Why Keeping Your Emotions Inside Isn't Healthy For You
Emotion, through its own nature, designed to end up being short, transient encounters. Usually, emotion comes and goes troughout the day -- shifting a person in a variety of directions, as proved through changes in your behaviour. Anger, for instance, activates the fight-or-flight reaction that's prewired in your own nervous system.
Not responding on a natural feeling such as emotion is abnormal as well as, sometimes, could be unhealthy. Emotion reflects changes in body physiology -- elevations of blood pressure, heartbeat, blood sugar levels, as well as muscle tension -- which are generally safe simply because they're temporary (that is, when you express all of those changes). Emotions which are not really expressed stay caught within you, leading to the continual condition associated with physiological pressure -- and this can be deadly.
There is nothing called as unexpressed anger
To say that anger is either expressed or unexpressed is actually untrue. All anger is expressed, but the question is how. You may think that you're expressing your anger when other people can see, hear, or feel your anger. Otherwise, you figure, you're not expressing it. But the fact is that all anger is expressed — some of it in ways that aren't observable directly. For example, you may not look or sound angry, but your anger may be expressing itself in your cardiovascular system (through high blood pressure or migraine headaches), your gastrointestinal system (through irritable bowel syndrome [IBS] or a spastic colon), or your musculoskeletal system (through TMJ or tension headaches).
Or anger may express itself in negative attitudes — pessimism, cynicism, hopelessness, bitterness, and stubbornness — or some form of avoidance behavior (giving people the silent treatment), oppositional behavior ("I don't think so!"), or passive-aggressive behavior ("I'm sorry — did you want something?"). Anger may also sour your mood and leave you feeling down or depressed. You suddenly lose the enthusiasm you had previously. (For additional examples, take a look at the anger-health checklist in Chapter 3.)
Dissatisfaction can be deadly
Being chronically — morning, noon, and night — dissatisfied can be dangerous to your health. Dr. Ernest Harburg and his colleagues at the University of Michigan did a study asking people how satisfied they were with their jobs.
They specifically asked the people how satisfied they were:
He also asked questions to determine whether they tended to habitually express or suppress their anger. Interestingly, the data shows that those employees who were highly dissatisfied at work but who suppressed their anger had, by far, the highest blood-pressure levels on average — as compared to those who were highly satisfied with their work or dissatisfied workers who expressed their anger in some way. And the increase in blood pressure resulting from this combination of chronic dissatisfaction and suppressed anger was enough to place them at risk for potentially lethal heart attacks and strokes.
The same, it turned out, was true when they asked similar questions to determine how satisfied these people were with their home/family situation. Again, those who were the most dissatisfied but least expressive about their anger had the highest blood pressure.
Not responding on a natural feeling such as emotion is abnormal as well as, sometimes, could be unhealthy. Emotion reflects changes in body physiology -- elevations of blood pressure, heartbeat, blood sugar levels, as well as muscle tension -- which are generally safe simply because they're temporary (that is, when you express all of those changes). Emotions which are not really expressed stay caught within you, leading to the continual condition associated with physiological pressure -- and this can be deadly.
There is nothing called as unexpressed anger
To say that anger is either expressed or unexpressed is actually untrue. All anger is expressed, but the question is how. You may think that you're expressing your anger when other people can see, hear, or feel your anger. Otherwise, you figure, you're not expressing it. But the fact is that all anger is expressed — some of it in ways that aren't observable directly. For example, you may not look or sound angry, but your anger may be expressing itself in your cardiovascular system (through high blood pressure or migraine headaches), your gastrointestinal system (through irritable bowel syndrome [IBS] or a spastic colon), or your musculoskeletal system (through TMJ or tension headaches).
Or anger may express itself in negative attitudes — pessimism, cynicism, hopelessness, bitterness, and stubbornness — or some form of avoidance behavior (giving people the silent treatment), oppositional behavior ("I don't think so!"), or passive-aggressive behavior ("I'm sorry — did you want something?"). Anger may also sour your mood and leave you feeling down or depressed. You suddenly lose the enthusiasm you had previously. (For additional examples, take a look at the anger-health checklist in Chapter 3.)
Dissatisfaction can be deadly
Being chronically — morning, noon, and night — dissatisfied can be dangerous to your health. Dr. Ernest Harburg and his colleagues at the University of Michigan did a study asking people how satisfied they were with their jobs.
They specifically asked the people how satisfied they were:
- That their job offered an opportunity to earn a higher salary
- That they had an opportunity to work with people who were friendly and helpful
- With their ability to acquire new skills in their line of work
- With job security (were they not likely to get laid off or fired)
- That they were allowed to do those things they were best at on their jobs
- That they had an opportunity to get ahead at work (be promoted)
He also asked questions to determine whether they tended to habitually express or suppress their anger. Interestingly, the data shows that those employees who were highly dissatisfied at work but who suppressed their anger had, by far, the highest blood-pressure levels on average — as compared to those who were highly satisfied with their work or dissatisfied workers who expressed their anger in some way. And the increase in blood pressure resulting from this combination of chronic dissatisfaction and suppressed anger was enough to place them at risk for potentially lethal heart attacks and strokes.
The same, it turned out, was true when they asked similar questions to determine how satisfied these people were with their home/family situation. Again, those who were the most dissatisfied but least expressive about their anger had the highest blood pressure.
