LYING LESS IS LINKED TO BETTER HEALTH

STUDY FINDS THAT AVOIDING LIES
CAN IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH

www.usatoday.com - Honesty may boost your health, suggests a study that found telling fewer lies benefits people physically and mentally.  Each week for 10 weeks, 110 individuals, ages 18-71, took a lie detector test and completed health and relationship measures assessing the number of major and minor lies they told that week, says lead author Anita Kelly, a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She presented findings at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, which ended Sunday. “When they went up in their lies, their health went down,” says Kelly. “When their lies went down, their health improved.” “It's certainly a worthy goal to have people be more honest and more genuine and interact with others in a more honest way,” says psychologist Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “That would be ultimately beneficial. I'm a little skeptical that it makes us all healthier, but it may make us healthier in a psychological way.”

Researchers instructed half the participants to “refrain from telling any lies for any reason to anyone. You may omit truths, refuse to answer questions, and keep secrets, but you cannot say anything that you know to be false.” The other half received no such instructions. The link between less lying and improved health was significantly stronger for participants in the no-lie group, the study found.  When participants in the no-lie group told three fewer minor lies than they did in other weeks, for example, they experienced, on average, four fewer mental-health complaints and three fewer physical complaints. 
Mental health complaints included feeling tense or melancholy; physical complaints included sore throats and headaches. Evidence from past research suggests that Americans average about 11 lies a week. Kelly says the no-lie group participants were down to one lie, on average, per week. For both groups, when participants lied less in a given week, they reported their physical health and mental health to be significantly better that week.

A new study shows that honest interactions can be beneficial to one's health. Being honest may actually improve your health suggests the study that found that telling fewer lies benefits people physically and mentally. Researchers found that participants could purposefully reduce their everyday lies, and that in turn was associated with improved health. A devotee is called "satām", honest, truthful, we have to avoid lying. This is fundamental to spiritual life.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

One practising surrender, while observing this last stage is thoroughly convinced of all his inabilities and shortcomings. ... He weeps continuously before the Lord. This qualification of surrender is thus explained by a great saint in one of his devotional songs: "My life is ever given to the commitment of sins. There is not even an iota of piety in it. There is no estimate of my misdeeds towards others. I have wounded their feelings often times. I was an object of regular worry to others and have given them considerable pains. I was never afraid of committing the worst of sins for my own comforts. I was ever unkind and selfish in my attitude. It was a regular torture to me to see others in happy circumstances. I freely spoke lies and it was a pleasure to me to see others in sufferings. My heart was a repository of all evil desires. I was always given to anger and pride. Infatuated by worldliness, I was full of all the various vanities. Malice and pride were my ornaments which I frequently wore."

Śrīla Bhakti Vaibhava Purī Mahārāj:
“Guru and Atma Nivedan” - ‘Prayers With Repentance’
Bhakti Vigyan Nityananda Book Trust
Śrī Krishna Chaitanya Mission - http://srilapurimaharaja.org/
http://www.purimaharaj.com/GuruMaharaj.htm

Published by dasavatara das - "Vedic Views on World News"
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/