Manstruation - Irritable male syndrome: does it exist?
Have you ever woken up with the raging hump ??
Irritable male syndrome: does it exist?
Scientists have revealed that men’s hormones can make them grumpy once a month
Manstruation
Recently I came across a Netmums conversation and the gist of it was this: one
woman was bemoaning her husband’s irascibility around the house, confiding
that she and the children were constantly tiptoeing on eggshells around
puce-faced Mr Grumpy.
Other women piled in with gusto; their husbands were exactly the same, they said. One summarised it for the group: “The most stupid and simple things put him in a mood, such as the TV remote not working for a split second, the kids arguing, not being able to find something for a few minutes,” she said.
Once, a stock response might have been to place a sisterly arm on her shoulder and say: “Look, he’s obviously having an affair.” But not any more. Not in these enlightened times. Because it turns out that men too suffer from “PMT”, a proper monthly period that renders them tired, crabby, bloated and oversensitive. We’ll call it “manstruation”.
Its proper term is irritable male syndrome (IMS) caused by a drop in testosterone levels and it was first detected in sheep by Dr Gerald Lincoln, of the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh. One may scoff, but a recent survey found that not only do a quarter of men agree that they experience these symptoms, but 58 per cent of their female partners believe them.
Hmm, I respect scientists, I really do, but are they sure this is an actual monthly thing? And always down to hormones? Because, although in my dealings with men over the years I have certainly noticed spells of extreme tetchiness, I’d posit a different theory. Bouts of quick-temperedness and gloominess can often be linked directly, for example, to watching sport. Football, I find, is a particularly effective trigger causing TV remotes to be hurled, glasses to be smashed and children’s ears to be covered as the air thrills with f-words and worse (in our house when Liverpool are on I find it best to go out).
Ditto doing any form of DIY in which the written instructions are, apparently, “a “fucking joke” written by “idiots” (translation: “too complex”). The misplacing of an allen key for more than eight seconds can also induce splenetic rages.
Apart from these occasions, though — oh, and when engaging in any form of shopping, an activity that produces expressions of torment and sadness on his face — my husband is generally quite a cheerful soul. I genuinely don’t think his bouts of ill-temper are hormone-related; they’re activity-related. (He says some of the IMS symptoms — tiredness, moroseness, a constant desire to eat — just sound like a hangover.)
One friend takes a different view. Married for 16 years, she believes that she and her husband are irritable with each other because they know they can be. Unlike at work or with friends, with whom they have to stay mainly polite, they can safely release their “inner nark” with each other — and do so, frequently. “When he’s grumpy at home it’s because he’s relaxed and has dropped the façade we all have to wear in life,” she says. “That’s what I tell myself, anyway, when he’s snapping at me and shouting at the kids to shut up so he can watch the news.”
Then there’s a simpler view, which, frankly, is persuasive. Another friend says it boils down to sexual frustration. When they have more sex, her partner is less irritable; when they don’t have much, he is more annoyed with the world.
This notion is supported by science and the aforementioned sheep. Researchers noted that in the autumn the rams’ testosterone levels soar as the rutting season approaches, but in the winter levels fall and they lose interest in sex. As the levels dropped the rams were reportedly transformed from confident, competent males to nervous, withdrawn animals that struck out irrationally. Red deer and Indian elephants also show signs of IMS at the end of their breeding seasons.
“It’s not complicated,”my friend says. “He becomes tetchier when he isn’t getting any.”
Happy men are just drunk Hugo Rifkind
I am more than happy to believe, as a survey suggests, that men suffer from “premenstrual style” symptoms, otherwise known as irritable male syndrome, in the manner of the more traditionally female cliché. I certainly do. My only quibble is with the idea that it only happens for a few days a month. Rubbish. It happens every day. It is every day. That’s what being a man is.
Women have it tough. Some of them, I accept, go nuts for a few days each month, although a big male secret here is that we don’t really notice. “The world is awful and I want everybody, including me, to go away for ever,” a woman may be thinking, while presuming that surrounding men are aware of this. We aren’t really because we’re too busy thinking that too.
For the rest of the month, though, women are awesome. You guys really hold stuff together. The way you remember about homework, and other people’s birthdays, and put on make-up on the Tube, and get patronised in the workplace without coming in the next day with an axe? Couldn’t do that. Period or not.
