“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”. This is a very old saying and no prizes for guessing about the origin of this idiom. Obviously a tough one must have mouthed his inner most feeling while he quoted the phrase.
But now even science seems to acknowledge the fact that tough persons with masculine tendencies are at an advantage when it comes to healing an injury or speeding up the recovery process.
Glenn Good of the University of Missouri, Columbia and his colleagues examined a group of 50 middle-aged rural white men who had experienced traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries.
With the help of questionnaires that measured the degree of masculinity and some specific gender related roles, the study team was able to come to a conclusion that the man-of-steel mentality can boost and speed up a guy’s recovery from a serious and/or traumatic injury possibly.
Based on this study the team of scientists have come to a conclusion that an inner narrative is the engine behind the boost in health and the tough guys win this situation because of their die-hard attitude.
Though the team believes that negative effects of increased masculinity is not ruled out as the ‘injured tough guys’ in question might refrain from seeking psychological help from their women partners, whom they consider as subjects to be ruled upon, which may prove detrimental to their health.
And therefore the scientists encourage psychotherapy along with traditional methods of healing. As Good wrote in his report:
Therapists trying to help men recover from serious injuries could encourage men’s masculine tendency to seek success but discourage them from believing it’s appropriate to exert power over women.