Before Your Next Fight, Read This
He hadn’t done the dishes; she was livid. Then he was livid that she was livid—which gave one expert negotiator the perfect opportunity to practice what he preaches: turning an adversary into a partner.
By Daniel Shapiro, PhD
Photo: Malte Mueller/Getty Images
It’s eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I was up all night doing taxes, and I’ve had only four hours of sleep when my wife, having decided this would be a good time to torture me, wakes me with an angry accusation: “You didn’t do the dishes!”
I put a pillow over my head.
“You said you were going to do them!”
“I’m trying to sleep, Mia.”
Mia doesn’t care. “How come I have to do all the work around here?”
I hold the pillow tighter. “Can’t this wait?”
“No.”
Now I’m angry.
The woman I love, the woman who’s such a good mother to our son, Noah, the woman who picks up my dirty socks and accommodates my almost daily craving for Chinese food, is out to get me. And there’s no way I’m going to let her. If I apologize, I’ll feel weak. If I say I’ll do the dishes, I’ll feel as though I’m agreeing to be her servant.
Yet even as my anger builds, somewhere in the back of my mind I know that the real problem isn’t a bunch of dirty plates. It’s how we’re treating each other. I’m right. You’re wrong. And I’m going to argue until you admit it. We’ve started behaving like adversaries. And the longer we fight, the more defensive we’ll get and the more we’ll lash out—until a spat about dishes turns into a heated referendum about which one of us deserves to live.
On its own, the small stuff is just that—small. But if you’re not careful, it can turn into a big problem that tears at the fabric of your relationships. I know this because I’ve spent the past 15 years researching the role of emotions in conflict situations, and because I’ve had lots of experience as a consultant to disputing political leaders. Unfortunately, all my knowledge doesn’t make me any less human. Like every husband on earth, I fight with my wife.
Luckily, my work has given me insight into dealing—constructively—with fights. The key insight is that solving the big problem first prevents the small problems from snowballing. Though that may sound backward—and impossible to pull off in the heat of battle—it’s not. Here’s how it works.
As Mia and I exchange insults, friendly conversation seems miles away. But before I criticize her for attacking me, I focus on a sign in my mind that reads turn an adversary into a partner. This is important because it will change the way I’m acting toward Mia. As her adversary, I want to defeat her. As her partner, I want to listen to her—really listen. The trouble is, it’s hard to listen when all the circuits in my brain are telling me, “She’s wrong! I’m right!” I need to regain my emotional balance, but I can’t do that while Mia’s giving me the evil eye. So I fall back on a plan I’ve made in advance.
1. Take a 15-minute break to cool off and figure out how to move forward.
“Fine.” Mia walks out. I can tell she was sorely tempted to slam the door behind her. I sit up in bed so I don’t fall back asleep. My anger, on the other hand, stays right where it is. How dare she accuse me of not helping around the house? And what gives her the right to wake me so early on a Saturday morning? In a way, it feels good to travel down this road of blame. But knowing that the further I go, the worse things will be for my marriage, I recall…
2. Channel Aunt Margaret, a 60-year-old lawyer from Pittsburgh.
You may not have an Aunt Margaret, but chances are you have someone like her: a compassionate person with a knack for listening without judging. If Aunt Margaret were here, she’d tell me to take a deep breath and explain the situation. And then she’d gently try to steer me toward seeing Mia’s point of view.
What’s brilliant about Aunt Margaret’s approach is that it has my interests at heart. Once Mia feels heard, she’ll be much more likely to listen to me. So, reluctantly, I resolve to try to imagine—just for a moment—that I’m my wife.
In my professional life, I frequently teach this role-reversal tactic. In class students pair up and actually speak as though they are the other person; though some students at first feel silly, they soon come to understand the powerful difference between describing what “he” or “she” is doing and how “I” feels.
If I were to become Mia right now, I’d say, “I wake up at the crack of dawn to Noah crying. I feed him, drop him off at day care, and then put on my social-worker hat. After work, I pick up Noah, come home, bathe him, eat with Dan, and—a lot of the time—do the dishes and clean up around the house. I know Dan has a busy schedule, but so do I.”
Seeing Mia’s side makes me feel uncomfortable, less entitled—and that’s a good sign. I keep going. I see that I’ve left her with two bad choices: Do the dishes herself or nag me. She wants to be supported, but instead she’s trapped. Now I’m really starting to squirm—because my sense of empathy is waking up. I never meant for my wife to feel unsupported.
