3 Ways Honesty Can Improve Your Health
Honesty is a trait that is highly valued in society. As children, we are taught to avoid lying, but we also learn to lie. We learn that certain lies can have interesting benefits and that we are rarely caught when we lie, which ultimately makes them good alternatives.
To be honest is not to commit “sincere suicide” or to go through life and throw out the truth without filters. Sometimes the purpose is not really to tell the truth, but to use honesty as an aggressive or vain act, or simply to vent anger that is justified by the banner of honesty.
But as a rule of thumb, honesty is not only a great virtue, but can also offer great benefits. Our relationships with other people will improve significantly when we are honest. We also receive honesty in return, which avoids misunderstandings. But on top of all this , honesty also has a positive impact on our health. Below we will present three reasons that support this statement.
A study conducted by psychologist Robert S. Feldman at the University of Massachusetts revealed that people lie around once every ten minutes of conversation. He also concluded that the main reason why people lie is to appear friendlier or more competent than they really are. In other words, they want the friendship or admiration of others.
Based on this study, other experts have suggested that these types of lies fulfill the role of obscuring reality for certain individuals. The reason is that people deep down see their lives and ways of being as uninteresting and unworthy of other people’s recognition.
The interesting thing about all this is that authenticity is one of the most valued and admired traits. This means that the more sincere a person is when he talks about himself and his way of being, the more likely he is to win other people’s sympathy and admiration. All this contributes to strengthened self-esteem, which fuels the bike: more sincerity, more acceptance and strengthened self-esteem.
The problem with lying is that it puts you in an endless circle of lies. For example, if you tell someone you’re a rock star, you’ll have to come up with a thousand and one lies to make the first one credible. For people who lie, the worst thing that can happen is that they get caught.
So they not only have to have a good imagination, but also have to spend a lot of time keeping the story credible so that they do not get caught up in lying. This means that they must have a good memory so as not to contradict themselves.
This requires a great deal of emotional effort which sooner or later manifests itself in the form of stress and anxiety. They must be on the alert so that they do not appear confused, which only increases the tension.
When you are honest, you must never carry so much weight. You do not have to invent explanations or spend time giving your story extra spice in the form of details that make it believable. This allows you to be more relaxed and act more naturally. You do not waste your emotional energy, and can instead use it for more important things.
Dr. Anita E. Kelly – Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame and Head of the Templeton Foundation – conducted a study to examine the effects that honesty has on health.
To do so, she found 72 volunteers and divided them into two groups. One group was instructed to be completely honest in all their conversations, while the other group received no instructions on honesty. The group that had to be honest was not allowed to lie about anything, not even seemingly small or trivial things. The study lasted for five weeks.
During the study, the health of both groups was monitored at the same time as polygraph tests were performed every week. When the experiment was over, they saw a clear difference in health between the people who were honest and the people who lied.
The former showed minor headaches, sore throats, nausea and dizziness, while the latter showed no changes in these symptoms.
The results were so encouraging that even the researcher decided to be completely honest the following winter. She noted that she did not need as many hours of sleep to feel rested and that she did not suffer from colds anymore, which previously always affected her in cold weather.