Men are miserable all the time. The happy ones? Faking it. Or mad. Or drunk. That guy in your meeting, smiling, right now? Drunk. I don’t care if it’s 9am. That’s just how it is. Misery, exhaustion, irritability and all the rest of it are not deviations from the male mean. They are the male mean. They are the vital building blocks of our personalities.
I had a look before writing this at the list of symptoms men are supposed to suffer during the low point of our “hormonal cycle”. So . . .
1) Irritable. Yup. All the time. Didn’t I already tell you that? Christ, PAY ATTENTION.
2) More tired than normal. Yes. Again, always. I am normally more tired than normal. And I don’t care if that doesn’t make sense, because I’m tired.
3) Increased cravings, eg, chocolate. Do cigarettes count? Yes, I constantly crave chocolate as well. I don’t know what you mean by “increased”. How you do you increase something that is already at the maximum?
4) Constantly hungry. That’s the same as 3, just using different words. You idiot.
5) Bloated. Well, obviously. See 3 and 4.
6) More sensitive about their weight. You what? We’re bloated and binge-eating chocolate and we’re supposed to NOT be sensitive about our weight? Seriously?
7) Easily upset. F*** off.
8) Cramps. No.
I think that pretty much covers it. Perhaps I am such a slave to my hormones that I don’t notice it happening, but I can’t say I’m aware of all this being notably worse at any particular time of each month. Possibly I’m marginally more stressed near the beginning, but only because that’s when the mortgage goes out.
So my conclusion is that while there may indeed be a thing called irritable male syndrome, it is in fact indistinguishable from simply being male. We may, indeed, have a hormone cycle, but it doesn’t make anything worse because it can’t, because it’s so bad already. That being said, I suppose there might be a short period, normally around the 15th, when I’m marginally better at rollerblading.
Tetchy? Yes, all the time
Robert Crampton
Do men have periods? Of course we do — and unlike women, who have to endure them for a few days each month from their teens to their fifties, male periods start earlier and finish later. As in: at birth and death. And our periods, what’s more, are a constant condition. None of this namby-pamby nonsense about taking up perhaps a quarter of a 28-day hormonal cycle, but rather all the time, full-on, hardcore suffering. Ooo, me back! I need a nice lie down.
Consider the evidence: do we chaps get irritable? Touchy, tetchy and tired for no good reason? Weird mood swings relating to the recent results achieved by a particular sporting team? Insatiably hungry? Yes to all of the above. And do we have sudden mad cravings? For beer? For sandwiches? For perfunctory sexual intercourse? Not necessarily in that order? And are we sensitive about our weight, hair, size of bottom in this pair of jeans? Even though they’re relaxed fit? And are we martyrs to mysterious aches, pains, strains and random cramps in the lower spinal region? Yes again.
Any, many and — as the years pass, more usually all — such symptoms pretty much describe the male condition, right? They also happen to be the classic indicators of premenstrual tension. A coincidence? I think not. Never mind that all the evidence accumulated, observed, analysed and classified since the dawn of time says otherwise, the logic is inescapable. Frankly I’m surprised it has taken so long for formal confirmation of the existence of the male period to emerge.
OK, so we never get too fussed about dirty laundry cast carelessly on the floor or an incorrectly loaded dishwasher, but even so, given the weight of evidence on the other side of the scales, I trust such trivia can be discounted as one of those beguiling anomalies that serve to make scientific research so intriguing. Something like that, anyway.
Because this research is the sort of research I like, research I can do business with, research with enormous explanatory power. We men have been castigated — scorned, mocked, if you please — for many years concerning many of our most treasured traits. Our tendency towards simultaneous — synchronistic, if you will — self-pity and self-aggrandisement. Our propensity to take ourselves too seriously. Our belief that getting drunk, moaning and watching telly is the best solution to any problem that life throws up. Our apoplexy over the design of the new away kit. And so forth.
Angry young man, grumpy old man, mid-life crisis, manopause, manxiety, man flu . . . the pejorative terms for our totally legitimate and important concerns are as numerous as they are, may I say, hurtful. Sob. Sniffle. Pass the hankies. Yet now, finally, all our behaviour is vindicated, justified and, I trust, forgiven. We are in the clear. It’s not me, it’s me hormones.
