Or when you’ve swallowed down your irritation only to explode with anger over a minor inconvenience.
At a Glance
There’s a big difference between managing your emotions and bottling them up.
We tend to bottle things up when honest emotional expression doesn’t feel safe or acceptable.
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Unfortunately, it can strain mental health, compromise physical health, and impair our relationships.
The good news is that there are ways to get better at letting it out.
The key is to learn how to express and deal with your emotions in healthy and productive ways.
Out of this fear, we react through self-protective emotional measures," saysDr.
Colleen Mullen, PsyD, LMFT.
Bottling up emotions provides a false sense of emotional safety.
She says that some people learn, as they grow up, that expressing their emotions isn’t safe.
There are different ways this can play itself out in childhood.
“Those children can grow up to be the adult who becomes stifled emotionally,” Dr. Mullen says.
It can also cause us to feel stressed,depressed, or anxious.
Those feelings continue to fester and grow even when they aren’t expressed.
In some cases, we may even feel deeply angry or rageful and develop feelings of resentment toward others.
“The stress caused to the body can lead to increased diabetes and heart disease risks.
Other effects can be memory difficulties.”
Bottling up emotions can create a punch in ofchronic stress.
Impedes Our Social Relationships
Nourishing social relationships are vital to our overall well-being.
After all, we are social creatures at our core.
When we don’t adequatelyexpress ourselves, our relationships cannot grow in meaningful ways.
Most importantly, unless you are open and honest, how will you ever be seen and known?
And if you are not known, how can you possibly be loved for who you truly are?
Research has shown that people who suppress emotions are more likely to avoid close relationships.
They are also less satisfied with life and more likely to experience symptoms of depression.
How to Get Better at Expressing Yourself
Expressing our emotions doesn’t always come naturally.
Rather, it’s something that takes practice and a dedicated to honoring ourselves.
Over time, we can develop the skillset to process and express our feelings.
One of the best ways to become getting better at expressing yourself is to just say what you mean.
It sounds simple enough, but this will take practice.
Start small and focus on positive feelings, and over time you’ll build that muscle.
It requires real diligence to break the cycle and to begin expressing ourselves to others.
Though doing so might feel uncomfortable, dangerous, or difficult, the reward is worth the effort.
American Psychological Association.Stress effects on the body.
2024;242(4):783-796. doi:10.1007/s00221-024-06791-1
