“Suppressing your emotions, whether it’s anger, sadness, grief or frustration, can lead to physical stress on your body . The effect is the same, even if the core emotion differs,” says provisional clinical psychologist Victoria Tarratt. “We know that it can affect blood pressure, memory and self-esteem.”
What can suppressed emotions lead to?
Suppression gets held in the body and creates a host of downstream effects, including anxiety, depression, stress-related illness, all the way to substance abuse and suicide .
What happens if you suppress your emotions for too long?
1. Mental exhaustion . Suppressing an emotion can involve suppressing the memory of something that has made you uncomfortable. However, you cannot actually forget a memory on purpose, so in order to avoid thinking about something you do not want to remember, your mind will work overtime.
What are the ill effects of the concealment of emotions?
The emotion-concealing group showed a higher prevalence of “ pain in the upper extremities”, “pain in the lower extremities”, “headache”, “eye-strain”, and “general fatigue” than the non-emotion-concealing group, and these differences were statistically significant for both sexes.
How emotions affect your body?
Poor emotional health can weaken your body’s immune system . This makes you more likely to get colds and other infections during emotionally difficult times. Also, when you are feeling stressed, anxious, or upset, you may not take care of your health as well as you should.
Why is it important to manage your emotions and not suppress them?
Suppressing our emotions leads to negative consequences.
Research shows that when we suppress our emotions we can become more aggressive and easily agitated . Blocking emotions or controlling emotions that need to be felt can build up inside of you, causing you to feel them unexpectedly, at inopportune times.
What does it mean to suppress your feelings?
When you choose to suppress your emotions, however, it means that you avoid allowing yourself to feel a particular emotion by either pushing it down and ignoring it, or using unhealthy coping mechanisms to distract yourself .
What causes emotional detachment?
Experiences . Past abuse, neglect, and trauma can contribute to emotional detachment. 1 Children who grow up in abusive situations may use this detachment as a way to cope.
How do you release stuck emotions?
- acknowledging your feelings.
- working through trauma.
- trying shadow work.
- making intentional movement.
- practicing stillness.
How can I stop suppressing my emotions?
- Check in. Ask yourself how you feel right now. ...
- Use “I” statements. Practice expressing your feelings with phrases like “I feel confused. ...
- Focus on the positive. It might seem easier to name and embrace positive emotions at first, and that’s OK. ...
- Let go of judgement. ...
- Make it a habit.
Can suppressing emotions cause anxiety?
That leads to more and more anxiety , and perhaps severe depression. Lamentably, that may lead you to coping mechanisms that are unhealthy and damaging, such as substance and alcohol abuse. Whichever way you look at it, suppressing your emotions only leads to more harm—physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Is it possible to make yourself cry?
Another way to make yourself cry is to reflect on past experiences in which you were memorably sad : breakups, deaths of loved ones, or times you felt betrayed or hurt by someone close to you. Or try imagining scenarios, hypothetical or otherwise, that would make you very, very sad.
Can suppressing emotions cause headaches?
Repressed emotions can sometimes trigger or aggravate migraine . Prolonged or acute stress can result in chemical changes in the brain that contribute to migraine mechanisms.
Can suppressing emotions cause psychosis?
Expressive suppression is associated with state paranoia in psychosis : An experience sampling study on the association between adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and paranoia. Br J Clin Psychol.
How do emotions affect everyday life?
The emotions you feel each day can compel you to take action and influence the decisions you make about your life , both large and small. Emotions can be short-lived, such as a flash of annoyance at a co-worker, or long-lasting, such as enduring sadness over the loss of a relationship.
How do you suppress sadness?
- First, don’t feel bad about feeling sad.
- Can’t pinpoint why you’re sad? ...
- Embrace your emotions.
- To release sad emotions, don’t overlook the value in a good cry.
- Now, here’s how to move on.
- Set the bar ridiculously low.
- Find what does make you happy.
