What mental strategy to forget your ex?

Who struggle to forget the one who broke their hearts: American researchers have found the most effective method to forget his ex.

Not always easy to mourn love. Fortunately, a team of scientists from the University of Missouri-Saint-Louis looked at the issue by determining the most effective mental strategy to clear their head and forget their ex for good. And it seems that the recipe “netflix and ice cream galore” could be the key to getting back on track after a heartbreak.

Three ways to approach the breakup

To arrive at this result, the researchers in charge of this study published in the May 2018 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology, selected a panel of 24 people aged 20 to 37, who had broken up after a relationship of on average two and a half years and who always thought about their ex.

Each of these broken hearts was subjected to three tests to find out what was the most effective way to forget his ex. The first so-called “negative revaluation” was to ruminate and focus on all the negative things related to their ex. For the second technique called “reevaluation of feelings of love”, participants were invited to focus on the feeling of acceptance and thus make peace with their emotions (and with their past love). Finally for the third test (distraction method), they had to use mental entertainment, not to focus entirely on their grief.

Turn the page

By measuring the neuronal activity of the study participants, the researchers deduced that if the first technique could actually reduce the feeling of love towards an ex, it significantly affected the mood of the individual. A mental strategy that may prove useful occasionally, according to the study’s leaders. The second technique had no noticeable effect on the general mood of the individuals but significantly reduced the attention they paid to their ex.

As for the third method, it did not really affect the feelings that linked the panelists to their ex, but it significantly improved their general mood. “This suggests that in the context of a break-up, negative re-evaluation is an effective strategy to reduce the feeling of love, while distraction is an effective strategy for positive regulation of positive emotion,” say the researchers.