Keeping secrets not the best for you

Many people live a "secret life" far from their personalities that they show to others, or they may have desires and secrets that no one knows, but these secrets may be harmful not only psychologically, but also to human health, according to a new study.

Researcher Michael Selebian and colleagues from Columbia University conducted a study that included more than 1,000 people from 29 countries, to determine the effect of keeping secrets on the health of our bodies.

The researchers classified secrets into 38 groups, the most prevalent of which were sexual and emotional secrets, lying, and the desire to commit theft or acts of violence.

The team found that the average person keeps about 13 secrets at a time, according to the British newspaper, The Telegraph.

The researchers asked participants in the study about the impact of those secrets on their health, to find that the same person's focus on his personal secrets negatively affects health.

The researchers explained that the atmosphere surrounding the person who keeps the secret is what affects his health and mood, for example, if a person sits alone, he thinks about his secrets and focuses on them, which leads him to tension or may increase his feelings of guilt or shame, more than those he feels if he surrounded by others.

For a deeper look at secrets and their impact on people, researcher Tom Fregens and his colleagues presented in a second study from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a questionnaire in which 790 adolescents participated, through which they found that those who kept secrets and did not tell anyone, had physical complaints, bad mood and a feeling of loneliness. , older than their peers who shared their secrets with close friends or their parents.