Teenagers who tend to suppress their emotions or stress can significantly impact their health which can affect their immunity levels later, according to a new study.
The study, by the University of Pennsylvania in the US, explored whether the strategies adolescents used to deal with chronic stress caused by families including cognitive reappraisal - trying to think of the stressor in a more positive way - and suppression, or inhibiting the expression of emotions in reaction to a stressor, affected various metabolic and immune processes in the body.
They found that teenagers who suppressed emotions tended to have more inflammation when their immune cells were exposed to a bacterial stimulus in the lab, even in the presence of anti-inflammatory signals.
Conversely, those who used cognitive reappraisal had better metabolic measures, like blood pressure and waist-to-hip ratio.
The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, may help therapists and counsellors better work with children and adolescents who live in stressful environments.
For the study, the team included 261 adolescents aged between 13 and 16.
According to Hannah Schreier, Assistant Professor from the varsity, the coping skills teenagers develop by the time they are adolescents have the potential to impact their health later in life.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)