There are a number of times in our lives where we may be taught that sitting on our emotions is a good thing. We may be encouraged to contain ourselves, to keep a lid on our anger, to be strong and a lot more. What all these messages have in common is that they demand that we hold our emotions in until a time when expressing them is more appropriate.

Though on occasion, this may well be a good way to proceed, if you’re always sitting on your emotions and holding them in, it probably isn’t the best way for you to be!

Why Healthy Emotional Expression is Important

Being connected with how you feel is important but so is expressing some of it. Holding your emotions in all the time and failing to express them can on the whole become quite damaging. In order to clarify, we’re going to go over a few reasons why healthy emotional expression is so important.

Pent up Emotion Can be Toxic

Certain emotions like anger, sadness and fear may be the sort we choose to sit on. We do so because we feel admitting to feeling them will paint us in a less desirable light. We feel swallowing such feelings present the impression of strength and resilience.

Unfortunately, sitting on these feelings can become toxic for us. A lot of energy goes in to feelings such as grief and anger for instance. When we hold these in for too long, they tend to influence our behaviors without us realizing it. In a sense they move beyond just being mere emotions to becoming a part of our psyche.

Expressing emotions in a healthy manner as and when they occur prevents us from becoming subconsciously governed by the same.

Pent up Emotion Can Be Physically Unhealthy

Research suggests that pent up emotions can become physically harmful. An article published online by the BBC delves into how this is so. Pent up emotions can manifest into numerous psycho-somatic symptoms including cardiac complications, aches and pains and an extra load or burden on certain organs.

It can also interfere with sleep and attention as well as physical strength. In any case, the affects of bottling up negative emotions are quite physically tangible.

Pent up Emotion Causes Stress

Bottling in your emotions takes energy and whether your realize it or not is tiring. It tends to cause stress and even physically raises blood pressure according to one study. If you express things appropriately as and when you feel them, chances are you’ll be a lot less stressed out.

Pent up Emotion Effects Behavior

Sitting on your emotions for prolonged periods of time can also affect your behavior. We discussed some of the reasons for this in the first pointer. One of the most common resulting behaviors of pent up emotion is aggression. As we all know, needless aggression can land us in situations we would do better without!

Appropriate Expression Is Liberating

Expressing yourself appropriately is liberating. This is not to say you start screaming loudly at people who annoy you or start bawling inconsolably at the sight of an injured animal. This simply means that you can and should appropriately state how you are feeling when you feel a certain way. Chances are, appropriately stating at the time the emotion occurs will leave you feeling lighter and prevent a possible blowout!

But What if I Can’t?

There might be some of you out there who live with an inherent fear of expressing emotions. This could be the result of what you have been taught as well as your experiences in life. If you do have a phobia of expressing feelings and need help with the same, there are techniques you could try.

Hypnosis is one way to work with deep rooted phobias and behavioral stuckness. If you need help with emotional expression and want to know more, we’re here to help!