In our research, we showed that after conflict a man’s heart rate did not lower when he thought about his wife’s negative qualities. Surprisingly, it also didn’t lower when he spent 20 minutes thinking about his wife’s positive qualities. Guess what lowered the heart rate of our participants: reading a magazine. What you need when you’re emotionally flooded is a distraction. You need to think about anything but the person you are in conflict with and the conversation that caused the emotional flooding.
