One of the studies was Professor Tom Frijns's 2009 survey of 278 adolescents in the International Journal of Behavioral Development, which found that those who kept secrets to themselves experience low self-control, depression and loneliness.

Spilling the beans: Studies in the past three decades have found that people who keep secrets are more likely to have psychological problems and physical pain, both of which are relieved once the secret is disclosed

When he reevaluated the 13 to 18-year-olds six months
later, he found that the subjects who had confided their secret felt better psychologically, while those who had held onto the
secrets exhibited 'increased psychosocial problems'.

Keeping our own secrets and those of others affects not only our psychological well-being, but our physical health as well.

In a 1999 study called Revealing Personal Secrets, Notre Dame University psychology professor Anita Kelly found that subjects who conceal personal information are more likely to suffer from headaches, nausea and back pain.

'Quite simply. . .secretive people also tend to be sick people,' she wrote. 'I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that being secretive could be linked to being symptomatic at a biological level.'

James Pennebraker, a psychologist from the University of Texas, found similar results in his 1989 study of 33 Holocaust survivors.

He videotaped an interview in which he asked them to reveal traumatic and undisclosed memories from the Holocaust while monitoring their heart rate and skin conductance level.

When he reviewed their health 14 months later, the subjects were found to be in better physical condition, with the degree of disclosure positively correlated with better health.

Interestingly, people who hold onto secrets also literally feel burdened, as Michael Slepian shows in an August 2013 study published in Social Psychology and Personality Science.

'I don't think it's a stretch to say that
being secretive could be linked to being symptomatic at a biological
level'

The Stanford University graduate student found that people who keep secrets experience the same judgements as people who are physically weighed down.

When his subjects were told to think of a personal secret, they judged hills to be steeper and distances longer than subjects who revealed their secret before making the judgement.

'The more burdensome the secret and the more thought devoted to it, the more perception and action were influenced in a manner similar to carrying physical weight,' reads his study.

'Thus, as with physical burdens, secrets weigh people down.'

Even if you try to keep a secret, the human brain is wired to not let us keep it for too long, claims Duke assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, Laura Smart.

She wrote in The Hidden Costs of Hidden Stigma that when we try to suppress a thought or secret, a mental process in our brain - called the 'ironic monitoring process' - makes us remember it.

'It functions to search for exactly those unwanted thoughts that are under suppression, thus ironically making the unwanted thoughts accessible and making it likely that they will return to conscious awareness,' she explained.

The more stress you are under, the worse it gets until it ultimately pushes you to reveal the secret.

Share or comment on this article

Comments (19)

Share what you think

• 
  
  Newest
• 
  
  Oldest
• 
  
  Best rated
• 
  
  Worst rated

The comments below have not been moderated.

Who is this week's top commenter?
Find out now