Create More Intimacy: A Podcast for Men
Sep 4, 2026 · 18 min · 10 segments
There's a window, ten to twenty seconds, where your body decides what happens next in an argument, before you're even aware you're reacting. This week we'll cover what's actually happening in that…
Alisa StoddardHost
When I talk to men about regulation, a lot of them treat it like a mindset problem.
When something lands as a threat, and for most men that threat isn't physical, it's relational, disapproval or criticism, the sense that you're about to be found lacking, your body responds the same way it would to an actual threat.
Blood moves towards your limbs and away from the parts of your brain responsible for nuance, patience, and perspective.
The prefrontal cortex, the part of you that can hold two competing truths at once, That can wait.
Not completely, but enough that the version of you making decisions in that window is not your full self.
It's a faster, more primitive version of you, and it was built for danger, not for a conversation about the calendar or logistics.
This is why afterward, a lot of men say some version of, I don't even know why I reacted like that.
You genuinely didn't have full access to the parts of your brain that would have caught it.
The window where this is happening is short, like 10 to 20 seconds, give or take.
That's the entire negotiation your nervous system runs before it commits to a direction.
This is important to understand because it changes what you're actually working on.
When I talk to men about regulation, a lot of them treat it like a mindset problem.
When something lands as a threat, and for most men that threat isn't physical, it's relational, disapproval or criticism, the sense that you're about to be found lacking, your body responds the same way it would to an actual threat.
Blood moves towards your limbs and away from the parts of your brain responsible for nuance, patience, and perspective.
The prefrontal cortex, the part of you that can hold two competing truths at once, That can wait.
Not completely, but enough that the version of you making decisions in that window is not your full self.
It's a faster, more primitive version of you, and it was built for danger, not for a conversation about the calendar or logistics.
This is why afterward, a lot of men say some version of, I don't even know why I reacted like that.
You genuinely didn't have full access to the parts of your brain that would have caught it.
The window where this is happening is short, like 10 to 20 seconds, give or take.
That's the entire negotiation your nervous system runs before it commits to a direction.
This is important to understand because it changes what you're actually working on.
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