by Conscious Reminder
Most of us, if not all, have engaged in some kind of lies. Be it a white lie or a really bad one, lying is generally seen as wrong, and rightly so.
But now, if you don’t only consider the ethical part of it and look deeper under the surface, you can find out that lying is worse than just a moral question.
A recent study by Kelly Stroh, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and psychologist shows that lying can, in fact, harm your physical and mental well-being as well.
On average, people say about 11 lies in a week, which can be rounded in 1-2 lies every day. Professor Kelly studied 110 healthy individuals and spent about 10 weeks with them.
To one half of the group, she told to refrain from lying which also meant not omitting information, not dodging difficult questions, and no falsehood. The other group could lie but they were to report back every week.
After the process, there would be a lie-detector test and a proper questionnaire set out to show how they feel and give an insight into their health. It showed that the group which lied less was healthier than the other.
Also, by dictating that people shouldn’t lie, those people actually gave in an effort to not lie and therefore a lot fewer lies were told. Lying resulted in their health going down quite a lot.
The study has also shown that if a person said small lies, even that resulted in mental health issues, though it was fewer than those who lied a lot.
This comparative analysis shows that the truth will help in improving relationships as well. It has already been proven that better physical and mental health results in stronger relationships.
The health issues with lying have not been found yet but it could result in increased release of cortisol (the stress hormone), heart rate increase, and shooting up of blood pressure.
Stress will affect the immune system and their germ-fighting ability and cause menstrual problems, headaches, infertility and thus, compounding into heavy diseases.
You have probably felt the problem of it when you were formulating a lie for your employee or partner. It feels like a tension burdening on your shoulder, inside the stomach, and other areas of the body.
Plus, this lying can result in major health problems in the future too, which would be costly to treat. So, we should try to keep this negative energy away from our body. But then, is not lying realistic? It’s hard to not lie but you can cut it down. Most participants were capable of keeping it down to about 1 lie per week.
Of course, not lying does not mean telling brutal truths. It could mean focussing on actions and telling partial truths, indicating the real truth. For instance, if someone did not like their partner’s hair, they could say ‘I like how your face looks.’ So, that way, the indication is made without engaging in falsehood.
So, maybe we should act on cutting down our lies as well. Being around honest people helps to influence that. So, be with truthful people and limit your lying to be happy and healthy.
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