negative emotions Archives

Suppressing emotions is dangerous to mental and physical health

by Sentimenti Team | Feb 12, 2023 | Sentimenti research

This is entirely human behavior. Most of us avoid painful emotions and suppress and hide them from the world. Suppressing our emotions is a common coping mechanism for dealing with difficult issues in everyday life. However, avoiding confrontation or pain (as long as we are talking about negative experiences) can harm our mental and physical health.

Emotional suppression is the act of consciously or unconsciously blocking, suppressing or ignoring one’s emotions;
Suppressing emotions can be a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult situations, or it can be a learned behavior based on past experiences;
Regularly hiding one’s feelings can have negative consequences for mental as well as physical health;
Crying is a normal and healthy way of expressing emotions, which serves to release accumulated emotions, reduce stress and improve well-being;
Expressing one’s feelings improves emotional coping skills. It can also lead to improved communication with others and thus improve relationships with those around you.

Suppressing emotions. Why do we do it?

Emotional suppression can begin in early childhood due to various factors. The style with which our parents raised us may be behind it, but also family environments and life experiences. Here are some causes and examples of emotional suppression:

Children who grow up in environments where expressing emotions is frowned upon (the belief that “big boys don’t cry”) may learn that feelings are something shameful and should not be openly expressed.
Children can learn to suppress their feelings if they are exposed to role models who suppress their emotions.
Children who have experienced traumatic events may suppress their emotions. This is a way to avoid re-experiencing traumatic memories.

Commonly suppressed emotions

Expressing one’s feelings can put a person in a confrontational situation or make them feel vulnerable. People find it easier to shut down and avoid dealing with conflict than to face the problem head-on. People most often suppress the following emotions:

Anger. One of the most commonly suppressed emotions, as expressing anger is often seen as socially unacceptable, and people may suppress it as a way to avoid conflict or potential negative consequences;
Sadness and grief. People may suppress these emotions because they find them difficult to deal with;
Fear. It is often suppressed because of unwillingness to confront our fears;
Guilt. People may feel guilty for something they did or didn’t do and don’t want to admit it.

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People who suppress their own feelings often later have difficulty naming what they actually feel or making more sense of the phenomenon.

Recognizing suppressed feelings

People who suppress their feelings often have difficulty naming what they feel or making sense of it. Not being able to talk about what you’re feeling makes communication more difficult, but it also makes it harder to know which parts of your life are not fulfilling. Here are some signs that may indicate that we are more or less consciously suppressing our own emotions:

People tell us that we are emotionally detached from reality;
We experience high nervousness and anxiety;
We avoid people when they say they are expressing their pain or sadness;
We find it difficult to say “NO” or set boundaries, which can be an indicator of repressed anger and resentment;
We become volatile and have emotional outbursts, such as crying or anger, whose intensity is disproportionate to the situation at hand;
Physical symptoms such as tension headaches, muscle aches, fatigue and sleep disturbances appear;
We have difficulty maintaining intimate relationships;
We engage in self-destructive behaviors such as substance abuse, eating disorders, self-harm or other harmful coping mechanisms;
We don’t like to be alone with our thoughts.

Crying? A normal and necessary phenomenon

Suppressing emotions is not always bad. In certain situations, it can be a healthy coping mechanism. Suppressing emotions can help one stay calm and think clearly when one is in a dangerous or potentially harmful situation. In some cultures, expressing certain emotions may be considered taboo, so suppressing them may be necessary to maintain social harmony.

Crying is a normal and healthy way to show how we feel, and can be good for mental and physical health. Crying brings us closer to people, allowing us to feel more empathy and receive more support from those around us. In addition, crying can help release accumulated emotions, reduce feelings of stress and anxiety, and improve overall mood.

Crying releases the stress hormone (cortisol) and the mood-regulating hormone (oxytocin). It also helps reduce feelings of sadness, anger and frustration.

Some people find it very difficult to cry, but that doesn’t mean they are incapable of feeling emotions. In addition, crying is not the only way to express emotions; other methods, such as talking, writing, art or exercising at the gym, can also be very effective.

What keeps us from crying?

There may be several reasons why someone may be afraid to cry:

Socialization. Some people may have been taught during adolescence that crying is a sign of weakness or is unacceptable to their gender.
Past trauma. Someone who has experienced traumatic events may associate crying with that trauma and may avoid crying to prevent reliving those memories.
Fear of vulnerability. Crying can make someone feel vulnerable and exposed, and they may fear being judged or rejected by others.
Fear of losing control. Crying can be an intense emotional experience, and some people may fear losing control when they cry.

Suppression of emotions and healthy ways to express emotions

Conversation. Let’s share our feelings with someone we trust and who will listen to us without judgment;
Let’s write about our emotions. Keeping a blog or diary is a great way to express your emotions and understand them better;
Let’s engage in creative activities outside the home. Art, dance, music and writing are great ways to express emotions in a non-verbal way;
Let’s exercise! Physical activity is a great way to release accumulated emotions and can help improve mood;
Let’s practice mindfulness. Deep breathing, meditation and yoga can help you stay present in the moment and deal with your emotions more effectively;
Seek professional help. Consider talking to a therapist or counselor to help understand and process emotions;
Let’s practice self-compassion. When we feel emotions, let’s treat ourselves with kindness and understanding;;
Let’s accept our emotions with kindness. Let us regularly ask ourselves: “What are you feeling right now?” Let us allow ourselves to fully experience and feel emotions without judgment.