It feels as though a weight has been lifted from me. I think I understand Mia’s viewpoint, which makes all those venomous thoughts about how mean she is start to disappear. But happy days aren’t here again—yet. Mia is still angry. And telling her “I get it!” won’t be enough.
3. Communicate this new understanding.
In the family room, Mia sits on the couch, reading. She doesn’t look up. Her anger is palpable. Normally, this would be enough to retrigger my own anger. Today, though, I come prepared. I interpret her behavior not as a desire to attack but rather as a need for support.
“Look,” I say. “We can spend all day today arguing over the dishes. Or we can talk this out.” She nods.
I say, “I’ve thought about how things might look from your perspective.”
“Really?” Mia says sarcastically. “So what am I feeling?”
Now I’m in danger, but I take the risk. “I started thinking about how much you’re doing every day. Between taking care of Noah and working and keeping up with the house, it’s a lot. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel overwhelmed.”
“Of course it’s overwhelming! Why should all the work be left to me?”
My heart skips a beat. My hostility surges back. Not only did I spend last night doing both our taxes but I also cleaned the basement the night before. I’m about to defend my position, to tell her all the reasons I’m right and she’s wrong, when it occurs to me that she’s come prepared with a list of her own. Arguing like this will put us back in the roles of adversaries—exactly where we don’t want to be.
Here’s where a crucial truth comes in handy: There is power in one. Even if Mia initially resists my invitation to talk through our fight, I don’t need to react in kind. I can say and do things to turn both of us into partners. All it takes is persistence in trying to understand her point of view so that she feels appreciated. For some people—me included—this can be an exciting challenge.
I look Mia in the eyes and ask, “What are you hoping for right now?” I’m not attacking, and immediately her anger loses some steam. Her face softens. “I feel like I don’t have a second to myself—between work, taking care of Noah, cleaning the house.” As I listen, we both become more engaged. The tone of our conversation slowly shifts. We’re becoming partners again.
Once our emotions are working with us, not against us, we can figure out any number of ways to deal with the mess in the kitchen sink. We can also address the deeper issue: making sure Mia has some time to herself. And the next time I leave a chore undone, she’ll wonder what came up and probably ask me about it. I, on the other hand, will do my best not to put her in that situation. Not because clean dishes are the most crucial thing in life, but because we never want to dish out more than our relationship can take.
Daniel L. Shapiro, PhD, is Director of the McLean/Harvard International Negotiation Program and Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry. An expert in conflict resolution, he is the author of Beyond Reason and Negotiating the Nonnegotiable. He has been recognized by the American Psychological Association and received Harvard’s Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize.
People who naturally stay up late may have worse heart health than early risers
But adults who described themselves as night owls, especially women, can minimize risks with healthy lifestyle behaviors.
By Lindsey Leake
Listen to this article with a free account
00:0007:381x
The early bird may not only catch the proverbial worm but also have a healthier heart, new research suggests.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
People who naturally stay up late, self-described night owls, are likelier to have poor heart health than people with more traditional sleep-wake schedules, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The findings were particularly strong among women.
Researchers assessed the health and behaviors of nearly 323,000 adults in the UK Biobank, a comprehensive research database that recruited people from 2006 to 2010. Participants, whose average age was 57, completed a questionnaire about their chronotypes, a way of categorizing people by the time of day when they’re naturally most energetic and active.
“Research is increasingly showing that when our internal body clock is out of sync with daily schedules, it can affect cardiometabolic health,” said lead author Sina Kianersi, a research fellow in the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
About 24% of respondents said they considered themselves to be a “morning person,” while 8% said they were an “evening person.” The 67% majority, which researchers dubbed the “intermediate” group, said they fell somewhere in between.
Kianersi’s team used the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 metrics to award each participant a heart health score from zero to 100, with a higher score indicating a healthier heart. The behaviors that affect biological aging are sleep quality, weight, nutrition, blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking status and physical activity.
The average heart health score for all participants was 67.4. Women had better heart health than men, with scores of 70 and 65, respectively.
Compared with the intermediate group, night owls had a 79% higher prevalence of poor heart health, defined by a score below 50. Meanwhile, early birds had a 5% lower prevalence.
