Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from

Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Gough. And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you learn a scientific

reason why you should really resolve that argument and why Calico Cats are almost always female.

Then play along at home as we test your podcast knowledge in this month's Curiosity Challenge trivia game.

Let's satisfy and challenge some curiosity.

When you feel an argument brewing, it can be tempting to ignore the issue and let it pass.

I mean, those negative feelings will fade away eventually, right?

Well, new research suggests that that might be the wrong approach.

When you feel angry with someone having it out and resolving the argument

can almost completely erase the stress it caused in the first place. Yeah! For this study, researchers from Oregon State University

analyzed data from a massive study that collected its daily diary entries from 2,000 people over 8 days. These diary entries included details about how much

of the day the individuals felt anxiety or cheerfulness or anger and how much stress they had felt.

They also mentioned whether they had had or avoided an argument with anyone,

whether or not the argument was resolved, and how serious the argument had been.

In the eight days, the researchers tracked more than 1300 arguments, 65% of which were

resolved.

They also noted about 2,000 arguments that participants avoided.

Unsurprisingly, people felt worse on days with arguments than without. But here's where things get interesting.

After an unresolved arguments, participants experienced bad moods for a few days,

but when they decided to have the arguments and resolve

their bad feelings instead of avoiding the issue, their moods improved, not only on that

day but for several days following the resolution. So clearly the big

...