The husband left. Mom does not want to upset her daughter, restrains and hides her emotions. This is not easy for a temperamental Latin American …
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Restraint in behavior, the ability to restrain one’s negative feelings is an indicator of internal culture and good breeding, an indispensable attribute of a business and simply successful person.
The notion that holding back one’s negative emotions is wrong and harmful is supported predominantly within Gestalt therapy, but scientific research suggests otherwise. If you do not wind up emotions inside yourself, then restraint in behavior and expression of your feelings is not at all harmful — neither for physical nor for mental health.
Japanese culture was originally built on the containment of socially unacceptable emotions and feelings, but among the Japanese, the lowest percentage of deaths from vascular and heart diseases (28%, in Europe — 30%). The Japanese are quite emotional, they quite allow themselves to experience emotions, but never show them where they should be. In social situations, the Japanese are very reserved, but this does not harm their health. There are two reasons for this: the Japanese do not hype their feelings, do not inflame them — and at the same time they are convinced of the benefits of restraining feelings. This radically distinguishes them from the Europeans, who, holding back their feelings, are already convinced in advance that this is unhealthy.↑.
Talk about the dangers of holding back negative emotions has no evidence base. Psychologist Carol Tavries, who explored anger in her monograph, argues that venting our anger—something that many other psychologists call for—usually only makes things worse. She writes: “It seems to me that the main effect of the theory of blowing off steam is to increase the level of noise in our lives, and not to reduce problems. I noticed that people who are especially prone to expressing anger do not become calmer from this, but on the contrary, even more angry and angry. In her rather thorough review of the literature, Dr. Carol Tavris states that pent-up anger “does not lead in any predictable or consistent way to depression, stomach ulcers, or high blood pressure, or cause seizures or heart attacks…. what are the medical consequences if we feel in control of the situation that causes anger, if we interpret anger as a manifestation of resentment that needs to be corrected, and not as an emotion that needs to be locked in, if we feel commitment towards work and people in our life «.
According to the research of B. Bushman, a professor at the University of Iowa, venting anger on an inanimate object does not lead to stress mitigation, but quite the opposite. Psychologist J. Bonanno from Columbia University showed that people who practice control over emotions in life, who are able to restrain them if necessary, are less prone to life stresses than others↑.
Sean Carroll began to train restraint, defeated fits of rage and changed his character.
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In order for you to stop bouts of anger, you need to change your character, become calm and restrained. Sometimes it seems unrealistic, unbelievable, impossible, but it is not. Character is a collection of habits, and habits can be changed. If you set yourself such a task and start training calm reactions, you can do it.
Please note: Sean Carroll’s behavior was filmed on a DVR and was actually very helpful. He knew that the experiment with him was filmed by television people, his wife regularly asked about his success, he copied the data from the video to his flash drive every evening … The situation was built in such a way that Sean did not forget about his intention, and that was what helped him. He did not forget — he did — he succeeded. What will you do so that you do not forget your intention to react in a more restrained, calmer way?
When is it bad to keep your emotions inside?
Restraint and the ability to control your emotions are wonderful qualities, but this should not be confused with the suppression of emotions. Suppression is carried out in relation to strong, violent, rebellious emotions, these are attempts to contain the volcano, leading to even larger explosions. Suppressing already hyped emotions in oneself is a rather harmful thing. See →
How to stay healthy in a stressful situation
Anyone who does not take care of his health in a tense situation does not act prudently. Headaches and fatigue also do not contribute to happiness in personal life and success at work, gastritis is not joy, insomnia is melancholy. At the same time, it is not very difficult to protect health in a tense situation … See →