what to do when you cant talk about your feelings

Why Talking Virtually Our Problems Helps So Much (and How to Do It)

There's more to the historic period-sometime advice to merely "talk it out" than there seems. Here's some of the evidence that explains why it is so helpful.

Credit... Marion Fayolle

April three, 2020

When your car breaks down, you either know how to set up it or how to discover someone who can. Emotions, on the other manus, are a fiddling harder to fix. There is no wrench you can take hold of or repair shop you lot tin can take your feelings to. Simply you do have one tool in your kit you can always utilize: talking most your feelings. Even merely speaking almost your feelings out loud to another person can assist. So why do we avoid it or believe it doesn't piece of work?

There are a lot of reasons talking nigh our problems can be difficult. Some people (especially men) are socialized to internalize feelings, rather than give vocalism to them. Sometimes the very emotions you lot're dealing with — like guilt over something yous did, or shame nearly how you think you're perceived — can experience and so overwhelming that you tin can't get upwards the motivation to talk information technology out.

Regardless of the reason y'all might keep it in, talking has powerful psychological benefits that might not be obvious. "Talking about it" is a broad phrase, though, and then let's clarify a bit. When we discuss talking about your problems, it tin can have a few forms.

• Venting to a trusted friend. Sometimes you just demand to let out how you're feeling with no real program for a solution. "I had the worst solar day at work!" can be the first of a conversation that helps you process the stress of a hard 24-hour interval.

• Discussing a conflict with a partner. Fights happen in relationships. But keeping your feelings to yourself tin can cause issues betwixt you and your partner to fester. While working toward constructive solutions to your human relationship problems is always a good thing, just being able to be open nearly your feelings with your partner can make your communication healthier also.

• Talk therapy with a licensed therapist. There's a reason people will pay coin to talk through problems with a therapist. Whether y'all need to talk over a mental illness you're struggling with, are in couples counseling to work on your relationship or simply demand someone to talk to who knows how to handle stress, a expert therapist can help you hash out your emotions.

• Being open about your struggles. Sometimes venting to no one in item can help not simply y'all, but others every bit well. For example, in 2015 Sammy Nickalls, a writer, started the social media hashtag #TalkingAboutIt to encourage people to be open about their struggles with mental affliction. The human action of sharing what daily life is like can help you and others with the same struggles realize that you're non alone and that what feels overwhelming is actually normal.

What all of these forms have in common is that they are conversations specifically designed to examine and express the emotions you are having, rather than edifice to a specific solution. Figuring out things yous can do to improve your situation is certainly good, simply merely verbalizing how y'all're feeling can, itself, exist part of the solution as well.

Why does talking most it assistance?

Getting a new job, breaking up with a bad partner or investing in your ain self-improvement are all applied things you can exercise to solve issues in your life. But what good does just talking near information technology do? When yous're fighting the exhausting uphill boxing confronting your own negative feelings, information technology can seem as if talking about it is the least productive thing you tin do.

In reality, your brain and body become a lot out of talking.

When you are feeling very intense feelings — especially fear, aggression or anxiety — your amygdala is running the show. This is the part of the brain that, among other things, handles your fight or flight response. It is the job of the amygdala, and your limbic system every bit a whole, to figure out if something is a threat, devise a response to that threat if necessary, and store the information in your memory and then you lot can recognize the threat later. When you lot go stressed or overwhelmed, this office of your brain can take control and even override more logical thought processes.

Research from U.C.Fifty.A. suggests that putting your feelings into words — a process called "bear upon labeling" — tin diminish the response of the amygdala when y'all encounter things that are upsetting. This is how, over fourth dimension, you can become less stressed over something that bothers y'all. For example, if you got in a car blow, even being in a car immediately afterward could overwhelm you emotionally. But equally yous talk through your experience, put your feelings into words and process what happened, you can get back in the car without having the same emotional reaction.

Inquiry from Southern Methodist University suggested that writing most traumatic experiences or undergoing talk therapy had a positive touch on on a patient'due south wellness and immune organization. The study argues that belongings back thoughts and emotions is stressful. You lot have the negative feelings either way, but you have to work to repress them. That tin tax the brain and body, making you lot more susceptible to getting sick or just feeling awful.

None of that is to say that talking about your problems, or fifty-fifty talk therapy with a licensed therapist, will automatically fix everything and immediately brand you happy and good for you. But, like eating ameliorate and exercising, it can contribute to overall improvement in your well-being. More important, it can assist you empathize how and why you feel the mode you do, so you lot can handle your emotions more than finer in the futurity.

How can nosotros do it meliorate?

Crucially, not every grade of talking about problems aloud tin assist. In fact, multiple studies examining college students, immature women and working adults suggest that co-rumination — or consistently focusing on and talking about negative experiences in your life — tin can take the opposite upshot, making you more stressed and drawing out how long a problem bothers y'all. To talk nearly your problems more constructively, there are a few key things y'all can practice.

• Choose the right people to talk to. If you've ever talked almost how you're feeling and information technology seems as if you got nothing out of it, you lot might be talking to the wrong person. Having a trusted friend who will back up yous (without enabling bad habits like co-rumination) can help. If you need specific advice on a problem, observe someone who has faced similar bug and, ideally, has resolved them. And if y'all need a lot of talk fourth dimension, endeavor spreading your conversations out to multiple people. One person can go worn out, and having a broad social support system lets y'all distribute that load.

• Choose the right time to talk. Just as of import as choosing who to talk to is when you talk to them. Your friends may desire to support you, only they have their own lives. Asking if they take the time and free energy to talk before unpacking your emotional numberless tin can help you both be better equipped for the conversation. This also means being courteous about their fourth dimension. Sometimes crises happen and yous might need to interrupt someone, merely nigh supportive conversations can wait.

• Find a therapist, even if you're not mentally ill. Therapists often take a reputation for beingness necessary but if y'all have a mental illness. This isn't the example. You tin can go to therapy if y'all are feeling overly stressed, if you are non sleeping well or if y'all just desire someone to talk to. Think of it less like seeing a doctor and more like a personal trainer. As well, recollect that just every bit with doctors, mechanics or anyone else you lot hire, there are good ones and bad ones (or bad ones for you), and so if y'all don't take success the starting time time, try someone else.

• Give yourself an endpoint. Not all conversations most your problems demand to lead to a program of activeness for tangible change, but they do need to lead to something other than more complaining. Give yourself space to vent about your feelings and, while doing then, focus on how y'all are feeling throughout the process. If y'all are getting more worked upwards, take a break. If you find yourself talking well-nigh the aforementioned things over and over without gaining whatsoever new agreement or feeling any relief, endeavour something else to process how you are feeling. You may not exist able to set up the external problem that is bothering you, just the goal should at to the lowest degree exist to meliorate your mood about it.

• Talk about the good as well as the bad. Expressing how you're feeling is healthy. Expressing yourself but when you feel bad isn't. Whether y'all are talking to friends, partners or on social media, be sure to share your good experiences and feelings when they come up up. Talking about these experiences can reinforce them in your brain and make it easier to break out of negative idea patterns after. Plus, it helps build your relationships with the people you are shut enough to talk to.

Of course, this procedure tin can still be messy. Some days, talking near your problems may just exist complaining about something that happened at work, but others it may involve crying into someone'southward shoulder for an hour. It can feel embarrassing or uncomfortable the first few times, but the more than you open up, the easier information technology will get to share how you feel.

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/smarter-living/talking-out-problems.html

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