Why do we suppress our emotions - we can boil inside, but we don't let it show? Knowing how to keep your behavior in check is a sign of maturity, but it also has side effects.

Conscioussuppressing emotions- especially negative emotions, is one of the methods of coping with stress, a way to win negotiations or avoid conflicts. But when suppressing emotions takes too long or occurs too often, it leads to withdrawal, degeneration, and distorted reactions.

When we watch a moving movie, we can see palpitations, sweating, stomach tightness, etc. These are vegetative, physiological symptoms of what we feel. Emotions are also revealed in our facial expressions. For example, when someone is sitting in the cinema and watching a movie showing heart surgery, his face will reveal either fear or disgust, or both. These expressions are taken unconsciously and are not addressed to anyone - they are a natural and involuntary expression of emotions.

I wonder what would happen if we tried to contain these spontaneous reactions and pretend indifference? After all, repressing what is playing in the soul happens to us every day. For example, we argue with someone, but we do not want to let us know that something has hurt us - we put on a mask of indifference and pretend that "it does not bother me". Such signals are sent by spouses: "You see, I don't care what you say to me, I hope that my indifference will hurt you the most." This is what children do at school: "I don't care if you call me names …", or employees when bosses say something unpleasant about their involvement: "I'm just blaring it."

Being able to suppress your feelings has advantages, but…

It has to be honestly said that wearing a mask of indifference sometimes works in social relations. For example, a child who ignores taunts may just make them stop. A negotiator who keeps a straight face can get a more favorable deal. The poker player has to control his facial expressions, otherwise his opponents will easily guess what his cards are and will beat him. So, playing a cyborg is sometimes beneficial, but it can't make the emotion go away. Or maybe it does? Perhaps we really stop feeling? Or maybe the other way around - it intensifies the emotion even more or in some other wayhow does it change it?

To answer these questions, we need to do some experiments. In fact, they are easy to plan. Let's ask people to control their facial expressions while watching an emotional movie, so that even with a "twitch of their mustache" they do not show what they are going through. At the same time, let's check how their heart beats, whether they sweat, how they breathe, etc. What will we discover?

This will be useful to you

Rebels recover faster

Even a hundred years ago, hysteria (today it is called histronia), manifested by a strong expression of feelings, theatricality of behavior, etc., was very common. Today it is one of the less common disorders. At the same time, however, today the number of diagnoses of various types of psychosomatic diseases has significantly increased, of which there used to be much less. Perhaps it is responsible for these changes, inter alia, tendency to repress feelings? People who would previously have suffered from hysteria today suppress their theatricality, which results in the development of psychosomatic diseases? All of this leads us to the conclusion that if we have learned to control our emotional expression habitually, we never allow ourselves to be spontaneous, then our internal organs probably begin to suffer. There is something to do! Psychological research from a completely different trend (research on patients in hospitals) has shown that those patients who express dissatisfaction more often are more difficult, argue more often with doctors, etc., recover faster than those who politely follow all orders and never rebel …

Secret grief lasts longer

The results of such experiments are threefold. If a man is to endure pain and refrain from revealing it, he will end up with more intense pain! So it seems that inhibiting the expression of pain makes the pain itself more bearable. A child who refrains from crying will therefore subjectively feel less sad. Unfortunately, although the intensity of sadness is weakening, the time you feel it will also extend.

Here is the second negative effect of repressing emotions - although they become subjectively weaker, they last longer - it's harder to break free from them! Raptusas often say: "I will catch fire, I will explode, but I will burn and it passes." If they suppressed expression, their anger would be less violent, but it would take longer. So it's a bit as if expressing emotions "burns" her out.

Hiding your feelings is bad

The third effect of suppressing your feelings is the most disturbing. Well, the apparatus examining physiological reactions shows that when a man with all his might to hide his true emotions, he grows at the same time.blood pressure, sweating increases, the tension of the small muscles surrounding the capillaries increases, the pace of breathing increases, etc. Such physiological responses are typical of stressful situations. What do these results mean? That our internal organs will pay for repressing our feelings! It is as if an emotion, which cannot be revealed either on the face or in the behavior, manifests itself more intensely "in the stomach". This is a sad conclusion - suppressing emotions leads to many psychosomatic diseases, incl. for hypertension, ulcers of the digestive system, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma and skin diseases.

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Category:

Psychology