OPINION
DOCTORS Lounge
SPEAK YOUR MIND If you would like to respond to an article in this issue , please submit an article or letter to the editor . Contributions may be sent to editor @ glms . org or may be submitted online at www . glms . org . The GLMS Editorial Board reserves the right to choose what will be published . Please note that the views expressed in Doctors ’ Lounge or any other article in this publication are not those of the Greater Louisville Medical Society or Louisville Medicine .
BLACK OPS
Mary G . Barry , MD Louisville Medicine Editor editor @ glms . org
Doctors and nurses and lawyers and counselors keep secrets – thousands of them , for many many years . What does it cost us ?
Secret-keeping is bad for your health , per a non-bylined article in The Economist of April 22 . Dr . Michael Slepian , PhD , on the faculty of Columbia Business School , with other workers has been studying the physiology and emotional significance of keeping secrets for many years . His recent publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that the more we think about our secrets , the worse our overall health . He and his team have now amassed almost 13,000 participants in their studies of the meaning and health effects of keeping secrets . This most recent article detailed the effects of telling , versus not telling . He collected volunteers in Central Park , anonymously , and online survey-takers , and gave them a list of 38 things that previous surveys had shown we keep secrets about . The in-person responses exactly matched the online ones .
I quote the categories of secret-keeping he used : each person answered for all 38 things . Regarding secrets , had they : never had the experience so had nothing to hide ; or had the experience , but never hid it ; or had it , kept it secret for awhile but eventually told someone ; or had it but kept it secret only from some ; or finally , had it and kept it secret from everyone , including now . Ninety-seven percent of respondents were keeping at least one long-term secret , and they averaged 13 altogether , of which five they had always kept hidden .
Examples of secrets we keep forever most commonly involve sex ( unfaithful / forbidden thoughts and acts ). Very common are those about drugs , lies , money , stealing things , hiding mistakes , having had an abortion and secret binging on food or alcohol . Patients hide medical problems , anorexics hide under loose clothes , and LB- GTQ people may feel forced to masquerade as straight , because of the fear and loathing of those around them .
He found that the more we obsessed about our secrets , the worse our overall health index , and the less we thought about them , the better . Dr . Slepian posited that such secrets involve unresolved internal conflicts which escalate with time and carve ever deeper canyons between ourselves and
contentment . Crossing that chasm is a focus of counseling the world over .
In another study ( Journal of Experimental Psychology , March 2012 ), he and co-authors considered the way we characterize secrets : “ carrying the burden of ” and “ weighed down with ” and “ behind the heavy curtain ” of secrecy . They had participants think about a big bad secret v . a small one , and then rate various things requiring physical effort . Those who thought a lot about their long-held secrets and felt weighed down psychologically , in fact felt heavier , physically . They rated hills as steeper , distances as longer and tasks as harder , and were less likely to lend a hand to another . They rated themselves as less productive at work , less focused , and more preoccupied .
How does all this go down inside our brains ? Gina Roberts-Grey , in an October 2013 article for Forbes , interviewed neurologist Dr . Allen Towfigh and neurosurgeon Dr . Gopal Chopra . Our cingulate cortex , the seat of logic and very important in sharing and learning information , wants us to tell the truth , which will not block its continued learning . Our prefontal cortex is involved in making decisions , complex thought , and
( continued on page 28 )
JUNE 2017 25