Be a hater, it’s healthy

(StockLite)

A new study published in the May print edition of the journal Cognition and Emotion recommends hating your ex to feel better and avoid depression.

Christopher P. Fagundes, a PhD candidate and researcher at the University of Utah in the US, found "simply asking individuals to assess the quality of their former romantic relationship may not reliably reveal their underlying appraisal of the relationship."

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly academic news source, the researchers enlisted "65 undergraduates who had recently broken up with someone whom they had been dating for more than four months. Researchers asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their ex and also had them take a computer test that rated their reactions to negative words, including the name of their former boyfriend/girlfriend."

The results showed that those with "strong negative feelings about their ex" immediately following a break-up "were less likely to be depressed" and after a follow-up 30 days later the participants filled with hate also felt better.

Apparently break-ups can be classified into four categories: "pre-existing doom, mechanical failure, process loss, and sudden death."

Depressed yet? Well, breaking up may be hard to do, but a little negativity from your friends could help. So try throwing a hating party and do anything to avoid lying in bed with a pint of ice cream. The science backs it up, "given the importance of negative evaluations in post-break-up adjustment, future work should explore whether friends and family members might help people adjust to a recent break-up by drawing attention to the negative aspects of the former relationship," Fagundes wrote.

The next time you are in the midst of un-pairing, remember it is much better for your health to say, "Let's never be friends." Friends show the love by helping your newly single friend hate on their ex, but carefully in case it isn't really over.