We tell more lies in January than at any other time of the year, it emerged yesterday.
Fibbing about New Year resolutions, exaggerating how we are doing on diets or detox and how much we drank over the festive period means we wheel out 217 fibs in January.
Lying to take sickies off work as the grim winter takes hold is also a regular occurrence, it emerged and four out of ten of us will make up excuses to get out of socializing in the cold winter evenings.
But despite this nearly half say they regularly get caught out because they are so bad at lying.
The findings were exclusively revealed by Twentieth Century Fox who commissioned a study to mark the release of season three of Lie to Me on DVD.
Money is one of the top things that Brits were likely to lie about with many admitting to hiding how much they spent over Christmas and how much debt there was on the credit card.
A quarter have lied about how much they have spent in the January sales.
While it also revealed that Brits often exaggerate how much fun their Christmas and New Year celebrations were and how many presents they got to make their life sound more exciting that it really is.
A fifth lied about what they actually got up to over New Year pretending they were at swanky parties when they were in fact stuck at home watching TV.
Others reasons that Brits gave for lying were that they were protecting someone’s feelings or that they didn’t want to let people down.
Nearly half have broken New Year’s resolutions and lied about it.
One in six have even lied to their partner about what they got up to at the Christmas party.
Behavioural and body language expert James Borg, who has written three best-selling books on body language, says: "Most people think they’re good at detecting lies, but the truth is that they tend to look in the wrong places for those vital ‘clues’.
"Get the right ones and body language becomes the closest thing you’ll ever get to genuine mind-reading."
He adds: "There is no single behavioural cue to detect any type of deception. No foolproof signs that in isolation can tell us that we’re not being told the truth.
"By watching closely and listening carefully to words - and also the ‘paralanguage’ (how things are said) - the tell-tale signs are there. If you know what to look for"
On a normal month Brits will tell four lies a day whereas in January they tell an average of seven a day.
The research showed that Brits are more likely to lie to their partners than anyone else with their friends and colleagues also likely to bear the brunt of their deceit.
People in London and Northern Ireland were most likely to be guilty of exaggerating how exciting their New Year’s Eve celebrations were and how fun their Christmas was in general whereas those in the Midlands were most likely to lie about how much alcohol they have consumed.
Lie To Me: The Complete Final Season is released on 09 February on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment