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Who doesn’t love the thrill of a secret? From a social perspective, a secret is simply information that’s not common knowledge. It may have an air of mystery or gossip-inducing connotations, usually negative.
However, from a scientific perspective, a secret is hard to define. As you process the information, a struggle starts to take place as competing parts of your brain decide what to do with the information.
“Brains are in the business of gathering information and steering behaviour appropriately,” neuroscientist and author David Eagleman says in his recent book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. “One part of the brain wants to reveal something and another part doesn’t want to. When there are competing votes, that defines a secret. If no party wants to tell, that’s just a boring fact.”
But it’s this rivalry in the brain that begins to cause internal angst, as one part wrestles with the desire to reveal and the other mulls over the potential consequences.
What’s the damage?
Research shows that keeping secrets – particularly your own traumatic ones – can be unhealthy for the brain and overall physical health.
Psychologist Sarah Conlon says sharing your secrets with a professional counsellor – known in the trade as “self-disclosure” – can result in many positive benefits, such as “improved mood, an increased feeling of support and connectedness, problem clarification, increased self-esteemand a more balanced lifestyle. Physical benefits such as a reduction in tension have also been reported.”
Sharing a secret with a stranger can be therapeutic as it dissolves the neural conflict of the guilt without the risk of being found out. Virtual strangers work just as well, evident from the popularity of websites such as postsecret.com and mysecretpost.com, where people confess secrets online without being identified.
The benefits of self-control
Being a good confidante is an acquired skill. While our natural desire is often to share the secret, our self-control, long-term decision-making and trust in the relationship can help us keep the information to ourselves. People who are good at keeping secrets often find themselves carrying a few of them at a time. Good secret-keepers are easy to identify in that they don’t gossip and don’t use other people’s information as power.
Be a better secret-keeper
Check the timing: Sometimes secrets have a limited timespan and the teller will let you know when you can share the news. If it’s an indefinite secret, try to put it to the back of your mind.
Be discreet: If you need to share a secret because someone you care about may get hurt, think about how you reveal it. Be conscious that some people don’t want to know the truth, and it’s not your place to reveal a secret just to get it off your chest.
Don’t show off: The worst way to keep a secret is to actually tell someone you have a secret.
Avoid the topic: If you know a secret about someone who other people are gossiping about, be sure to avoid their conversations.
Resist temptation: If someone is going to burden you with something you may not want to know, ask them not to tell you.
When to share
- When it’s your secret, it’s causing you anxiety and you can find a trusted confidante.
- When you may be able to limit harm to someone by sharing what you know.
- When someone is in danger as a result of you retaining the information.
Source: bodyandSoul
