Tell The Truth To Boost Your Health!

We all know that telling truth is good. It is one of the beliefs and agreements that is installed in us in the process of domestication into society as we are growing up. 

However, we are not free from lies and there is a huge amount of research done about lying and experts suggest that about 60 % of us have a hard time getting through a ten minute conversation without lying at least twice.

 It does not mean that we are a society of vicious liars. The lies can be about little things such as why we were late, exaggerating or even lies with the good intention of not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings. 

Well, we all have been there haven’t we? Let’s be honest. 

Studies have shown that telling lies requires our brain to work harder, creates psychosomatic stress and negatively impacts our immune system. 

There is however growing interest in the scientific world in what happens to us when we tell the truth. Recent studies show that sincerity and honesty are actually a key to good health. 

In a project called The Science of Honesty, researchers found that people who for five weeks were advised to ‘speak honestly, truthfully, and sincerely- not only about the big things, but also about the small things’ at the end of the study were in much better health than the control group. The most significant changes were reported in fewer sore throats, headaches, and nausea. Participants also reported fewer mental health complaints such feeling tense or melancholic. 

Just to give an example from this particular study, when participants in the honesty group told three fewer white lies than they did the other week, they experienced on average about four fewer mental health complaints, such as feeling tense or melancholic, and about three fewer physical complaints such sore throats and headaches. In contrast, when the members of the control group told three fewer white lies, they experienced only two fewer mental health related complaints and about one less physical complaint. Similar results were observed in case of bigger lies. 

People who tell the truth and mean what they say have also reported improvements in their social interactions and relationships and overall state of things in life, which as a consequence led to less stress and improved physical health. 

Another very important thing to consider is being honest with ourselves. It is essential in building confidence, integrity and self-awareness. There is more study done than ever now into how our thoughts and words create our reality. We can use them to create the reality that we want but we can also fall into the trap of telling ourselves lies about ourselves. These can be agreements that we made with ourselves as children or when someone told us something that wasn’t true but we accepted it as such and keep telling it ourselves. 

For example, because someone in the playground told us years ago that we are ugly not because it was true but because they had some anger to release or wanted to show off in front of their friends, we can still keep telling ourselves that lie even years later. This can affect our confidence, self-esteem, add to our stress and level of happiness that we experience. 

If you would like to learn more, there is a book by Don Miguel Ruiz, ‘The Four Agreements’, that talks a lot more about the agreements that we make throughout our lives and how that can impact our wellbeing and overall happiness. 

 

As always if you would like to learn more interesting stuff about health and wellbeing speak to us, book with us and keep checking our website for more interesting information that can help you be the optimal version of you.