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The Nuance
Is Sharing Your Feelings Always Healthy?
Sometimes spilling your guts is not the answer
Every week, the Nuance will go beyond the basics, offering a deep and researched look at the latest science and expert insights on a buzzed-about health topic.
In an influential study, a group of Stanford researchers asked pairs of unacquainted people to watch and then discuss a documentary about the World War II bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As part of the study, some participants were asked to “behave in such a way that your partner does not know you are feeling any emotions at all.” Compared to the people who were free to express emotions, those who were told to hide their feelings experienced spikes in blood pressure and distraction. Also, compared to the pairs who were allowed to express themselves naturally, both people in the emotion “suppression” groups tended to feel less rapport and less positivity toward each other.
This study is one of many that suggest concealing emotions can have negative repercussions — both for the person doing the concealing and for those around them. More research has linked emotion suppression to higher rates of anxiety, insomnia, and other unhealthy outcomes.
But while suppressing your emotions is often bad, experts say it can sometimes lead to better outcomes.
Of course, there are the obvious social situations — ones many of us encounter on a daily basis — in which expressing your feelings would be uncomfortable or embarrassing, says David Caruso, a psychologist and research affiliate at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. If you’re in a meeting with a boss or client, and they say something you find “utterly ridiculous,” telling them how you feel would probably do more harm than good, Caruso says.
But even when you’re dealing with people who are close to you — a family member or friend — there are situations when spilling your guts may exacerbate negative emotions, not assuage them.
“Emotions are contagious, and you can impact the emotions of others by sharing how you feel,” Caruso says. He points out that emotions often arise suddenly, can be fleeting, and are dependent on a lot of contextual factors, from…