It’s all to do with testosterone and the lunar cycle, I believe. Complicated moon, tides, werewolf-type gubbins anyway. Not sure I entirely understand it. Sounds vaguely plausible, though. Worth filing away. Might do to get us out of the doghouse after some future cock-up.
Other women piled in with gusto; their husbands were exactly the same, they said. One summarised it for the group: “The most stupid and simple things put him in a mood, such as the TV remote not working for a split second, the kids arguing, not being able to find something for a few minutes,” she said.
Once, a stock response might have been to place a sisterly arm on her shoulder and say: “Look, he’s obviously having an affair.” But not any more. Not in these enlightened times. Because it turns out that men too suffer from “PMT”, a proper monthly period that renders them tired, crabby, bloated and oversensitive. We’ll call it “manstruation”.
Its proper term is irritable male syndrome (IMS) caused by a drop in testosterone levels and it was first detected in sheep by Dr Gerald Lincoln, of the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh. One may scoff, but a recent survey found that not only do a quarter of men agree that they experience these symptoms, but 58 per cent of their female partners believe them.
Hmm, I respect scientists, I really do, but are they sure this is an actual monthly thing? And always down to hormones? Because, although in my dealings with men over the years I have certainly noticed spells of extreme tetchiness, I’d posit a different theory. Bouts of quick-temperedness and gloominess can often be linked directly, for example, to watching sport. Football, I find, is a particularly effective trigger causing TV remotes to be hurled, glasses to be smashed and children’s ears to be covered as the air thrills with f-words and worse (in our house when Liverpool are on I find it best to go out).
Ditto doing any form of DIY in which the written instructions are, apparently, “a “fucking joke” written by “idiots” (translation: “too complex”). The misplacing of an allen key for more than eight seconds can also induce splenetic rages.
Apart from these occasions, though — oh, and when engaging in any form of shopping, an activity that produces expressions of torment and sadness on his face — my husband is generally quite a cheerful soul. I genuinely don’t think his bouts of ill-temper are hormone-related; they’re activity-related. (He says some of the IMS symptoms — tiredness, moroseness, a constant desire to eat — just sound like a hangover.)
One friend takes a different view. Married for 16 years, she believes that she and her husband are irritable with each other because they know they can be. Unlike at work or with friends, with whom they have to stay mainly polite, they can safely release their “inner nark” with each other — and do so, frequently. “When he’s grumpy at home it’s because he’s relaxed and has dropped the façade we all have to wear in life,” she says. “That’s what I tell myself, anyway, when he’s snapping at me and shouting at the kids to shut up so he can watch the news.”
Then there’s a simpler view, which, frankly, is persuasive. Another friend says it boils down to sexual frustration. When they have more sex, her partner is less irritable; when they don’t have much, he is more annoyed with the world.
This notion is supported by science and the aforementioned sheep. Researchers noted that in the autumn the rams’ testosterone levels soar as the rutting season approaches, but in the winter levels fall and they lose interest in sex. As the levels dropped the rams were reportedly transformed from confident, competent males to nervous, withdrawn animals that struck out irrationally. Red deer and Indian elephants also show signs of IMS at the end of their breeding seasons.
“It’s not complicated,”my friend says. “He becomes tetchier when he isn’t getting any.”
Happy men are just drunk Hugo Rifkind
I am more than happy to believe, as a survey suggests, that men suffer from “premenstrual style” symptoms, otherwise known as irritable male syndrome, in the manner of the more traditionally female cliché. I certainly do. My only quibble is with the idea that it only happens for a few days a month. Rubbish. It happens every day. It is every day. That’s what being a man is.
Women have it tough. Some of them, I accept, go nuts for a few days each month, although a big male secret here is that we don’t really notice. “The world is awful and I want everybody, including me, to go away for ever,” a woman may be thinking, while presuming that surrounding men are aware of this. We aren’t really because we’re too busy thinking that too.
For the rest of the month, though, women are awesome. You guys really hold stuff together. The way you remember about homework, and other people’s birthdays, and put on make-up on the Tube, and get patronised in the workplace without coming in the next day with an axe? Couldn’t do that. Period or not.
Men are miserable all the time. The happy ones? Faking it. Or mad. Or drunk. That guy in your meeting, smiling, right now? Drunk. I don’t care if it’s 9am. That’s just how it is. Misery, exhaustion, irritability and all the rest of it are not deviations from the male mean. They are the male mean. They are the vital building blocks of our personalities.
