Emotional suppression and emotional repression
Emotional suppression is the reality of everyday life for many people nowadays. We must smile to clients, be accommodative, and be pleasant - and hide our true emotions. This is not natural to hide emotions - by expressing the feelings, a person is feeling better and can move on. But those emotions that we've successfully hidden - stay with us, causing emotional aggression, emotional overwhelm and emotional exhaustion. Neither of those is good.
In this article, we will talk about emotional suppression and emotional repression, their differences, consequences, and effects. Here at Emotions.market, we offer sensory and emotional experience recipients ways to release trapped emotions with our experience listings.
Emotional Suppression vs. Emotional Repression
Suppression and repression seem alike, yet they have different meanings and concepts. Suppression occurs when one consciously suppresses one's feelings, thoughts, and wants, while repression happens when one does not acknowledge or act upon certain emotions, ideas, and desires.
For instance, you ask your friend who failed in an exam. If he tells you that I don't remember those exams, it means he is suppressing his emotions. Memory suppression is often linked to traumatic or bad memories that are painful to the individual. An example of repression would be when someone asks you when we met the last time, and you say, I don't remember the exact date and time. It means you were unconscious at that time.
In suppression, one recognizes negative impulses, whereas, in repression, one might not be aware of them. Due to this, repression may cause several mental health issues in people, even though they are unaware of it.
Emotional suppression
Emotional suppression is a type of emotional regulation strategy used to make uncomfortable, overwhelming thoughts and feelings more manageable. Suppression can sometimes be a good short-term solution - if, for example, you have to go to work, meet with a client or just deal with something else while having to hide your emotions. Emotional suppression assumes that suppressed emotions are later being dealt with. But it, unfortunately, does not happen all the time.
Emotion suppression has long been suspected of playing a role in health, but empirical work has produced mixed results. In the US, a study examined the association between emotion suppression and mortality from all causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Studies have shown that emotional suppression may lead to earlier death, including cancer-related deaths.
"Suppressing your emotions, whether it's anger, sadness, grief or frustration, can lead to physical stress on your body. The effect is the same, even if the core emotion differs " says provisional clinical psychologist Victoria Tarratt. "We know that it can affect blood pressure, memory and self-esteem."
Signs of Suppressed emotions
There's no doubt that people are capable of suppressing their emotions. Some people who don't want to feel certain emotions push them apart. For instance, people who experience trauma often struggle with emotional suppression. They think this is the only way to hide their feelings to protect themselves.
However, the followings are some symptoms that people may feel when they experience suppressed emotions.
- Not showing interest in activities that were once fun.
- Feeling sleeping disorders like insomnia and restless dreams.
- Lack of commitment in the workplace.
- Conflict in your relationship.
- Feeling a lot tired.
5 Red flags of emotional suppression that you should never ignore
Expressive suppression as part of emotional suppression
Expressive suppression is the intentional reduction of the facial expression of an emotion. It is a component of emotional regulation. Expressive suppression is defined as the attempt to hide, inhibit, or reduce ongoing emotion-expressive behaviour.
Emotional repression
Repressed emotions are the emotions that you unconsciously avoid. These differ from suppressed emotions, which are feelings you purposely avoid because you don't know how to deal with them. Emotional repression is dangerous, as it can lead to emotional detachment, apathetic emotional state and general unhappiness in life.
Showing up your emotions is not always possible, so a smart, emotional regulation strategy is crucial for each and every one of us to avoid emotional imbalance and health problems.
Symptoms of Repressed emotions
When emotions are repressed, people sometimes have difficulty naming and understanding them. Because it can be challenging to describe how you feel to others and recognize when certain aspects of your life aren't serving you well. You might:
- Feel stressed and nervous without knowing the reasons.
- Often forget things that happen earlier.
- Experience uneasiness or discomfort when people talk with you.
- Feel headache, dizziness, high blood pressure, and fatigue.
- Overreact to something when someone asks about your emotions.
Are you bottling up your emotions?
Do you avoid confrontation? You often explode over little things? Feel uncomfortable next to emotional people? You sometimes have anxiety, headaches, and digestive issues? Then the answer, is, probably, yes, you are bottling up your emotions. Our emotional release experiences can help you process your emotions and live happier lives. Expressive suppression of emotions - 5 dangers to know.
How can you release Suppressed & Repressed emotions?
Human beings experience suppressing and repressing emotions throughout their life. Remember, emotions are not our enemy. We need them for survival. Problems arise when we feel wrong about specific emotions. For this purpose, we need to learn how to cope with our emotions.
If you struggle to release suppressed and repressed emotions, our creators can help you. Contact emotions.market and choose your emotions. We are not therapists; we specifically deal with emotionally provoking experiences.