Everyone has someone who can ruin their mood without even being in the room. A coworker, relative, ex, friend – whoever. They say something shi**y on Tuesday, and they’re still hanging around in your head on Friday.
Unfortunately, your brain is very willing to participate. Research has found that social rejection activates some of the same brain regions involved in physical pain. And once you start replaying an unpleasant encounter, your body can keep reacting to it long after the person is gone. Studies on rumination have linked that mental replay with prolonged stress responses. So, someone can piss you off once and then get several additional hours of your life for free.
Psychologist and Yale lecturer Emma Seppälä writes in Psychology Today that holding on to resentment creates another risk. Years of resentment can eventually turn the anger into a habit. The person you hate might be long gone, while you’re still carrying around everything they brought out in you.
1. Notice What You’re Doing to Yourself
The annoying part is how much time this stuff keeps taking from you afterward. You replay the conversation, come up with better responses, maybe explain to someone else for the 14th time why this person sucks. Meanwhile, they’re probably grocery shopping.
2. Let It Go, Even if They Absolutely Suck
The word “forgiveness” can be a little misleading here. It doesn’t have to mean absolving someone or pretending their behavior was fine. Psychologists are usually talking about letting go of some of the anger you’re still carrying.
In one Psychological Science study, people who pictured themselves forgiving someone had lower heart rates and blood pressure than people who kept mentally feeding the grudge. Stanford researcher Fred Luskin found something similar in his own work on forgiveness, including lower blood pressure among participants who started out especially angry.
They don’t need a text, an apology tour, or an invitation back into your life. They never even have to know.
3. Try Wishing Them Well, Somehow
Yes, this is probably the suggestion that makes you want to throw your phone across the room. Loving-kindness meditation involves deliberately directing goodwill toward other people, including people you’d rather never hear from again.
In an Emory study, people who practiced compassion meditation and engaged with it more strongly showed lower stress-related inflammatory responses. Seppälä also co-authored Stanford research that found even a short loving-kindness exercise increased positive feelings toward strangers and feelings of social connection.
You don’t have to decide the person is secretly wonderful. You can still think what they did was awful. Wishing them a decent life mainly gives your brain somewhere else to go besides replaying the same miserable conversation for the millionth time.
Because eventually, the best revenge might be living your life in peace.
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