This study is focused on clients' daily experiencing of stress, and measures how this stress might affect their implementation of ideas and recommendations from therapy. Typically, clients attend therapy with the intention of making positive changes. Part of the therapeutic process involves clients completing therapeutic work in their daily lives (Conklin, Strunk, Cooper, 2017); however, stressful tasks and other elements often preclude this therapeutic work from occurring (Kazantzis & L'Abate, 2005). In this study we examine which interventions from therapy are most likely to be attempted at home, and the level of stress in making these attempts. A series of multi-level models were used, controlling for daily stress and examining partner effects. This study will be viewed from the conceptual lenses of window of tolerance (Siegel, 1999) and the Yerkes-Dodson law (Hanoch, Vitouch, 2004) on stress.

Recent studies looking to link physical exercise with beneficial couple outcomes have had mixed results, showing benefits for females but not males in some instances, and even negative effects for males in one instance. However, these studies used self-report data for exercise which may suffer from reporting errors. This study analyzed how daily exercise, measured by participants wearing accelerometers, impacts marital satisfaction, positive behaviors, and negative behaviors in a clinical population. The data was analyzed using multilevel models to determine how time spent exercising impacted individuals and their partners in terms of relationship outcomes. Results indicated small but significant relationships between female exercise and decreases in both marital satisfaction and positive behaviors for females, as well as increases in marital satisfaction for males. Increases in male exercise were also associated with decreases in marital satisfaction and positive behaviors for females. Further research is recommended to elucidate the findings that exercise is beneficial for some partners, but not others. Clinicians are advised to continue working with couples to improve marital satisfaction through emotional regulation techniques and widening the window of tolerance.