Whether you’re keeping hush about a family member’s infidelity, or keeping your job promotion under wraps.
Keeping a secret has been shown to increase stress hormones, which in turn impacts blood pressure, inhibits sleep, and contributes to an increased risk of depression and anxiety.
Rather, the stress that comes with secret keeping is related to the fact that we are constantly thinking about the information we are not supposed to reveal.
According to one recent study at Columbia University, people who spend more time ruminating about their secrets tend to experience worse physical and emotional symptoms.
This is because thinking about the secret consumes our mental and emotional energy; the guilt and shame we feel can cause a deep fear of the secret being revealed.
Of course, the psychological toll of keeping a secret does depend on what that secret is. Not letting on to a friend about their surprise birthday party is one thing.
Covering up the fact that you cheated on an exam, for example, is a different thing altogether. Secrets that involve unhealthy behavior tend to cause remorse.
Experts often distinguish between feelings of shame and guilt when talking about the psychological effects of secret keeping.
Guilt is best described as a feeling of regret that is related to a particular situation. We tend to experience feelings of guilt when we know we have done something wrong.
Shame, on the other hand, is the feeling that there’s something wrong with who we are, or the sense that we are failing to live up to expectations.