How to hide your emotions without letting others know what you're thinking

Lately I have often been asked the question: how to hide emotions? The fact is that there are moments in our lives when we prefer not to show feelings, because we are afraid that our friends or relatives will not like us. Although, there may be other reasons why you don't want to show your emotions. But there are certain situations where this may not be practical. By hiding emotions, I mean the following:

managing your anger;
maintaining calm;
hiding feelings of love for a person;
try to be less depressed;
be polite when we experience negative thoughts.

We will look at the main ways to hide emotions and feelings. And also when and why we should do it. I will stay away from advice such as “control your mind” or “stay calm.” In this article, you will find the exact steps you will need to take to control your feelings and know how to hide your emotions.

It is important to understand that not all feelings need to be bottled up. In some situations, it will be much more helpful to let go of your emotions and deal with them rather than suppress them.

Practical advice on how to hide emotions

1) Breathe deeply

In addition to supplying the body with oxygen, this will allow us to act calmly and consciously. Deep breathing stimulates the nervous system, which causes a relaxation response. This technique will give you more control over your body and help you cope with external stimuli more easily.

2) Don't move your eyebrows often

Unfortunately or fortunately, our eyes are the first to show our emotions. And by looking at them, you can say a lot about a person. Situations that make you feel angry, sad, or nervous are often accompanied by certain eyebrow movements. If you want to hide your feelings and emotions, stop moving your eyebrows and release the tension from your forehead.

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If your eyes twitch from fear, your lips tremble, and a person begins to stutter, it’s time to understand: he has the power to make his fears work for him. Such psychological sublimation can move mountains! You just need to change the direction.

1. If you don’t want to cry, you need to raise your eyes up and look around - at the lamp hanging from the ceiling, at the pear-shaped cloud. As one of the physical education teachers said in the series of the same name, when you want to cry, you can open your eyes. Let your opponent be afraid!

2. If anger comes up, you need to give it a way out. Just not as assault. You can ask for a minute's break and go to another room. And here... Squat or do push-ups until you drop. With such shaky nerves, your figure will soon change beyond recognition! So the title of Miss Universe is just around the corner.

3. Slowly drink a glass of water or count to yourself to one hundred, read the “Our Father” or a mantra. Self-hypnosis helps someone (“I am a goddess!”).

But there are times when you need to cry - when they propose, talk about future children, watch a heartfelt movie. And in tragic situations, you should not be ashamed of tears.

But pulling yourself together is a must in emergency situations. It’s enough not to focus on yourself, but to think about how the other person is feeling now—needing help or shouting angrily. For some, it gets worse. You need not to be selfish, and your problems will fade into the background. There will be no time for unnecessary emotions!

When Should We Hide Our Emotions?

There are certain situations in which hiding our feelings can be beneficial. If you have had a difficult day at work, and you still have an important conversation ahead of you that you need to approach in a good mood, then you need to prepare yourself to show only positive emotions. Regulating your feelings changes other people's perceptions of you. The ability to manage your mood is a truly important aspect of an adult’s life. If you have an important interview, then be sure to get rid of any feelings of anger, resentment or sadness. With your children, you should also show only positive emotions and set an example for them on how to react correctly to certain situations.

Take into account the peculiarities of speech while wearing a mask

The sound of the voice is of great importance for both private and professional communication. Research shows that you can say the same words, changing only the tone of your voice, and get a completely different response from your interlocutor. Studying the speech patterns of charismatic leaders (Steve Jobs, for example) helped to identify several basic parameters that you can control to make your speech more understandable and attractive. Even wearing a mask.

Pauses.

In a normal communication situation, the interlocutor's closed mouth means that he has finished speaking or paused, while an open mouth, even in the absence of sounds, gives a signal that the interlocutor wants to continue. Consciously pause to move on to another topic for a more structured perception of information or when you want to convey the floor to the interlocutor.

Volume.

The mask muffles the sound, but this does not mean that the volume of the voice needs to be thoughtlessly increased - if you do it incorrectly (straining your throat), then you will not hear better, but the voice will take on an unpleasant hysterical tone, and there will also be a danger of damaging the ligaments. “Of course, the mask dampens the sound, so it is necessary to present it in a mode that is different from the usual one. To do this, you need medium diaphragmatic breathing, roughly speaking, breathing with the abdominal muscles - then the exhalation rests on the diaphragm, becomes more stable and prolonged. This exhalation allows you to transfer your voice to the middle register and speak, amplifying the sound not due to tension in the vocal cords, but due to greater air supply,” explained the speech teacher at the theater. E. Vakhtangova, associate professor of the department of the Theater Institute named after. B. Shchukina Elena Laskavaya.

