How Lying Can Impact Your Mental Health

We’ve all found ourselves tempted to lie at one point or another. Maybe it’s to avoid the consequences of your actions. Perhaps it’s to feel better about yourself. Whatever the reason you have for lying, it is important to know that lies can impact your health a lot more than you would think. They can increase your stress levels, negatively impact your self-esteem, and destroy your relationships.

How Lies Can Impact Your Mental Health

We all know that we shouldn’t lie. It is hammered into us from a young age and continues to be emphasized as we grow. However, the most common reason we are told to stop lying is simply for moral reasons. Lying isn’t just immoral, though. It can be detrimental to your mental health and wellbeing, as well. A few ways lying can impact your mental health include the following:

Increased Stress

Stress has been linked to a significant amount of ailments and illnesses, such as anxiety, depression, headaches, heart disease, weight gain, sleep problems, stomach issues, and more. With so many physical and mental health issues linked to stress, it becomes clear that we all want to do what we can to avoid it, right?

When you lie, you may find yourself feeling stressed as you work to maintain credibility throughout your story. Lying requires you to remember your lie, can force you to lie more, and to worry about the potential of being found out.

Sure, lying can sometimes help you avoid trouble, but it can be hard to justify all the stress that tends to come with it.

Lowered Self-Esteem

Your self-esteem plays a significant role in your mental health and overall quality of life. It affects how you see yourself and the confidence you are able to maintain.

When you lie, your opinion of yourself will begin to dwindle. It can be hard to maintain a high opinion of yourself when you are being dishonest.

Many of us see honesty as an important virtue in a person. When we know that we are not maintaining that virtue ourselves, it can be easy to see ourselves in a darker light, destroying our self-esteem.

Damage to Your Social Health

One of the most obvious impacts lying can have on your mental health includes its effects on your social health. Your social health plays a critical role in your overall wellbeing, helping you maintain happy relationships, engage in productive and healthy social behaviors, and live a high-quality life.

Lying can be damaging to your social behaviors and your interpersonal relationships. When you are lying, you may find yourself acting defensively, engaging in toxic behaviors, and distancing yourself from the person or people you are lying to.

Your behaviors and the broken trust caused by lying can also negatively impact your interpersonal relationships, causing a dip in your quality of social health.

We Are Here to Help

One little white lie can turn into a tangled web of mistruths and toxic lying behaviors. Have you found yourself lying more often than you’d like, or that your health has been impacted by a lie? Counseling may be just what you need to begin feeling better. Our professional and compassionate therapists are here for you. Contact us today.

References

https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/health

Keywords: lying, stress, anxiety, counseling