When we don't express ourselves, we repress important parts of who we are and cause ourselves considerable struggle and lasting mental and emotional pain. Our frustration turns to rage. Our isolation turns to depression. Our restlessness turns to panic.
Suppressed emotions stay in the body. The effects of suppressed emotions include anxiety, depression, and other stress-related illnesses. Such suppression can lead to alcohol and substance abuse.
Self-expression can help you to reflect on your life, actions, decisions, relationships, beliefs, and thoughts — rather than keep them buried deep down. By expressing ourselves thoughtfully, we can better communicate, collaborate and build a community with others.
It can happen when attempts to express themselves proved futile in the past, and/or if they hold the belief that it will always be futile. They feel that their feelings are not important, and that they are not entitled to ask for what they need and express how they feel.
Sacrificing personal expression in place of conformity is shown to lead to lower self-esteem, depression, and unhappiness in children. By encouraging your kids to express themselves, you can ward off these negative issues and help your kids build self-confidence, independence, creativity, and self-advocacy.
What to know about alexithymia. Alexithymia is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions. It is not a mental health disorder but has links with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, and various other conditions. It can occur with autism.
Self-expression, through being creative and playing with materials, encourages and supports children's imagination and thinking process development. It allows them to produce new understandings, experiencing the world from different perspectives.
When you help someone who cannot express their feelings, it is important to listen. Try not to judge the person and be accepting of whatever they say. People might feel overwhelmed when dealing with emotions so let them know that you are there for them no matter what happens.
Happier people demonstrate more self-expression. When you are fully expressive of who you are, you have higher levels of psychological health and happiness. SHARE what you really think, feel and want in life so you can form deeper relationships.
You can use your words, your facial expressions, your body, your movements, clothing, actions, and possessions to express your authentic inner self.
It can also cause us to feel stressed, depressed, or anxious. In some cases, we may even feel deeply angry or rageful and develop feelings of resentment toward others. “There is some evidence that bottling up your emotions can lead to physical stress on the body,” says Dr. Mullen.
Reticent means either quiet or restrained. If you're reticent about your feelings, you like to keep them to yourself, and you're probably quiet in rowdy groups where everyone is talking over each other. The original meaning of reticent describes someone who doesn't like to talk.
Authentic self-expression, rather than adapted and conditioned self-expression, is vitally important to our psychological well-being. When individuals are confident with authentic expression, this can lead to healthy connections, communication and respectful boundary setting within relationships.
When we fail to express our emotions, our brain can often go into the fight-or-flight state. This is a physical reaction to stress that sets off a chain of events throughout our bodies. It increases our heart rate, slows digestive functions and makes us feel anxious or depressed.
BENEFITS OF EXPRESSING EMOTIONS
Improves the ability to connect with self and others leading to healthier and happier relationships. Improves decision making and ability to solve problems. Increases resilience. Reduces stress.
Teaching Kids Ages 5-9 to Express Their Feelings. By around age 5, most kids have a basic understanding of what they're supposed to do when asked to express their feelings, but their newfound sense of independence—plus a stubborn streak common among kids this age—might get in the way.
Kids have a hard time with emotions for different reasons. These include stress and mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Kids who experience trauma may also struggle.
Dr. Rouse sees emotional control issues as a combination of temperament and learned behavior. “A child's innate capacities for self-regulation are temperament and personality-based,” he explains. Some babies have trouble self-soothing, he adds, and get very distressed when you're trying to bathe them or put on clothes.
Some common synonyms of secretive are reserved, reticent, silent, and taciturn. While all these words mean "showing restraint in speaking," secretive, too, implies reticence but usually carries a suggestion of deviousness and lack of frankness or of an often ostentatious will to conceal.
In the short term, it can cause pesky problems such as irritability, anxiety, and poor sleep. But over time, repressing your tears can lead to cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension — or even cancer.
Smothering or bottling up emotions is suppressing one's feelings rather than expressing them openly and honestly. Also known as expressive suppression (ES), it is a common technique used to regulate difficult emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness or hide them from others.