What harm you bring Secrets and How to Avoid It

Slepyan Michael (Michael Slepian) - business school professor at Columbia University who studies the psychology of secrets, trust and deception. And he sureThat keeping secrets is associated with increased anxiety, depression, poor health, and even with accelerated disease progression.

Why keep secrets harmful

It would seem that there is a reasonable explanation: hard to hide the truth. You need to constantly keep track of what you say. When asked about the secret associated with, you have to be careful not to puncture. Sometimes - to evade an answer, or even cheating. Constant vigilance and secrecy exhausting.

However, a recentThe experience of secrecy Michael's research showed that, in fact, harm does not itself need to hide something. Much worse is that we have to live with this secret, and constantly thinking about it.

We have a stable idea of ​​a secret: usually it is a conversation between two people in which one is actively trying to hide something from the other. In reality, this seldom happens.

Much more often we only endlessly ponder its mysteries.

They take up all of our thoughts, and that is what really hinders enjoy life. Return again and again to the fact that no one should know very tiring, and it makesThe Solitude of Secrecy: Thinking About Secrets Evokes Goal Conflict and Feelings of Fatigue a person feel lonely.

To better understand the harm caused by stealth, Michael Slepyan with other researchers decided to find out what people are kept secret, and how often they have to do it. They found that 97% of people are constantly hiding at least one fact, and on average each of the 13.

Poll, Which was attended by more than 5000 people showed that people generally want to hide personal preferences, desires, problems in relationships and sex, cheating, treason and that could undermine their credibility.

Michael and his colleagues also asked participants to rate how often they had to actively hide their secret conversations, and how often they thought about it outside of any social interaction.

So he saw the connection: the more people simply think about their secrets, the worse they feel. A frequency itself hiding the well-being not affected.

How to help yourself in a similar situation

The researchers studiedConfiding Secrets and Well-BeingThat occurs when a person tells his secret to another. They both still have to keep quiet about it when speaking with those who remained in the dark. However, in the rest of the time to think about it, they will be much less.

Disclosure of secrets is a sense of relief. But in itself this is not enough, really useful subsequent conversation. When a person shares a secret with others, he usually gets in an emotional response support, Tips and help. It makes you feel more confident and helps to cope with the load that had to hide.

Normal conversation can get a look at a new problem. And when man is able to sensibly take a look at what torments him, he thinks less about it and thereby improve their own health. That is why it is important to share with loved ones.