In Ephesians 4:26, the Apostle Paul advises his readers: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”
The advice that people drew out of this verse — that you should never go to bed angry — became a tenet in the West. The idea wasn’t that anger itself is always sinful (there’s such a thing as righteous anger), but holding onto it — nursing grudges, letting it harden into bitterness — is destructive, particularly to the harmony of a spiritual community. Conflicts needed to be resolved quickly, before they took root and caused lasting division.
The Rule of St. Benedict, a 6th-century guide for monastic life, included the instruction: “make peace with one’s adversary before sundown.” When the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer founded an underground, monastic-inspired seminary in Nazi Germany, he adopted this rule, explaining “that every dissension that the day has brought must be healed in the evening. It is perilous for the Christian to lie down to sleep with an unreconciled heart. Therefore, it is well that there be a special place for the prayer of brotherly forgiveness in every evening’s devotion, that reconciliation be made and fellowship established anew.”
The admonition to not go to bed angry not only found a place in Christian communities, but also appeared in 19th-century conduct manuals and was frequently offered to married couples. The advice was thought to serve the same purpose in households as in larger fellowships: the preservation of harmony.
These days, couples are often given the opposite advice: don’t feel like you need to iron out a disagreement before retiring for the night; sleep on it, and then continue the discussion in the morning. Given the long history of the “don’t let the sun set on your wrath” maxim, this approach is often presented as contrarian counsel, but it has actually become the predominate recommendation.
It certainly makes sense: at night, your capacity for emotional self-regulation is tired-out and you’re more prone to losing your cool; in such a state, arguments are more apt to get heated and destructively divisive. In the morning, your mind feels recalibrated and potentially better primed for a peaceable dialogue about the issue at hand.
So what approach is most wise to follow — the old tradition or the new norm?
Research shows that resolving disagreements before sleep significantly reduces the negative emotional “residue” people carry into the next day, which has a positive effect on overall health and well-being. These studies conclude that it’s better to reconcile sooner rather than later. While what supports your individual well-being isn’t necessarily what benefits your relationship, other studies have shown that unresolved tension disrupts sleep, and that poor sleep in turn undermines a couple’s ability to work through conflict. So while it may seem you’ll be in a better place to handle a disagreement the next day, that isn’t necessarily the case. It is in fact often best to wrap up your disputes before you hit the hay.
Of course, if you’re having a particularly intense argument, pushing too hard to resolve it right then and there can lead to hurtful, relationship-damaging outbursts. In such cases, it may indeed be best to take a nocturnal time-out and revisit the issue later. Even if you remain at loggerheads about something, however, try to affirm your overall love and respect for each other before you turn in. Research shows that this can go a long way toward getting the kind of restful sleep that will help you interact with a clearer and calmer head in the morning. For example, Kate’s grandparents, no matter how peeved they were feeling when they got into bed, would touch feet under the covers as a sign they still loved each other.
You don’t always have to resolve every disagreement before lights out. Sometimes emotions run too hot, or the issue’s too tangled to tease apart in the haze of fatigue. But ancient tradition and modern research agree: when reconciliation is within reach, it’s better to clear the air before you turn in. You’ll sleep better, not have to wake up alongside your wrath, and get to begin the next day with a harmonious heart.
