Conventional wisdom says you should take time to process a breakup before you start a new romance. Research suggests the opposite.

“Rebound relationships” have a terrible reputation. A romance ignited shortly after another ends seems chaotic-like an opportunistic ricochet rather than an intentional search for compatibility. And people dating someone who’s fresh off a breakup are told to be wary-of being used as a distraction, or being treated carelessly by someone fumbling through their own heartache. But research doesn’t seem to support the idea that rebound relationships are inherently toxic or doomed to fail.

Perhaps that sounds unromantic, but according to Hackney, it’s healthy to be reminded-promptly-“how many people we really can have fulfilling relationships with

When someone fresh from a split starts dating, it’s true that they might not be totally over their ex. In one study of participants recovering from breakups, those who’d found a new partner were more confident in their own desirability, more trusting of other people, and less likely to say that they still had feelings for their old partner. Another examined rebounders who’d been in their new relationships for a year and a half on average. The quicker those subjects had jumped into that rebound, the higher they rated on measures of well-being and self-esteem.