Accents and intonation.

They are needed to convey the meaning of the phrase and avoid monotony of speech. There is no need to invent anything - in the Russian language there are seven intonation structures that carry a semantic load and give speech beauty in sound. The first is to express finality (in other words, lower your voice towards the end of a phrase to add force to your statement). Three more constructions are used for questions: for example, in phrases with question words (why, why, where, how, how much), we unconsciously put emphasis on them; if there is no question word (“see you tomorrow?”), the intonation will be rising followed by falling; and in compound questions (“I always wear a mask, and you?”), on the contrary, we use a descending-rising tone. The exclamation also plays with different shades - it can be soft, emotional, or even with slight irony (“what a great fellow you are!”). We use all these intonations without thinking - but when wearing a mask, they can serve as a conscious tool for improving communication.

Emotions.

The mask to a certain extent creates the effect of a poker face (an emotionless face), so do not forget to add emotions to your speech to evoke a response from the interlocutor. This can be done through the use of expressive constructions expressing approval, indignation and other emotions (“Wow!”, “It can’t be!”), as well as interjections. It also makes sense to literally say emotions if there is no way to show them - for example, in normal mode we can express disapproval by pursing our lips, in a mask this reaction can simply be voiced: “I’m not sure I like this.”

Articulation and breathing.

“With a mask, consonants are heard less clearly, so it is important to pay attention to this aspect. Increasing the clarity of articulation when communicating in a mask also occurs, oddly enough, due to breathing, because you can’t make articulation stronger with weak breathing either,” says Laskavaya. With “correct” breathing, the inhalation should be exclusively nasal, and the exit should be phonation, that is, together with speech.

When you shouldn't hide your emotions

Sometimes, hiding feelings can be harmful. There are times when we really should express what we think so as not to be weak or seem insecure. There are times in life when people we know do the wrong thing. And if their behavior makes you feel a certain way, then showing emotion can be beneficial not only for you, but for them as well. If someone is trying to insult or humiliate you, you have the right to express how you feel. At this moment you should not suppress your feelings. It's the same in relationships. If you love another person, then hiding your love will definitely be inappropriate.

Hiding feelings and emotions when you shouldn't can be detrimental to your mental health, self-esteem and normal life. The most important thing you can do is learn to deal with them by expressing what you want.

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Where to begin

For Olechka (that’s the name of the intern girl), the situation was as follows: her mother is about forty, she looks younger than her age, and at the same time she devotes a lot of time to caring for herself. Olechka told in detail how much pleasure her boyfriends give her mother when they confuse them on the phone.

With these words, we exchanged glances with one of our colleagues - just a year ago we discussed with her how quickly children grow, and how keenly we feel our age when they become adults. Here we knew what to recommend. But about dad it was even more interesting.

The fact is that our Olechka’s dad is a business man, it was he who insisted that she interning in our editorial office during the holidays and gaining experience, it was he who always emphasized that a woman should be independent. In general, the plan was ready.

For those whose situation is different, I will give the following advice - when you analyze the behavior of your parents, pay attention to the following:

what they want;
what they lack;
In what situations are they more comfortable with an adult child?

Mitigation

When you soften a facial expression, you add a commentary expression to an existing one. For example, if you show fear when the dentist approaches, you can add an element of disgust to your facial expression as a message to the dentist that you are disgusted with yourself because of your fear. The expression of the feeling you are experiencing has not changed in intensity, as with modulation, and has not been hidden or replaced by the expression of a feeling you are not experiencing, as with falsification. The expression of an emotion may become softer when it occurs immediately after the first expression, either as a social commentary required by the rules of displaying emotions (individual or cultural) or as a sincere expression of the next feeling. A person may actually feel disgusted with himself because of his fear of the dentist, or he may follow an emotional display rule to make it clear that he is no longer a child.

