Most of us have heard the saying, “The best way to maintain a healthy relationship is to not go to bed mad.” This is rather good advice even if it wasn’t based in research…until now. We all have stress in our lives that is unavoidable. However, some stressors can be minimized, such as conflict with others. And anything we can do to lower our stress level will flow directly to our bottom-line overall well-being.
In a study with 2,000 people, researchers interviewed participants about their feelings for eight days in a row (Witzel & Stawski, 2021). The researchers looked at reports of both arguments and avoided arguments. Avoided arguments were situations where people could have argued about something but chose to let it go. The results showed that on the day of an argument, people who felt an incident was resolved reported roughly half the negative emotions of those whose conflicts were not resolved. Furthermore, on the day following an argument or avoided argument, people who felt the issue was resolved showed no elevated negative feelings. While we can’t control all the stressors that come into our lives, making a conscious effort to resolve conflict can be a means to substantially reduce our stress level.
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TIPS TO HELP
Here are a few ideas to consider when you are faced with a potential conflict:
Take a pause. The moment you notice an emotional reaction arise, take a moment to breathe. You can do this without anyone knowing what you are doing. Take two to three breaths saying to yourself, “relax,” or any other word that works for you. The more you do this, better you will be in slowing your pulse rate and lessening your emotional response.
Identify your emotions. Once you have lessened your emotional reaction, take a moment to identify your feelings, such as anger, disappointment, hurt, being taken for granted, or confusion. Not being consumed by your emotions is a critical step in having a thoughtful, empathic conversation toward resolving the conflict.
Listen for understanding. Often when people are involved in a conflict situation, no one is listening to the other person. Be a better person. Ask the other person to provide you with more information or clarify their point. Try to listen without judging what they are saying, with an orientation towards empathy.
Look at the situation from the other person’s point of view. After listening to the other person, try to incorporate their point of view into yours. Ask things like, “What am I missing?”, “Why do they feel that way?”, “Where is the common ground?”, or “Is this issue and situation more important than our relationship?”.
Step away. Sometimes situations and issues are so complicated that we can’t deal with them constructively at the moment. If you find you are in a situation like this, don’t be afraid to ask the other person if you can discuss it later.
Don’t procrastinate. Make a goal to resolve or at least talk with the other person before the sun goes down. Few of us like conflict and often think it will go away if we wait. This rarely happens. Residual stress and emotions will remain just below the surface and may flare up at the most inopportune time.
Don’t enlist others to take your side. Sometimes, when we are in conflict with another person, we try to get others to agree with us. This might feel pretty good to tell our side to other people and have them agree with us. But the problem is we are becoming more entrenched in our beliefs with each retelling of our story. This makes it even more unlikely to positively resolve our conflict.
If you’d like to learn more, I’ve included two exercises below that might help you develop a strong foundation for resolving or avoiding conflict.
Reference
Dakota D Witzel, MS, Robert S Stawski, PhD, Resolution Status and Age as Moderators for Interpersonal Everyday Stress and Stressor-Related Affect, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021;, gbab006, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbab006