The ban on the expression of feelings causes significant harm not only to mental, but also to physical health. Why it is dangerous to suppress emotions and how to cope with stress, says psychotherapist Artur Chubarkin, who has been dealing with psychosomatic problems for more than 30 years.
Many somatic problems are based on misconceptions and behavior patterns. In everyday life, we jokingly call them «cockroaches in the head.» Such ideas, with the already existing energy costs for living the situation, lead to negative emotions. And the emotional center in the brain, in its anatomical structure, coincides by two-thirds with the center of the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for adjusting organs to changing external and internal conditions.
The vegetative center loaded with negative emotions ceases to fine-tune the body, and then vegetative dysfunction develops. In addition to vegetative-vascular dystonia, vegetative dystonia of the stomach, intestines, bladder, and gallbladder may occur. This stage, when the organ is not damaged, but noticeably disturbs the patient, and examinations do not reveal anything, is called the stage of functional disorder of the organ.
Fuel is added to the fire by emotions on a scale of fear (from excitement to horror) about the existing symptoms, which is accompanied by the release of stress hormones — adrenaline and cortisol. An organ that has been in a situation of dysfunction for a long time after some time begins to be damaged, which is detected during the examination.
There is another mechanism for the formation of somatic disease. The behavior and emotional reaction of a wild animal in nature is always very precise. A person has two filters: “right-wrong” and “moral-immoral”. So there is a ban on the expression of emotions and the commission of actions that go beyond the conditional framework of the individual. In order not to show, in the presence of a filter-prohibition, already biologically, automatically born emotion, it is necessary to compress some muscle. This is how a neuromuscular spasm, a clamp, is formed.
In society, in 70-80% of cases it is possible to be real, and not “correct” and holding back. The rest is extinguished by positive emotions
The simplest metaphor that I offer to my patients is the image of a branch that accumulates a snowdrift on itself. A snowdrift is a load of accumulated negative emotions. The “last snowflake” is a provocative cause in the presence of an extreme degree of snowdrift. Where does the «branch» break? In weak places, they are individual. How to help the «branch»? Strategically — be flexible, changing. Tactically — regularly shake off.
Therefore, the prevention system is to have 4-6 intensive ways to relieve emotional stress, use them regularly from 3 to 5 times a week for 1-1,5 hours, depending on the intensity of the lived period, the presence of a crisis. A muscle working with an average load takes adrenaline from the blood and burns it.
Prevention is also the maximum openness and naturalness of behavior. In society, in 70-80% of cases it is possible to be real, and not “correct” and holding back. The rest is extinguished by positive emotions. Also, nature gave us one day of odds: if you restrained yourself from the boss — go out and throw it out, on the first day after the onset of tension, the emotion will easily go away.
The St. Petersburg School of Psychotherapy has identified another significant factor leading to a “nervous” disease — alexithymia, that is, the inability to notice the body’s emotional and bodily signals. Alexithymic index ranges from 20% (good condition) to 70% non-recognition or distortion of signals.
Imagine the degree of emotional tension of a person who is 70% disoriented in reality. The right hemisphere (in right-handed people) is responsible for recognizing emotions (emotional-figurative thinking), and our contemporary relies on the left hemisphere (specific-logical, expedient thinking). He is often disoriented in his needs, in his «want»! In this case, body-oriented psychotherapy helps to return «to oneself», to living one’s life.