I had a look before writing this at the list of symptoms men are supposed to suffer during the low point of our “hormonal cycle”. So . . .
1) Irritable. Yup. All the time. Didn’t I already tell you that? Christ, PAY ATTENTION.
2) More tired than normal. Yes. Again, always. I am normally more tired than normal. And I don’t care if that doesn’t make sense, because I’m tired.
3) Increased cravings, eg, chocolate. Do cigarettes count? Yes, I constantly crave chocolate as well. I don’t know what you mean by “increased”. How you do you increase something that is already at the maximum?
4) Constantly hungry. That’s the same as 3, just using different words. You idiot.
5) Bloated. Well, obviously. See 3 and 4.
6) More sensitive about their weight. You what? We’re bloated and binge-eating chocolate and we’re supposed to NOT be sensitive about our weight? Seriously?
7) Easily upset. F*** off.
8) Cramps. No.
I think that pretty much covers it. Perhaps I am such a slave to my hormones that I don’t notice it happening, but I can’t say I’m aware of all this being notably worse at any particular time of each month. Possibly I’m marginally more stressed near the beginning, but only because that’s when the mortgage goes out.
So my conclusion is that while there may indeed be a thing called irritable male syndrome, it is in fact indistinguishable from simply being male. We may, indeed, have a hormone cycle, but it doesn’t make anything worse because it can’t, because it’s so bad already. That being said, I suppose there might be a short period, normally around the 15th, when I’m marginally better at rollerblading.
Robert Crampton
Do men have periods? Of course we do — and unlike women, who have to endure them for a few days each month from their teens to their fifties, male periods start earlier and finish later. As in: at birth and death. And our periods, what’s more, are a constant condition. None of this namby-pamby nonsense about taking up perhaps a quarter of a 28-day hormonal cycle, but rather all the time, full-on, hardcore suffering. Ooo, me back! I need a nice lie down.
Consider the evidence: do we chaps get irritable? Touchy, tetchy and tired for no good reason? Weird mood swings relating to the recent results achieved by a particular sporting team? Insatiably hungry? Yes to all of the above. And do we have sudden mad cravings? For beer? For sandwiches? For perfunctory sexual intercourse? Not necessarily in that order? And are we sensitive about our weight, hair, size of bottom in this pair of jeans? Even though they’re relaxed fit? And are we martyrs to mysterious aches, pains, strains and random cramps in the lower spinal region? Yes again.
Any, many and — as the years pass, more usually all — such symptoms pretty much describe the male condition, right? They also happen to be the classic indicators of premenstrual tension. A coincidence? I think not. Never mind that all the evidence accumulated, observed, analysed and classified since the dawn of time says otherwise, the logic is inescapable. Frankly I’m surprised it has taken so long for formal confirmation of the existence of the male period to emerge.
OK, so we never get too fussed about dirty laundry cast carelessly on the floor or an incorrectly loaded dishwasher, but even so, given the weight of evidence on the other side of the scales, I trust such trivia can be discounted as one of those beguiling anomalies that serve to make scientific research so intriguing. Something like that, anyway.
Because this research is the sort of research I like, research I can do business with, research with enormous explanatory power. We men have been castigated — scorned, mocked, if you please — for many years concerning many of our most treasured traits. Our tendency towards simultaneous — synchronistic, if you will — self-pity and self-aggrandisement. Our propensity to take ourselves too seriously. Our belief that getting drunk, moaning and watching telly is the best solution to any problem that life throws up. Our apoplexy over the design of the new away kit. And so forth.
Angry young man, grumpy old man, mid-life crisis, manopause, manxiety, man flu . . . the pejorative terms for our totally legitimate and important concerns are as numerous as they are, may I say, hurtful. Sob. Sniffle. Pass the hankies. Yet now, finally, all our behaviour is vindicated, justified and, I trust, forgiven. We are in the clear. It’s not me, it’s me hormones.
It’s all to do with testosterone and the lunar cycle, I believe. Complicated moon, tides, werewolf-type gubbins anyway. Not sure I entirely understand it. Sounds vaguely plausible, though. Worth filing away. Might do to get us out of the doghouse after some future cock-up.
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