Across a median follow-up period of 14 years, night owls had a 16% higher risk of having heart attacks or strokes compared with the intermediate group. Early birds weren’t at increased risk.
Kianersi said his research is unique in that it explores chronotype in relation to multiple facets of a person’s heart health.
“It’s not just that chronotype alone has something that raises night owls’ risk for cardiovascular disease,” he said, “but it is through that profile, or that poor cardiovascular health, that it causes that increased [heart disease] risk.”
Sleep is vital for heart health
Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the U.S. for more than a century, killing one person every 34 seconds, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).
Though a number of studies have tied poor sleep hygiene to an increased risk of death, the AHA didn’t incorporate sleep into its pillars of cardiovascular health until 2022. In a paper that year, the organization noted that too little sleep — or too much — is associated with coronary heart disease.
The AHA recommends adults get an average of seven to nine hours of quality sleep every night to maintain optimal heart health.
The purpose of sleep is to prepare the brain and the body for wakefulness, said Dr. Maha Alattar, medical director of the VCU Health Center for Sleep Medicine in Richmond, Virginia. But that deep rest goes beyond keeping a person alert the next day.
“When we go to sleep, we go into physiological processes that actually help us regenerate some of our tissues, brain neurotransmitters — we kind of reset ourselves,” said Alattar, who wasn’t part of the study. “Every single biological cell and tissue in the body depends on sleep to be able to maintain itself during wakefulness.”
Over time, insufficient, inconsistent or low-quality sleep may lead to myriad medical problems. For example, a person operating on a sleep deficit may have higher levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, which can contribute to the formation of heart disease, Alattar said.
Recommended
Health newsUnvaccinated kids hit hard with flu as pediatric deaths rise to 52
data-graphicsMap: Track the spread of measles in the U.S.
Previous research has estimated that 8% to 11% of middle-aged and older adults have the evening chronotype.
In the study, night owls had a higher likelihood of poor scores in six of the eight categories, including sleep. In addition, researchers observed the strongest associations between the evening chronotype and low scores in two categories: sleep and nicotine exposure.
Dr. Shady Abohashem is the head of cardiac PET/CT imaging trials at Massachusetts General Hospital. While he wasn’t involved in this study, he researches how sleep deficiency affects heart health and said night owls needn’t panic.
Statistically, the link between evening chronotype and increased likelihood of poor heart health was “modest, not dramatic,” he said. In addition, the study used relative risk, comparing night owls’ risk to that of the intermediate group. Absolute risk, on the other hand, reflects the risk of an entire population.
“Being a night owl is not going to doom your heart,” Abohashem said.
How can night owls improve heart health?
Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, calls herself a “flexible owl.” That is, she can stay up late or wake up early as needed.
The good news, Zee said, is the unhealthy behaviors common to night owls that contribute to poor heart health are modifiable. The downside is some of them are harder to change than others.
Nicotine, for example, isn’t just bad for the heart, said Zee, who wasn’t part of the study. It’s also a stimulant, which can alter a person’s circadian rhythm.
“Get your seven to eight hours’ sleep, stop smoking, increase your physical activity levels during the day,” Zee said. “All of these things will help you maintain better-quality sleep.”
She added, “Even for night owls, stop eating by 8 o’clock, at least three hours before you fall asleep.”
Proper light exposure is also critical to sleep health, Zee said. Everyone, regardless of chronotype, should be exposed to natural or blue light in the morning and dim or amber light in the evening. Zee recommends turning down the lights two to three hours before bedtime to allow for a natural rise in the sleep hormone melatonin.
Alattar said morning sunlight exposure helps trigger sleep about 16 hours later, which is why it can be difficult to go to bed on time after having slept in. She also advised stopping caffeine 12 hours before bedtime.
The observational study has several limitations. It was restricted to mostly white, middle-aged and older adults who self-reported their chronotypes. In addition, the heart health metrics represent a single point in time.
Kianersi is now studying the genetics behind chronotypes and said more research is needed to understand why the link between chronotype and heart health was stronger among women.
Alattar said the evening sleep chronotype, or feeling more energetic at night, isn’t curable, but it is manageable. Such research can offer insight into and help reduce stigma for night owls, who operate outside societal norms.
“Society thinks of [night owls] as lazy,” Alattar said. “They’re not lazy; just their rhythm is off.”
