Dare to share: how revealing your secrets to others can improve your life

If you have kept a secret from a friend, a family member, or a romantic partner, you are probably right. Not all of them, but some of them.

With a certain degree of certainty, I can tell you that your loved ones secrets are about ambitions, beliefs, habits, deceptions, desires, discontents and violations of trust. More than 50,000 people have been asked about their secrets, and these are the themes that we often see. I can tell you that we are not alone in the things that we keep.

Data from all over the world shows that we tend to keep the same ones. People are asked about these categories. The world could be printed on a single sheet of paper with each person's line. 98% of people say that they have at least one from the list, and they have an average of 13 Drugs, addiction, sex, mental health, trauma, family, finances, and cheating are included in this list.

The hard part of having a secret is not that you have to hide it, but that you have to live with it

We don't get asked about our secrets very often. The fact that secrets are easy to hide doesn't mean they are easy to live with. People say that they hold back in conversations because of a thought about their secret.

To keep a secret is to stray away from the everyday act of social connection. You prevent yourself from fully engaging when this happens because you don't want to get help from them.

What happens when we try to keep a secret? It increases the likelihood of hiding the secret, but it also increases the likelihood of thinking about it outside of that. We asked our participants to download an app on their phone so that we could randomly ping them throughout the day. After identifying their most important secret, participants were asked if it had come to their attention or if they had to hide it. The participants said that they thought about their secret one to two times a day. The more participants thought about their secrets outside of conversations, the worse they were for their health.

The hardest part of having a secret is not hiding it, but living with it alone. It's not likely that you'll find the most productive way of thinking about it when you only have your own mind. Each time you think about it, you can go through the same motions, have the same negative thoughts, and find yourself getting nowhere. It can take a conversation with someone else to escape the loop.

The research shows that people are more positive about disclosures than we think. It is highly unlikely that you will be afraid of the worst. It might take a dash of courage to reveal something sensitive, but when you do it will be appreciated by your friend. The door is open to disclosure if you are in the middle of a social interaction that makes you feel comfortable and open.

You could shout your secret lone in a forest, but a disclosure with no recipient is barely a disclosure at all

Just like a tree that nobody hears falling, a disclosure with no recipients is hardly a disclosure at all. When people reveal secrets, they seek out the people who are most helpful. Talking about a negative experience can bring back negative feelings, and this is why shouting your secret into the ether is not enough.

You can get emotional support and practical support from someone else. If you are willing to open up, they are likely to give you one of either type. They can express sympathy or empathise with you. There are other people who can give advice. It's easier to break the vicious cycle of negative thinking when we bring other people in. We forget there are other ways to think about things when we think about them in the worst way. This is a sign that it's time to talk to someone if you're stuck on a secret and confused.

If you are keeping a secret from a friend, a family member, or a romantic partner, you probably have at least one more secret than you need. There is a chance that you have at least one too many secrets that you don't want the public to know. Others will open up to you if you are willing to do so.

The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shapes Well- Being, Relationships, and Who We Are is available now. It can be purchased from guardianbookshop.com for £13.