02/14/2026
I’ve been telling y’all in every visit!!!!! Tend your own flame, mamas!!!!!!!
Ladies, whatever it is you’re feeling LET IT OUT!!! Suppressing emotions, particularly anger and frustration, acts as a chronic stressor that triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, leading to sustained high levels of cortisol and adrenaline. In women, this habitual “self-silencing” causes immune dysregulation and chronic inflammation, where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues, contributing to autoimmune conditions.
To elaborate, suppression triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, causing chronic elevation of cortisol. While cortisol is normally anti-inflammatory, its long-term elevation can actually lead to “cortisol resistance”, where immune cells no longer respond to its inhibitory signals, resulting in persistent systemic inflammation.
Chronic emotional repression is also linked to increased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines which are messengers that can mistakenly signal the immune system to attack the body’s own healthy tissues. Research shows when anger is turned inward (repressed), it can disarm the body’s natural defenses and induce the immune system to “mutiny” against the self.
Constant suppression also prevents the nervous system from returning to a parasympathetic “rest and digest” state. This lack of recovery time can cause the immune system to overreact or eventually “collapse”, common in conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Hashimoto’s.
Women are disproportionately affected with women accounting for 80% of all autoimmune diagnoses because:
📑Hormonal Interactions: Estrogen and progesterone can amplify the physiological impact of chronic stress, making women more sensitive to the inflammatory effects of suppressed emotions.
📑Internalization vs Externalization: Social conditions often leads women to internalize stress (self-silencing), where men are more often socialized to externalize it.
📑Societal Expectations: Roles as primary caregivers often force women to prioritize others’ needs over their own, leading to “caregiver syndrome” and the habitual suppression of personal frustration or rage.
PMID: 24943894, 32542149