“Never Go to Bed Angry:”The Pros and Cons of This Practice

• Being angry at night can disrupt your sleep. It can make it hard for you to fall asleep, lead to poor sleep quality, and make you more prone to nightmares.

It’s important to remember that anger isn’t helping you or making you ‘win’ in a given situation. In the end, your anger does far more harm to you than to the other person, robbing you of your peace and sleep.

• Sometimes people can be impulsive when they’re angry. This includes saying things they don’t mean and being hurtful to the other person. Taking space and committing to revisiting the situation at a later time when your anger levels have reduced can be productive in some situations.

The intensity of your emotions may reduce with time. This can give you time to process your emotions, think about the situation more deeply, and see if your emotional reaction or position on the situation changes with time.

• It is important to note that anger can be a natural response—often a valid one—to a difficult situation. It is a valuable emotion that you must give yourself and the people around you permission to feel; it is not something to avoid.

It is fine to feel angry and you don’t need to feel pressure to cap the length of your anger, which could only cause it to arise in other situations. Instead of focusing on your anger, it may be more helpful to focus on the trigger or stimulus for the emotion.

According to Dr. Romanoff, the “Never go to bed angry” rule does not work in a one-size-fits all manner. Whether or not you should follow it depends on many factors, such as the cause of your anger, your temperament, and the circumstances. 

• Communicate: The first step is to try to find a way to communicate with the other person . If it does not seem likely that a resolution will be reached, be honest with each other and hit the pause button on the argument.
• Use your anger as a guide: Anger can be a useful emotion that can guide you to locate your boundaries, speak to your values, solve problems, and provide information about what you need from the other person

• Commit to finding a resolution: It’s important to commit to resolving the issue instead of merely trying to avoid conflict. This means recognizing the emotions that are behind your anger in order to engage in more honest communication with the other person to move forward.
• Seek support and comfort: It can be helpful to call a friend and vent about the situation, getting validation or another viewpoint of the situation through their eyes. Distract yourself by doing something comforting, such as baking your favorite dessert, watching your favorite show, or engaging in some self-care.