To soften facial expression, a smile is most often used; it is added as a commentary to any negative emotions. A softening smile provides the key to understanding the negative consequences or limits of the manifestation of a negative emotion. It tells the other person that you are still in control. For example, if you smile to soften an expression of anger, you are communicating with your face that you do not want to go too far, that your attack will be limited or weakened. If a smile is mixed with anger rather than softened as a follow-up comment, then you are saying that you are enjoying the anger you are experiencing. A smile that softens the expression of sadness says: “I can handle this,” “I won’t cry again,” etc.

Softening expression is the most moderate form of facial control. It distorts facial expression very little and usually appears as a result of following rules for displaying emotions (individual or accepted in a given culture), and not to satisfy the needs of the moment. Since the distortion of the transmitted message appears to be minimal, and the evidence of softening is quite obvious, we will not discuss here methods for recognizing the fact of softening the expression of an emotion.

Falsification

When you fake facial expressions of emotion, you show a feeling you don't feel (faking), or show nothing when you actually feel a feeling (neutralization), or hide an emotion you feel by expressing another emotion that you don't actually feel. experiencing (disguise). In the case of malingering, you are trying to create the impression that you are actually experiencing some emotion when in fact you are not experiencing any emotion. Imagine that someone tells you about the misfortune of your supposedly close friend, and you do not care at all, you do not experience any feelings, but give a sad expression to your face. This is called simulation.

To successfully fake an emotion, you must remember the feeling of what each emotional expression looks like on your face “from the inside” so that you can consciously adjust your facial expression and demonstrate the emotion you want to show others. You usually cannot anticipate the need for simulation and do not have the opportunity to practice in front of a mirror to observe your face and practice making different expressions. Children and teenagers often develop various facial expressions in this way; adults also practice in front of a mirror on the eve of some particularly important events that they know about in advance. But most often you have to rely on proprioceptive sensations - how the emotion feels on your face “from the inside”. You need to be able to capture these sensations and remember what your face felt when you were angry, scared, etc., so that you can consciously give yourself one or another appearance.

Neutralization is the exact opposite of simulation. You feel a strong emotion, but try to look like you don't feel anything. Neutralization is the ultimate form of emotion reduction, in which facial expression is modulated so that the intensity of the display of the experienced emotion is zero. If John was scared but wanted to appear calm and dispassionate, he would use neutralization. In the case of neutralization, you try:

• keep the facial muscles in a relaxed state, avoiding muscle contractions;

• hold the facial muscles in a position that allows you to give the face an impassive expression: the jaws are clenched; lips are closed, but without visible effort; the eyes look intently, but the eyelids are not tense, etc.;

• disguise the appearance of your face by biting or licking your lips, wiping your eyes, scratching parts of your face, etc.

Neutralization is very difficult, especially if your emotional reaction was caused by some serious event or series of such events. Typically, when using neutralization, you appear so stiff or tense that you at least eliminate the possibility of falsification by your appearance, even if the emotion you actually experience is not outwardly manifested. But most often, instead of neutralizing emotions, people try to mask them, which is much simpler and more effective.

When you use masking, you fake an emotion that you don't actually feel in order to obscure or hide the real one. When you heard about the misfortune that happened to your supposed friend and showed sadness on your face, it was a simulation only on the condition that you did not experience any feelings at all. If you felt disgust and tried to hide it by putting on a sad expression on your face, that would be a disguise. People resort to camouflage because it is easier for them to hide one facial expression under another than to try not to express anything on their face. In addition, people resort to masking because their motives for concealing a particular emotion usually require insincere statements about the substitution. For example, if a person experiencing depression does not want to continue to be considered suicidal, he should not only neutralize the expression of sadness on his face, but also pretend to be happy. The smile, which we have already called the most common means of softening emotions, is also the most common mask. Darwin was the first to try to explain the reason for this phenomenon. The muscle contractions required to produce a smile are most different from the muscle contractions required to express negative emotions. Anatomically speaking, a smile is best at masking expressions of anger, disgust, sadness or fear in the lower part of the face. And, of course, often the nature of the social situation that motivates you to hide one of these emotions will make you want to put on a friendly smile. People often mask one negative emotion with another: for example, fear with anger or anger with sadness, and sometimes they mask a joyful expression with an unhappy one.

All three of these control techniques—mitigation, modulation, and falsification (which includes simulation, neutralization, and masking)—can be used in situations that force people to control their facial expressions—following cultural display rules, following individual display rules, according to with professional requirements and the needs of the current moment.”

The editors of AIF.RU would like to thank the PITER publishing house for the provided excerpt.