2 minute read
Why you can’t think straight mid-argument
When your heart rate passes about 100 beats a minute, the part of you that listens goes offline. A twenty-minute break is a repair, not a retreat.
Flooding is physiological. Adrenaline narrows attention, the body prepares to fight or flee, and the parts of the brain that manage nuance and empathy quieten. You start hearing threats in neutral sentences.
Nothing useful gets said while either person is flooded. That is not a character flaw; it is biology, and it affects everyone.
The research answer is a break of at least twenty minutes, spent actually calming down: a walk, slow breathing, music. Not rehearsing the argument. Then come back, at a time you named when you left.
The difference between a pause and a walk-out is the promise to return.
Agree a pause word now, while you are calm. Agree that whoever calls it says when they will be back.
Where this comes from: Gottman, What Predicts Divorce?; physiological studies of diffuse physiological arousal.
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