OPINION
DOCTORS Lounge
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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
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