When someone asks how you are, is “fine” your default answer—even when you’re not? Do you tend to hide your true feelings from others, including close friends and family?
Do you often feel disconnected and numb? Or are you prone to excessive or explosive emotional outbursts or reactions, even after seemingly minor setbacks?
Any of these symptoms may occur when you bottle up your emotions, a habit also called emotional suppression. This means that rather than facing, feeling, and working through emotions—whether positive or negative—you tend to bury or deny them.
While it can seem preferable in the moment to avoid feeling difficult emotions, this practice can lead to all kinds of issues, psychological as well as physical. This blog will explore some of its many dangers, symptoms to watch out for, and how to instead process your emotions in healthy ways.
Over decades, researchers have discovered significant evidence that bottling up emotions is associated with a long list of negative effects, from poorer health outcomes to less satisfying relationships.
Over decades, researchers have discovered significant evidence that bottling up emotions is associated with a long list of negative effects, from poorer health outcomes to less satisfying relationships.
Related: 8 Negatives of Positive Thinking
Here are just some of the ways that suppressing emotions can impact well-being:
Social consequences. A study of students published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined the links between suppressing emotional expression and the adaptation and social skills required for transitioning to college.
Researchers found that “suppression predicted lower social support, less closeness to others, and lower social satisfaction.” Indeed, an inability to trust others and to express emotions are often intertwined.
Mortality risk. A 12-year study surveyed the association between suppressed emotions and mortality. It considered death from all causes, as well as cardiovascular and cancer mortality.
Those with emotional suppression scores in the higher range (75th percentile) had a 35 percent greater risk for all-cause mortality than those in the 25th percentile. That number jumped to a 70 percent greater risk when examining cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality in particular.
Mental health issues. A study of men with prostate cancer, almost half of whom demonstrated signs of major depression, found that suppressing emotions was linked to anger and depression symptoms. Bottling up emotions was associated with low moods, sleep problems, and feelings of guilt among the cancer patients studied.
Different research uncovered an association between bottling up emotions and increased aggression. In this case, subjects who suppressed their reactions to disturbing film scenes displayed more aggression afterward, versus those who were allowed to show their emotions while viewing.
Finally, a study that examined adolescents between 14-19 years old found links between emotional suppression and how they responded to challenging life events. Those who bottled up their emotions were more likely to experience both suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.
Compromised health and decision making. A 2019 study that examined repressed emotions symptoms noted many dangerous ripple effects of this habit, including:
Clearly, emotional suppression consequences can be hazardous to health and relationships in numerous ways. Repressed emotions, in addition to the many effects outlined above, may also lead to angry outbursts, isolation, and feelings of numbness.
Keep in mind that bottling up your emotions doesn’t always look negative. For example, some people bottle up their emotions by restricting themselves to only positive thinking. This habit, also called “toxic positivity,” can be just as harmful, since negative emotions must be allowed expression for optimal mental health.
Human beings evolved to have a negativity bias, because staying alert and aware of potential dangers literally keeps us alive. So, while it’s harmful to remain stuck in an overly critical outlook, it’s important to acknowledge and even embrace negative emotions when they arise.
Press Play to Learn More About Negativity Bias
In this episode of the Change Your Brain Every Day podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss why we tend to have fear-based thoughts.
Click below to tune in:
Video: Negativity vs. Positivity Bias: Why Are We Hardwired to Be Negative?
If you’re guilty of bottling up your emotions, it’s possible to change this habit. You can learn how to be more expressive and cope with your feelings rather than stuffing them down or pretending they don’t exist.
Here are some tactics to start processing your emotions in a healthier way:
The first step toward processing negative emotions is being aware that they exist. Fortunately, your physical state will often alert you to these issues.
Meanwhile, stress-relieving practices like meditation, prayer, and deep breathing also help relieve anxiety and can reduce the intensity of your strongest emotions.
This practice encourages you to review your life, revisiting both positive and painful experiences along the way. It helps bring repressed emotions like fear, shame, or anger into conscious awareness.
This practice helps you get out of a harmful cycle of distress and gently moves you toward peace, clarity, and true emotional freedom.
For example, approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help rewire negative thought patterns while introducing healthier ways to handle challenges and stressors. You can also deconstruct and reframe any automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) using Amen Clinics’ How to Kill the ANTs practice.
Related: Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) How to Stop Toxic Thinking and Rewire Your Brain
Over time, you will learn that you don’t need to avoid or be afraid of negative emotions. They are actually instrumental in making us stronger, wiser, and more resilient human beings. They only need to be processed in a healthy way and in safe settings.
While it’s more acceptable now to display emotions than in decades past, they can still be a source of shame, guilt, and fear for many Americans. This can be especially true for men, who are often taught to be stoic or “strong” in the face of threats.
But we now know that showing our emotions is a sign of strength. And “sucking it up” can destroy our health—physical, psychological, and emotional.
Rather than bottling up your emotions, learn to let them out in productive ways. With practice and patience, you’ll notice that your well-being, relationships, and quality of life steadily improve.
Srivastava S, Tamir M, McGonigal KM, John OP, Gross JJ. The social costs of emotional suppression: a prospective study of the transition to college. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009 Apr;96(4):883-97. doi: 10.1037/a0014755. PMID: 19309209; PMCID: PMC4141473.
Chapman BP, Fiscella K, Kawachi I, Duberstein P, Muennig P. Emotion suppression and mortality risk over a 12-year follow-up. J Psychosom Res. 2013 Oct;75(4):381-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2013.07.014. Epub 2013 Aug 6. PMID: 24119947; PMCID: PMC3939772.
Rice SM, Kealy D, Ogrodniczuk JS, Seidler ZE, Denehy L, Oliffe JL. The Cost of Bottling It Up: Emotion Suppression as a Mediator in the Relationship Between Anger and Depression Among Men with Prostate Cancer. Cancer Manag Res. 2020 Feb 11;12:1039-1046. doi: 10.2147/CMAR.S237770. PMID: 32104085; PMCID: PMC7023872.
University of Texas at Austin. “Psychologists find the meaning of aggression: ‘Monty Python’ scene helps research.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 March 2011. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110323105202.htm>.
Kaplow, J.B., Gipson, P.Y., Horwitz, A.G. et al. Emotional Suppression Mediates the Relation Between Adverse Life Events and Adolescent Suicide: Implications for Prevention. Prev Sci 15, 177–185 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-013-0367-9
Patel, J. (2019). Consequences of repression of emotion: Physical health, mental health and general well being. International Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, 1(3), 16–21. https://doi.org/10.14302/issn.2574-612X.ijpr-18-2564. https://oap-journals.org/ijpr/article/999
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