“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
― André Malraux
We are mysterious creatures with secret lives. Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but I bet there’s not a single individual that doesn’t keep things for themselves. It’s in our nature, we’re full of secrets, but why do we keep them? Regardless of our reasons why, we always tend to conceal things from others. Whether we don’t want others to know everything about ourselves, we’re ashamed of something, or fear the consequences of revealing them, we always find a way to protect our secrets from people. Now, if you’re here, it’s probably because you hold one dark and deep secret that’s been tormenting you, and now you’re scared and intrigued about how it is destroying you… And you really should be (sorry, I know I’ve got to stop the drama, but just play along with me for a while). So maybe you don’t have a huge, juicy secret like what we’ve been talking about, but the truth is that, believe it or not, secrets do have a negative impact on our physical and psychological wellbeing.
To start, let’s be clear, we’re talking about serious secrets, not about how you couldn’t say a word about your grandma’s surprise party. We mean secrets that you see as being of a negative nature or those that involve other people’s integrity. According to a survey, made by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the most common secrets people hold are related to infidelities, lies, financial status, desire for other people, any sort of sexual practices, and secret hobbies. Of course, we’ve seen or heard many stories about people being really anxious about a secret that doesn’t let them live peacefully, and how their mental health decays because of it, but how can a secret affect our physical health?
What happens with secrets is that we tend to think that, as long as they’re kept hidden or buried in our heads, there won’t be any problem. In other words, we think the only way they can be harmful is if they’re revealed. You think they can affect your life because they show something about your past you don’t want people to know, or even that they might hurt others. Whatever the case is, we think we must keep them safe inside our head. However, according to neurosurgeon Gopal Chopra, keeping them puts our brain in a very awkward situation, and this is why: “The cingulate cortex, essential to our emotional responses, is wired, to tell the truth. This ‘logical lobe’ signals other regions of the brain to share information so it can move onto more important functions, like learning. But when you keep a secret locked inside, you don’t allow the cingulate to perform its natural functions. Instead, the cortex becomes stressed.”
Oh, stress: the main cause of human disgrace. When this cortex is put in this unusual situation, it starts creating stress hormones like cortisol. When this hormone’s levels are high, they can cause memory loss, increase our blood pressure, and trigger gastrointestinal disorders, such as bowel disease, acid reflux, peptic ulcers, among others. This lovely hormone is also responsible for “weak immune systems, osteoporosis, […] and a loss of collagen in the skin, which can lead to deeper wrinkles and a loss of elasticity.” So yes, keeping a secret can also have a negative impact on your physical beauty. Of course, this doesn’t mean that just because you never confessed about that one time you stole your coworker’s lunch you’re going to get severe gastric ulcers. It all depends on the relevance of the secret and how it stresses you to keep it. So, why do we keep them?
Basically, when we decide to conceal certain information, our prefrontal cortex creates a simulation of all the possible outcomes of revealing the secret. Although our brain is a machine that we haven’t really understood, it’s able to process all the information and predict the exact outcome. It just works with the given data, and through possibilities and statistics it shows us the most likely situations. But, of course, the data it receives comes from our experiences, so there’s a huge possibility that we’re exaggerating things. Now, this cortex “is involved in decision-making, complex thought, and deception,” so naturally we decide not to share the information we know.
Sometimes we think time will help us forget our darkest secret. But our brain also goes through all the information and pays special attention to all those unresolved issues. The only effective way to get rid of a secret is by sharing it. To make things worse, this isn’t only related to your own private secrets. It also involves those your friends or family share with you. Next time someone wants to reveal secret information to you, think thoroughly about the consequences of keeping a secret, since it can cause a lot of damage in your brain, and therefore, your body.
If you’re feeling like keeping a secret is affecting you more than it should, think if it’s really worth it. Most of the times, we think they’re worse than they really are. However, if you’re still convinced you don’t want to share it with anyone, do as Dr. Chopra suggests: write it on a piece of paper. “Actually there’s no scientific evidence about this, but we’ve seen that, most of the times, writing them on a piece of paper helps decrease the brain stress.” Perhaps we feel that by sharing it, its secretive essence goes away with the ink.
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Source:
The Atlantic
Forbes
Images by Darien Panella
