts dressing differently or talking about boys, but it’s
likely a result of her ovulation, when her body tells her to turn
on the charm, says Louann. And the idea of “PMS” is more than
just a joke–women really do experience intense emotions as a
result of hormone changes when they’re about to experience their
period, Louann explains. 





For teens, hormones cause  more than just body changes–they
also affect social and emotional behavior, especially when it
comes to interacting with peers. In our interview, Louann and I
are discussing how boys and girls experience social hierarchy and
rejection differently.



Hormones and Teen Social Hierarchies


Interestingly, Louann tells us that friendship between females is
incredibly rewarding–much more so than friendship between males.
When women are sharing secrets and confiding in one another,
their minds release hormones  like oxytocin and dopamine,
meaning they feel happy and safe. This likely developed for
evolutionary purposes, explains Louann. Having deep connections
with other women can help females develop an extra layer of
protection and support for both herself and her potential
offspring.





On the other hand, teen girls can have very catty and
conflict-filled relationships! But why would this happen, when
female friendships are so rewarding? Louann explains that this
drama is most prevalent in the teen years, as girls are still
developing self-image and find themselves constantly comparing
their own bodies to those of other women. During this period,
young girls can have a lot of very painful, self loathing
thoughts, says Louann, leading them to lash out against other
young women who are potentially receiving more attention from
males.





It’s different for boys, however, Louann explains.  Male
hierarchies are most likely to be founded on physical strength
and aggression. In the episode, Louann shares an interesting
piece of research in which ten young men, all strangers, briefly
met and then ranked themselves on a hypothetical hierarchy.
Because so much of the male pecking order is decided through
physical strength, every single one of the boys had an identical
ranking, based on the physical fitness of the other
participants..  Louann explains that the natural male
hormonal response to strong negative feelings or threats is to
become physically aggressive, creating a hierarchy of physical
dominance.





When tensions are running high in your home and an argument
breaks out, emotions can escalate pretty quickly. Louann explains
that this is because of a process called “emotional contagion”.





How Emotions Can Be Contagious





One minute, it seems like you and your teen are just chatting it
up about their day at school, and the next they burst into tears,
run up into their room and slam the door. You’re left there
wondering, how did this happen, and how did I not see it coming?
In our interview, Louann explains that while women can read
people’s faces and predict if they’re about to cry, men struggle
with this a lot. If you’re a man, you night find yourself
grappling with this!





And when men do sense that a young woman might cry, they are
often struck by my emotional contagion, says Louann. This is the
ability of one person's strong emotions to transfer to another
during an argument or a conversation. This emotional contagion
can trigger our pain response when a teen is crying or yelling,
which can stress us out! We want the emotional intensity to come
down a notch, so we might try to calm our teen down or even just
leave the room altogether. Louann suggests that we take a minute
to try and de-escalate the situation. This can bring your teen
back to a better place while also helping you settle your own
emotions. 





In the episode, Louann and I  talk about how males and
females channel emotions differently, but otherwise have brains
that are 99% the same! Boys  are likely to...