A busy life and demanding job can leave you emotionally depleted. When your own head is spinning, it can be hard to switch gears and listen to a partner who is struggling. It may be tempting to instruct them on how to fix things or lecture them on how they should have avoided the problem in the first place. Yet, both responses seem to make things worse.
While these moments may seem like an opportune time for partners to hash their problems out completely, more often than not, they end both messily and hurtfully. Thankfully, novel research suggests that this vicious cycle of escalation doesn't have to be the norm in a relationship. In fact, it can be easily short-circuited with one simple tactic: A time-out. In a 2024 study published in Communications Psychology, psychological researchers empirically