Expressing your emotions can lead to personal growth and self-awareness. By acknowledging and expressing emotions, one can better understand oneself and one’s needs. Expressing emotions can be verbal or non-verbal, through art, music, writing or physical activity.

It can be worked through alone or together with other people. Everyone has to find their own way, which works best. Healthy disclosure of one’s emotions to the world, however, can take time and practice.

Emotions. How to tame them to make better choices in life?

by Sentimenti Team | Sep 14, 2022 | Sentimenti research

Emotions are everywhere in our lives. They are a natural part of being human, and they can have a profound impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. While emotions can be helpful, they can also be disruptive. In this article, we will explore the importance of understanding and managing our emotions.

How Emotions Affect Our Decisions

Emotions can influence the choices we make, but they can also interfere with cognitive processes;
It is worth making a habit of checking how emotions affect our behavior and choices;
It’s worth focusing on being consistent between rational and emotional decisions;
Practicing deep breathing, attentive listening, modulation and refinement can be helpful.

Most people rarely think logically and sanely when it happens, stressed and nerves. It is worth recalling in this context the famous scene at the Oscars gala, when Will Smith slapped the presenter. What conclusion can be drawn from this incident? A very seemingly simple and innocent comment from another person can trigger extreme emotions, and as you can see, not much is needed here. When we experience fear, our concentration drops and simple decisions come into play.

It’s natural that in today’s world, everyone lives in a constantly stress-induced narrow decision-making mode. This probably makes sense when escaping a trauma or dangerous situation, but such phenomena should not be allowed to become a habit.

Repeatedly making such choices causes so-called decision fatigue, as well as other resulting problems.

Imagine driving to work one day to give a presentation to the team. The weather is nice outside, and we are not late. But during this short trip we will almost certainly hit various forms of detours, ditched streets, accidents, and delays.

Sometimes it will take us more than an hour to travel the few kilometers to the office. No matter what choices we make in such a situation, it will get worse and worse. This seemingly minor stress has spoiled the mood for the entire day.

Most of us would surely agree that anger and fear destroy our decision-making process. However, most of us do not know how emotions – including joy, sadness, and indifference – can affect our decision-making process and the quality of those decisions.

Our rationality, or how emotions affect decisions

One of the main (theoretical) models of how the human brain works assumes that we rationally evaluate what we intend to achieve and work on the best path to reach our goal. Emotions impact the inner workings of our brain and often disrupt patterns and the rational thought process. While these disruptions can be good (like breaking negative habits), they can also be quite destructive.

Often, we don’t realize how important our mood and emotions are when making daily choices – especially those involving precious resources like time or money. However, if we recall some of the important decisions we have made over the years, we will notice that they were accompanied by a certain emotion – sadness, joy, anger, jealousy, or feelings of anxiety.

Some emotion probably helped you quit that job or punch someone in the face. Some emotion was likely strongly stimulated when we negotiated the purchase of an expensive car that we could barely afford, or decided to open our own business.

So does a person have a perfectly rational mind? Certainly not. Minds that constantly ponder whether we need something, look for the best alternative, endlessly research the pros and cons, and then analyze and choose the best one – all of this does not exist in most of us.

Emotional adjustment, or about balance

Our emotions range from extremely positive to extremely negative. Sometimes our emotions (moods, feelings, disposition) can help us tremendously. They help us be excited. and other times they can destroy us. An example? We get tricked into paying too much, buying a warranty we didn’t need, or simply not understanding what we are committing to or signing.

As with everything in life and nature, the key is balance. Healthy people seek balance, alignment, or compatibility between emotions and analytical patterns. Let’s use our emotions to our advantage and activate analytical thinking. This can be difficult, which is why it is important to…

Identification of emotions and self-awareness

It’s a good idea to start the whole process by trying to identify how we feel about something. Let’s ask ourselves: “Why do I feel this way? What makes me feel this way today?”. Let’s institute a regular practice of looking at ourselves or evaluating how emotions affect our performance and achievements each day.

Each night, let’s analyze ourselves, our choices, and consider making appropriate changes starting the next day. Diaries can be especially helpful in creating long-term memories and help us learn about ourselves and our reactions

If we can create self-awareness, we are in a much better position. Then we know ourselves well enough to know when not to make key life decisions. If we feel extremely emotional, let’s try to practice decision abstinence – refrain from making essential life choices. This will only work out in our favor.

How to make the right decisions?

Once you’ve figured out how and why you feel a certain way and what impact it has, work on improving your physiological responses to emotions and practice deep breathing. A large dose of oxygen will be helpful when strong positive or negative emotions arise.

Let’s practice attentive and relatively unbiased observation, and try to listen to our thoughts. This can help us tune into our feelings. Let’s work on self-modulation and regulation of our emotions, and strive to gain the best possible insight into ourselves. When we do this, we keep ourselves in a continuous improvement mode.

The advice at the end? Let’s remember to have full control over ourselves. Taming our emotions is a step in improving the decision-making process that affects our entire lives.