Emotional suppression means holding back the outward signs of a feeling while you are still having it, and the research suggests it does not make the feeling go away. In one experiment it reduced visible expression, left the feeling in place and raised physical arousal, while a habit of suppression is linked with worse mood, relationships and well-being. [gross-1998-antecedent-response] [gross-john-2003-two-processes] This guide covers what suppression is, what the experiments found, what accepting a feeling adds, and when holding back is reasonable. Our overview of mindfulness covers the wider field.
What is emotional suppression?
Emotional suppression is holding back the outward signs of an emotion, such as keeping your face still or not saying how you feel, while the feeling carries on. Researchers describe it as response-focused, because it acts after the emotion has already started. [gross-1998-antecedent-response]
That is different from choosing a good time and place to express a feeling. Waiting until you are home to cry, or until the meeting ends to say you were angry, is a decision about timing. Suppression becomes a problem when it is the default and the feeling is never revisited. Our guide to mindfulness and emotional regulation covers the gap between a trigger and a reaction.
Does suppressing emotions work?
It works for hiding the outward signs and not for reducing the feeling. In an experiment, 120 people watched a disgusting film under one of three instructions: think about it so that you feel nothing, behave so that someone watching would not know what you feel, or simply watch. [gross-1998-antecedent-response]
| Instruction | Visible expression | The feeling of disgust |
|---|---|---|
| Rethink the meaning | Reduced | Reduced |
| Hide it (suppression) | Reduced | Not reduced |
| Simply watch | Baseline | Baseline |
Both strategies reduced outward expression. Only rethinking the meaning reduced the feeling, and suppression increased sympathetic activation, the part of the nervous system that drives the stress response. [gross-1998-antecedent-response] That was a lab study of one emotion over a short film, so it shows a mechanism and not how every day goes.
What does habitual suppression do to mood and relationships?
As a habit, it is linked with worse outcomes. In research on individual differences, people who habitually suppressed reported experiencing and expressing less positive emotion and experiencing more negative emotion, and they reported worse interpersonal functioning and lower well-being than people who habitually reappraised. [gross-john-2003-two-processes]
Read that with care. These are associations from questionnaires, so the studies show a pattern and not that suppression caused the problems. A person who is already struggling may suppress more, and the direction can run both ways.
What helps instead of bottling it up?
Accepting a feeling, meaning noticing it and letting it be there without judging it, was linked with better psychological health. In a study of 1,003 people, habitually accepting mental experiences predicted well-being, life satisfaction and fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms. [ford-2018-accepting-emotions]
Two further studies pointed the same way. In a laboratory study of 156 people, habitual acceptance predicted lower negative emotional responses to a standardised stressor. In a longitudinal study of 222 people, acceptance predicted less negative emotion during daily stressors, which in turn accounted for the link with psychological health six months later. [ford-2018-accepting-emotions]
In practice that means a sequence. Notice the feeling, name it as specifically as you can, let it be there, and only then decide whether and how to express it.
Two minutes with one feeling
Pick a feeling that is here now, even a mild one. Name it in a word or two, notice where you feel it in your body, and let it be there without trying to change or fix it.
2:00
You do not have to like the feeling. If it becomes overwhelming, stop and do something grounding, such as feeling your feet on the floor. If this regularly feels unsafe, speak to a doctor or therapist.
Done. Notice whether the feeling changed, or whether you simply stayed with it.
When is holding back reasonable?
Holding back for a moment is reasonable when the time or place is wrong. At work, in the middle of a heated row, or when expressing a feeling would put you at risk, waiting is a sound choice. The research is about suppression as an automatic habit, so the useful distinction is between choosing to wait and defaulting to hide.
A simple test is whether you come back to the feeling. If you hold it for an hour and then name it to yourself, to a friend or on paper, that is regulation. If it is held indefinitely and never looked at, that is the pattern the studies describe. Our guide to toxic positivity covers the version that gets turned inward.
When to seek help
Speak to a doctor or therapist if you feel flat or numb rather than flooded, if you rely on alcohol or other things to stop feelings, or if your feelings feel unmanageable or are affecting your work, sleep or relationships. Our guide to emotional numbness covers the opposite problem, where nothing registers. No screener on this site measures emotion regulation, and we would rather say so than point you at one that measures something else. The self-assessment hub lists the seven we do have.
If you feel unable to keep yourself safe, contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.
How MyFreud can help
Feelings that go unnamed are hard to see from memory. Daily mood tracking in MyFreud shows the pattern across weeks, so you can see which days carried a feeling you had not stopped to name. It does not replace speaking to a therapist or a doctor.
Download MyFreud and start today: App Store or Google Play.