Be emotionally flexible to save the romance in life

Be emotionally flexible to save the romance in life

Being emotionally flexible is one of the key factors when it comes to longevity and overall health of your romantic and long-term relationships, say researchers. The researchers from University of Rochester aimed to clarify how mindful flexibility the one hand and inattentive, mindless and rigid inflexibility on the other were linked to the dynamics within families and romantic relationships.

Psychological flexibility is defined as a set of skills that people use when they're presented with difficult or challenging thoughts, feelings, emotions or experiences. Psychologists consider the rigid and inflexible responses to difficult or challenging experiences dysfunctional, ultimately contributing to and exacerbating a person's psychopathology.

The psychological flexibility and inflexibility may play key roles in both couples and families in shaping how individuals interact with the people closest to them, the researchers wrote in a meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, which statistically combined the results of 174 separate studies.

"Put simply, this meta-analysis underscores that being mindful and emotionally flexible in tough and challenging situations not only improves the lives of individuals, it might also strengthen and enrich their close relationships," said study co-author Ronald Rogge, an associate professor of psychology.

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