Don’t go too fast in swearing that you will be a grave when you are entrusted with a secret. According to several scientific studies, although we are not all equal in the face of secrecy, we could not keep it anyway. Too heavy, too heavy, our body betrays us first, we learn on the Huffington Post.
Why is it difficult?
Because it’s disturbing, of course. American researchers were interested in 2013 in the bodies of people hiding a secret. They published their findings in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Subjects were asked to hide their sexual orientation during a short interview and not to speak specific words while performing various tasks. The researchers then found that the participants had trouble concentrating, that they were more easily aggressive and that they had less physical endurance. Our body would end up betraying us…
Because secrets occupy too much space in our brains and require our consciousness to focus on them. “When an individual talks to another knowing full well that there are elements that he absolutely must keep to himself, his thoughts are contaminated with secret information that must be kept away. The more we know “Try not to think about something, the more you have it in mind” explains psychiatrist Jean-Paul Mialet, on the Atlantico site, commenting on the results of a 2007 study published in The American Journal of Psychology.
Keeping a big secret can be risky
Depression, loneliness, remorse, nausea, back pain, relationship problems, our body is put to the test. Keeping a heavy secret can be risky. In 2009, a study focused on 300 teenagers and their relationship to secrets. The conclusions of Professor Tom Frijins, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development, are worrying: “the permanent control of our feelings and our thoughts is exhausting for the body and for the spirit”. Six months after this observation, the teenagers were much better if they had confided in each other, the condition of the others had worsened.
In 1989, James Pennebraker, a psychologist at the University of Texas interviewed 33 concentration camp survivors about memories they had never shared while their heart rates were being monitored. Fourteen months later, the researcher reconnected with the survivors for a health check. The participants were all in better physical condition.
But research also highlights that we are not all equal when it comes to secrets. When some put an end to the confidence out of fatigue or remorse, others will live with it and even end up hiding it from themselves.
