The term 'cold treatment' literally means not responding aggressively or emotionally to something immediately, but rather maintaining rationality, silence, delaying decisions, and observing changes. This seems like a seemingly 'hands-off' approach, but behind it lies very profound physical, mathematical, and psychological mechanisms.



One, Physical explanation (dynamic system stability theory)


In a system, if you apply external force, it will produce oscillations or deviations. If you stop applying force, the system often returns to a new equilibrium point, known as 'system self-stabilization.'


For example:



  • When water is stirred, it becomes murky; if left still, it will eventually clarify.


  • Social conflicts and emotional conflicts are like disturbed liquids; if power (emotions, words, confrontation) continues to be added, it will remain turbulent.


  • Cold treatment = stopping energy input, allowing the system to self-absorb energy and restore order.



Two, Mathematical explanation (optimization and extremum problems)


In multivariable systems, an immediate reaction may only be a local minimum, not a global optimum.


Cold treatment is like first observing the trend of a function curve, delaying the gradient descent action to wait for a better global solution to appear.


For example:



  • Immediate retaliation in emotional conflict → is 'local optimum': you vented, but the relationship broke.


  • Waiting for emotions to cool down before speaking → is 'potential global optimum': it can solve the problem while preserving the relationship.



Three, Psychological mechanisms (emotional cooling and cognitive restructuring)


When a person is emotionally agitated, the amygdala in the brain is active, making it easy to react irrationally. Cold treatment allows the prefrontal cortex (the rational control center) to gradually regain dominance:



  • Cold treatment → emotional cooling → change in cognitive perspective → new understanding arises → conflict alleviation



Four, Strategic value (ambiguous responses create space)


In diplomacy, business, family, and interpersonal fields, cold treatment is a strategy of ambiguity:



  • Not stating a position → Keeping room for maneuver


  • Not responding immediately → Sending the message 'you are not worth my immediate reaction' to the other party


  • Not resolving → Indirectly prompting the other party to reflect on their behavior (reflection)


This is also a form of **'using stillness to control motion'**.



Five, Associative analysis (cold treatment is like an 'adiabatic process' in physics)



  • In physics, an adiabatic process (no heat exchange) allows the internal energy of a system to transform more clearly.


  • Cold treatment is also a form of 'psychological insulation'—not giving external energy to the problem allows it to evolve and purify on its own.



Six, Imaginative deduction (looking from another angle: cold treatment is actually not 'giving up')


Cold treatment ≠ ignoring, but rather:



  • Give the system time to self-evolve


  • Give yourself a new observation window


  • Give the result a chance to stand unbroken before it can be rebuilt


For example: a period of silence after an emotional argument is sometimes not indifference but 'reorganizing and aligning each other's frequencies.'



Questions posed to you:



Is there something you experienced that later proved 'cold treatment' helped you avoid wrong decisions or conflicts?

Or look at it from another angle:What things did you not handle with cold treatment at the time, only to regret acting too quickly afterward?


Are you willing to work together using these examples to construct a 'cold treatment decision model'?