How many times have you found yourself in tense situations, holding back tears or biting your tongue to prevent yourself from getting into an argument?
People often feel that repressing emotions is a sign of good emotional regulation and mental strength. However, the reality is the opposite: bottling up one’s feelings has more detrimental effects than benefits for overall well-being.
This article explores the dangers of bottled emotions, how they affect health and better ways to express emotions. Understanding this can help you take the necessary steps to improve your well-being holistically.
Don’t let bottled-up emotions take a toll on your well-being. Read more to take the first step towards emotional balance and improving your overall wellness.
While suppressing emotions may feel like a good fix in the heat of the moment, it can have significant consequences on your mind, body, and relationships with others. Learn what these effects are in the next sections.
The emotions you feel don’t disappear when you repress them; they are simply temporarily pushed under a rug, so to speak.
This is not healthy. Long-term suppression is linked to mental health challenges such as resentment, chronic stress, anxiety, and depression. Suppressed emotions lead to unresolved issues that aren’t validated or processed effectively.
A 2007 study found that suppressed emotions can reduce the expression of negative emotions. However, this keeps the amygdala activated for a longer time.
The amygdala is responsible for effectively processing and judging all emotionally wired stimuli. Prolonged activation can specifically disrupt cognitive functioning, such as decision-making and logical thinking, making it harder to regulate emotions. Thus, this harms psychological and physical functioning over time.
Bottled-up emotions create emotionally stressful situations, which result in emotion dysregulation or overload, seen in the form of outbursts, impulsivity, and anxiety.
Know more: Allan N. Schwartz: Resentment – Unraveling Emotions and Mental Health Implications
Unresolved emotions also take a toll on your body. Bottling up feelings can manifest into psychosomatic symptoms such as:
Particularly, emotionally repressed individuals are at risk of weakened immunity. For example, chronic stress is linked to immunosuppression — the aging of immune cells like lymphocytes and leukocytes, which fight infections and diseases. (e.g., cold, flu, wounds, cancer). This increases your vulnerability to illnesses and prolongs your recovery.
Physiological complications deteriorate your overall health and well-being by directly affecting your body’s capacity to fight illness.
The dangers of suppressing emotions don’t only have an impact on you, it also affects the relationships you build with others.
A study established that expressive suppression lowered social functioning across three domains: social support, feelings of closeness to others, and social satisfaction. Specifically, bottled-up emotions build up over time, creating internal tension that can unintentionally affect your perceptions and interactions with others.
For example, anger repression can result in withdrawal or irritability, leading to being misunderstood by others as ignorance or hostility. Prolonged misunderstandings can push your social circles further away, leading to isolation, disconnect, and strained relationships.
By openly expressing your feelings, you can foster better social well-being by nurturing your relationships to become stronger and mutually understanding.
Thankfully, there are several healthy ways of coping and regulating your emotions.
These positive strategies can improve mental, physical, and social well-being. By adopting these healthy strategies into your daily lifestyle, you can better express your emotions and improve your general quality of life.
Read more: Three Steps to Regulating Your Emotions
Awareness plays a key role in managing your emotions.
In the heat of the moment, pause and pay attention to the feelings you are experiencing. Identify them: are you feeling frustrated, anxious, sad, or angry? Check-in on yourself and attempt to understand what you are feeling before reacting. This can help you address the underlying premise of your emotions rather than just the situation at hand.
An effective way to bring self-awareness to the forefront of your mind is to keep an emotion journal that allows you to track your emotions daily.
After recognizing your emotional experiences, find a constructive way to express them. Great ways to effectively release and cope with your emotions are exercise, journaling, hobbies, and relaxation techniques. Here’s how you can incorporate these practices into your daily life:
These activities help reduce cortisol levels and boost happy hormones, such as endorphins and dopamine, which aid in overcoming emotionally stressful situations. Positive coping effectively addresses heightened emotional experiences, so these activities are a great way to channel emotional energy.
In times of distress, communication can become more challenging.
To express yourself healthily, learn to express your feelings while maintaining respect for those around you. Practice an assertive communication style that focuses on remaining open, direct, and honest regarding your needs while also considering others’ feelings.
Start by practicing with a close friend. Role-play difficult conversations. Or, you can even write down how you feel before an intense conversation.
If you notice that things are getting heated during the conversation, pause, collect your thoughts, and then effectively communicate them.
Expressive suppression can sometimes be deeply embedded into our psyche, making it too challenging to handle by yourself. Talking to a professional such as a counselor or a therapist can provide a safe, judgment-free environment to explore and release your feelings.
Therapy for repressed emotions can assist in uncovering unresolved feelings and provide practical methods to regulate your emotions. Approaches like emotion-focused therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and emotion regulation therapy have proven to unresolved negative thoughts and feelings.
Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. It can give you useful insights into your challenges.
Emotional resilience is a bouncing board that helps propel forward even during trouble.
Fostering strong resilience develops the courage to manage life’s ups and downs. Mindfulness activities such as meditation, grounding techniques, and deep-breathing exercises can help you stay grounded during emotional turmoil.
Additionally, emotion regulation strategies (such as cognitive reappraisal) affect one’s perception of emotional events. They enable an effective reaction that reduces the negative impact on one’s well-being.
Another effective way to build resilience is to connect with loved ones. Spending time with your close circle and expressing your emotions during interactions provides comfort and security, enabling you to overcome challenges.
Read more: The Power of Love in Building Resilience and Emotional Well-Being
While suppressing emotions may seem like an easy fix in a moment of distress, it significantly hampers mental, physical, and social well-being. Instead of keeping everything inside, embrace the courage and strength to express your true feelings and thoughts.
Make a conscious decision and give your emotions the right channel for expression by practicing emotional awareness, finding healthy outlets, communicating effectively, seeking expert help, and building resilience.
Remember, expressing your emotions takes immense courage and intuition, and it is not an easy feat for everyone. But trying this is incredibly rewarding. It can take you a step closer to understanding yourself better and staying healthy!
If you would like to see more resources on expressive suppression, check out the Wellbeing Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Wellbeing Science Labs today.
Photo by Freepik
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