I've been re-reading the essays of Robert Sapolsky in "Monkeyluv" and there does seem to be a gender related issue with the autonomic system and how quickly it returns to calm after a crisis and how it takes women longer...so you may have a solid reason WHY you might need a seperate cooldown time.

the radio explanation of this can be found here:

http://www.radiolab.org/2006/may/05/phantom-limbs/

about 7minutes in maybe.