I hear people express their emotions every single day and I
quietly listen to their diatribe about losing their parking space or not
getting promoted at work. I have never resorted to “advice giving” or suggesting
that they “see the positive side and count their blessings”. I simply listen to other people and empathize with them while I try and not be the most effusive personality in the room.
Recently I've learned that those who freely express themselves and
emotionally vent their feelings are likely to experience better health outcomes
than those who repress and “hold in” their emotions.
In a book that I've been reading, “
Harness your Dark Side” by
Al
Galves, he mentions a study where one of the groups in this study was asked
to write about topics that didn't provoke their emotions—like what they want
for their future, what they did last summer, world peace etc. The other group
tested was asked to write about the most
emotionally gripping experience of
their lives. A couple months later when
both groups were compared, they discovered that
the group that disclosed the
most painful details had a better immune system and had fewer doctor visits
than the group who wrote about more mundane, emotionally neutral topics.
