When We Swallow Our Feelings: How Suppressing Emotions Disrupts Vata
We talk a lot about emotions around here, especially big ones. How they rise up unexpectedly. How they hijack your ability to stay grounded. How they demand to be seen. But what about the opposite? What happens when we don’t express them at all?
What happens when we swallow our feelings whole?
In Ayurveda, there’s a concept known as pratishyaya, the suppression of natural urges. This includes urges like sneezing, yawning, sleeping, and eating, but also emotional urges. The urge to cry. The instinct to shout. The need to speak your truth. These are all considered natural movements of the physiology, and when we suppress them, especially repeatedly, we interrupt the natural flow of energy through the body.
We create imbalance.
Vata and the Flow of Emotion
Vata is the dosha that governs movement. It rules the nervous system, breath, circulation, and the movement of thoughts and feelings. When Vata is healthy and supported, our emotions flow freely. They rise, they are felt, and they move on. But when we suppress those emotions, we disturb the movement of Vata. Emotions become blocked, and Vata becomes irregular.
That’s when things get noisy. You may begin to feel scattered. Restless. Anxious. Or frozen in place. You might find your thoughts racing or completely shutting down. Over time, this suppression becomes a habit and as the Vata imbalance deepens, the symptoms settle deeper into the body and mind becoming chronic.
The suppression of emotional movement is not just a mental experience. It’s a full-body disruption that, when left unchecked, can manifest in physical dysfunctions across the body.
From the Mind to the Gut: What Research Now Shows
Modern science is finally catching up to what Ayurveda has known all along, that the body and mind are deeply connected. How we feel emotionally doesn’t just affect our mood. It affects how our body functions, especially our gut.
In Ayurveda, the gut is considered the foundation of all health. It's where we digest not just food, but experiences. And when we suppress emotions — when we swallow our truth or bottle up what we feel, it can disrupt digestion on every level.
Recent studies now show that our emotional state is directly linked to the balance of bacteria in our gut. One 2020 study by Lee et al. found that people who had more positive emotions tended to have more diverse and resilient gut bacteria, but only if they had a particular type of microbiome known as Prevotella-dominant. Those with a different gut profile (called Bacteroides-dominant) didn’t show the same benefit.
In other words, the type of bacteria in your gut may affect how your emotions shape your health and vice versa.
Another fascinating study from Ke et al (2023), focused specifically on women, looked at how different emotion regulation styles impact gut health. It found that women who habitually suppressed their emotions had less diverse microbiomes, and their gut bacteria were more likely to be associated with negative emotional states like sadness, stress, or anxiety.
It didn’t stop there. These women also had lower levels of activity in some key biological systems, like energy production and cellular repair. In short: emotional suppression wasn’t just impacting how they felt. It was affecting how their bodies healed, energized, and functioned at a foundational level.
Let’s pause here.
That means when you hold back tears, smile when you want to scream, or keep quiet about what hurts, your body listens. It adapts. It shifts. And if that becomes a pattern, it begins to rewire itself around the suppression.
All of this points back to what Ayurveda teaches: all health begins in the gut, and the gut is deeply influenced by the state of our mind and emotions. When we suppress what we feel, we weaken our agni, our digestive fire. Over time, that leads to confusion in the tissues (dhatus), depletion of our vital energy (ojas), and instability in the nervous system (vata).
The science confirms what the sages already knew: suppressing emotions isn’t just a bad habit, it’s a root cause of imbalance.
The Ayurvedic View: Where Emotions Settle in the Body
Ayurveda teaches us that unresolved emotions don’t just vanish — they accumulate. And depending on the doshic quality of the emotion, they settle in specific parts of the body.
Anxiety, being cold, mobile, and light, belongs to Vata. It builds up in the colon, where Vata resides.
Anger, with its sharp, hot nature, is linked to Pitta. It accumulates in the liver, small intestine, and spleen, the seat of Pitta.
Depression, being heavy, cool, and dull, reflects Kapha. It tends to settle in the lungs and chest, where Kapha governs stability and emotion.
When these areas become congested with unprocessed emotional residue, it disrupts the srotas, the subtle channels through which energy and nourishment flow. Especially affected is the manovaha srotas, the channel of the mind, which is rooted in the heart.
This isn’t just metaphor. In Ayurveda, the heart is seen as the central processing hub for emotional experience. It is home to the ten great vessels that connect mind and body. So when feelings become stuck and stagnant, the heart bears the burden. It’s why we use phrases like “with a heavy heart,” “heartache,” or “a change of heart.”
The language reflects the body’s truth.
Blocked channels in the heart center affect not only our emotional processing, but also circulation, hormonal balance, breath, and perception. If left unaddressed, emotional congestion here circulates throughout the entire body.
Returning to Flow: How to Heal Emotional Suppression
The first step to healing these imbalances is simple but not easy: end what is causing the imbalance and feel your feelings. Create space for emotional truth, not judgment. Honor what arises. Don’t run from it, don’t shame it, and don’t try to logic your way around it. Instead, let yourself move through it.
That might look like:
Crying without apology
Screaming into a pillow
Journaling what you wish you could say out loud
Speaking honestly to someone who hurt you or simply to yourself
After emotional expression comes the sacred work of restoring flow in the body.
Try:
Chetan Asana: A subtle, deeply grounding yoga sequence that reconnects body and mind
Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing): Soothes the nervous system and re-establishes Vata’s rhythm
Vata balancing diet: Warm, nourishing foods, spiced stews, ghee, and sweet, sour, and salty flavors
Soothing your environment: Use gentle lighting, natural textures, calming scents like lavender.
Transcendental Meditation: A reliable technique for integrating body and mind into a state of deep harmony and rest
These practices invite Vata back into rhythm. They tell the body it is safe to flow again.
A Reflection for You
Take a moment. Pause your scroll, your racing thoughts, your next task. Ask yourself gently:
What feelings have I been holding back?
Where do I feel tension in my body that I haven’t named?
What would it look like if I gave that emotion space to move?
Now imagine what might shift if you did.
You don’t have to scream in the forest or spill your secrets on social media. But you do have to listen to your body. To trust that your emotions are messengers, not mistakes. That they are part of your internal wisdom.
The next time you find yourself choking down a feeling or tensing your chest to keep the tears in, ask yourself: What would happen if I just let it move?
Coming Soon: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha in the Mind
In the next post, we’ll explore the unique emotional expressions of each dosha. What it looks like when Vata governs the mind in balance and out of it. How Pitta’s fire can become clarity or rage. How Kapha brings emotional steadiness or emotional heaviness.
We’ll also look at practices to restore emotional balance by working with the doshas, rather than against them.
Because your feelings were never meant to be suppressed. They were meant to move. And through that movement, you return to the most powerful healing force of all:
Our true self.
References
Ke, S., Guimond, A.-J., Tworoger, S. S., Huang, T., Chan, A. T., Liu, Y.-Y., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2023). Gut feelings: Associations of emotions and emotion regulation with the gut microbiome in women. Psychological Medicine, 53(15), 7151–7160. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291723000612
Lee, S.-H., Yoon, S.-H., Jung, Y., Kim, N., Min, U., Chun, J., & Choi, I. (2020). Emotional well-being and gut microbiome profiles by enterotype. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 20736. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77721-y
Chetan Asana
