As a matter of fact, positive venting can reduce stress, but negative venting can lead to heightened stress and physical health concerns.
“Venting may reduce your stress, anger, confusion, or frustration. That can be beneficial,” he says. “Venting that heightens these emotions is not.” Amid your verbal rampage, take a breath.
Effects of Venting Anger
Even less destructive forms of venting anger can have consequences, including: Greater feelings of stress and anxiety. Increased negative emotions and moods.
While venting can be a natural part of working through our negative emotions, does it become toxic at a certain point? It turns out, it can. And that's when venting becomes trauma dumping — the act of oversharing your emotions in a way that becomes harmful to the other person.
Venting feels great in the moment, but it can actually make you feel worse in the long run. This is because venting can increase your stress and anger rather than reduce them. At the same time, venting doesn't resolve the underlying causes of your stress.
Science suggests that it depends, in part, on how you share and how people respond to you. Expressing our emotions often to others may actually make us feel worse, especially if we don't find a way to gain some perspective on why we feel the way we do and take steps to soothe ourselves.
Sharing or letting negative emotions out—venting—is a commonly used coping strategy. Many people believe venting is helpful because it enables them to release their frustration and anger, and they are better able to problem-solve afterwards. However, research suggests venting may be a double-edged sword.
Venting, on the other hand, is a way of releasing some of the pent-up emotions associated with trauma in a safe and controlled manner. When we vent to another person, we're mindful of their boundaries and only share as much as they can handle hearing.
Trauma dumping: With trauma dumping, you overshare difficult or intimate personal information without the other person's consent or during inappropriate times. You don't consider how your words impact the listener, and you're not open to advice or solutions.
Venting feelings by talking about them is certainly something you can do with a therapist. But you can also do it with friends and family. Apart from the possible short-term relief from getting things off your chest, where's the therapeutic benefit?
Exercise: When we need to vent, we may feel overwhelmed with anger or uncomfortable energy. You can burn off some of that energy by doing something physical, like taking a walk, running, dancing, or going to the gym. The resulting endorphins may help you control your emotions and think more clearly.
It's also important to be aware of the manipulative nature that comes with trauma dumping. They might use guilt trips, manipulation or make threats to the relationship if you don't listen, to force you to listen to their traumas.
A healthy venting session occurs when the listener supports the person venting by offering supportive responses, empathy for their situation, and actively listens. Someone who engages in venting is aware of the emotional state of the listener.
Emotional dumping happens when someone overshares their thoughts and feelings without consideration for the listener's emotional state. The speaker overwhelms the listener with multiple issues, and they blame other people for their problems.
These are possible signs of trauma dumping: sharing the same story repeatedly or sharing graphic details. constantly interjecting mentions of past trauma into casual conversations. not knowing much about the people you share your story with.
Dissociative amnesia is associated with traumatic events because you may forget or block out a memory from the trauma. For example, if you were sexually assaulted, you may not remember specific details of the assault.
What is trauma dumping? Many people engage in trauma dumping without realizing it, but it isn't necessarily because they are selfish or narcissistic. Judith Orloff, a psychiatrist and author of "The Empath Survival Guide," says these victims of trauma use it as a coping mechanism.
Regardless of the cause, however, symptoms tend to be more alike than different. One of the most notable symptoms for a majority of those affected by PTSD is self-isolation.
As mentioned above, the four types of trauma responses are: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. You may have one or more of them at different times and under different circumstances: The flight response can be defined as getting away from the situation as quickly as possible.
You can be open, honest, and authentic around the people you trust without owing them an apology. If you absolutely feel that you have to say something, try gratitude: Instead of apologizing for yourself, thank your friend for their kindness and patience in listening.
Venting is a 2-way process: the person venting and the person hearing the vent. As a matter of fact, positive venting can reduce stress, but negative venting can lead to heightened stress and physical health concerns. It is not just about the person venting, but equally important, the person who is hearing the vent.
Category I is negative pressure, non-condensing. Category II is negative pressure, condensing. Category III is positive pressure, non-condensing. Category IV is positive pressure, condensing.
There are two distinct categories of attic ventilation systems: active and passive. Active ventilation draws fresh air in from the outside, and stale air is expelled. Attics with passive ventilation rely on the wind and other natural forces to circulate the air.