We have been discussing in class if prayer heals and I am not completely sold on the whole thing nor am I completely against the idea. I think that if prayer is what you want to do then you should because it gives you something to hold on to. I was doing some more research into what praying can do for you physically and I came across a very informative article in The Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-schiffman/why-people-who-pray-are-heathier_b_1197313.html

The article states that, “Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiovascular specialist at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer in the field of mind/ body medicine discovered what he calls “the relaxation response,” which occurs during periods of prayer and meditation. At such times, the body’s metabolism decreases, the heart rate slows, blood pressure goes down, and our breath becomes calmer and more regular.” This reaction can create a sense of control and a feeling of relaxation because the brain waves slow down.

Because of the relaxation felt, this can decrease headaches and stress which can contribute to your chances of being less likely to get an illness. This conclusion is stating that prayer can promote physical health and decrease the chances of getting sick. I think this is an interesting, different side to what we are looking at because this is stating that prayer can prevent sickness which helps convince me that prayer can also help someone who is sick, heal faster.

The only other issue on the subject of if prayer heals or makes you better off physically, is that there could be another factor that is not being looked at. What if people who pray do this because they are physically well, rather than the reversal? I could not find any answer to this question but I definitely think it is an important question to ask. I think an observational experiment of asking people who are physically well versus not well if they pray could show us if there is a correlation the other way around. In class we could also discuss if people who have a better health history are the ones praying versus those who have a bad health history are not praying. I think that this could really change the ball game of our discussions.