When the body floods with cortisol under pressure, something subtler than recklessness occurs — the inner compass that normally steers us away from danger begins to spin. A controlled study of 109 young adults found that acute stress does not simply push people toward risky choices, but rather disrupts the physiological warning signals that guide those choices, and it does so along lines of sex. In men, stress hormones and bodily intuition fell into conflict; in women, they moved on separate tracks. The finding invites us to reconsider what we mean when we say pressure clouds judgment.