We all know the fundamental elements to keeping ourselves healthy – eat vegetables, walk instead of taking the bus, get a good night’s sleep, and avoid the creamery at all costs. But now researchers are concluding that prayer has an unbelievably powerful effect on overall health, and the evidence to support it is quite spectacular. But is it really true that a prayer a day will keep the doctor away?
In the past couple of classes, Andrew discussed the healing power of prayer. As a class, we ultimately determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove that prayer heals; Leibovici’s conclusion was drawn from chance. But contrary to the consensus view, prayer did shorten hospital stays and the duration of fever, therefore prayer did do something. This may seem insignificant, but it lead me to wonder: maybe prayer cannot prevent mortality or heal chronically sick individuals, but can it increase overall health? Are people who pray generally in better health than those who do not? And I think Leibovici would be happy with the results I’ve found.
Before we can take a look at the effect prayer has on the mind, body, and physical health, we must define the limits (or lack thereof) of prayer. We must assume that prayer is universal in its effects, and therefore regardless of a person’s religion, religious views, or religious affiliations, the effects of prayer remain the same. So maybe a person is praying to a God, or maybe they are praying to the Nittany Lion Shrine; the effects of their worship will be the same. We can assume this because of the impact prayer has on the brain, independent of the type of prayer. According to an article by Richard Schiffman, “Dr. Andrew Newberg conducted a study of Tibetan Buddhists in meditation and Franciscan nuns in prayer which showed comparable decreased activity in the parts of the brain that are associated with sense of self and spatial orientation in both groups”. Newberg also discovered that prayer and meditation increased levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with happiness and pleasure. Although the two groups differ in their practices, their psychological responses were equivalent.
Since the psychological responses to prayer are similar for all worshipers, let’s take a deeper look at how the brain is directly affected. Dr. Herbert Benson uses the term “the relaxation response,” (occurring during times of prayer and meditation) to describe the brains reaction to this mental state. Benson explains that 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 physiological state of worship is “correlated with slower brain waves, and feelings of control, tranquil alertness, and peace of mind”.
But are the effects of prayer temporary, or can we make more out of this “in-the-moment” experience? Research says that we can. An exceedingly large number (Benson argues over 50%) of doctor’s visits in the U.S. today are prompted by stress and anxiety related illnesses such as: depression, high blood pressure, ulcers, and migraine headaches. Therefore, these illnesses cannot only be prevented by prayer and cured by prayer, but prayer can also decrease your risk of developing them again. Various other studies also conclude the positive impact prayer can have on your health, and these impacts are lasting. Here are a couple of powerful experiments Schiffman discusses to prove that prayer truly improves health now, and for the future.
- “National Institutes of Health found individuals who prayed daily were shown to be 40 percent less likely to have high blood pressure than those without a regular prayer practice”
- “Research at Dartmouth Medical School found that patients with strong religious beliefs who underwent elective heart surgery were three times more likely to recover than those who were less religious”
- “A 2011 study of inner city youth with asthma by researchers at the University of Cincinnati indicates that those who practiced prayer and meditation experienced fewer and less severe symptoms than those who had not”
- “A recent survey reported in the Journal of Gerontology of 4,000 senior citizens in Durham, NC, found that people who prayed or meditated coped better with illness and lived longer than those who did not”
So are people who pray healthier than those who do not? Well, that really depends on the health of those who do not pray, and that alone is contributed to several other factors (smoking and drinking habits, diet, amount of sleep, hereditary issues ,etc.). But in class, Andrew stated that if prayer really does have a healing effect, other studies will find it. Have these studies I mentioned found it, or are we drawn to the conclusion of “Leibovici’s chance”? Well they have found that prayer does something, so I’ll let you decide.
The one thing that I keep wondering when reading about the effects of prayer on health is if a third variable is involved. I wonder if religious people tend to be healthier because many religions frown on overindulgence of alcohol, food and drugs. So, I actually researched the idea that religious people tend to be healthier and also tend to prayer more. I found an interesting article investigating this vary idea. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201212/are-religious-people-healthier This researcher found that common religious activities such as going to church and creating purpose in life serve to decrease stress. Further suggesting that the the key to healthier people is not in prayer, rather in the other activities that are common with religious people. I think this idea is interesting because it goes along with what we discussed in class that correlation does not mean causation.
Being that we had been discussing prayer and healing in class, it got me thinking and pondering on the subject. I enjoyed reading this blog because it furthered my understanding and appreciation for the topic. Although you did briefly mention depression and dopamine, this article was mainly based on physiological illnesses and symptoms. Your brief mentioning led me to do some research about the effect of prayer on mental illness. I discovered this article which centers around a survey study conducted at Baylor University titled, “Prayer, Attachment to God, and Symptoms of Anxiety-Related Disorders among U.S. Adults”. The study focused on the different attachments people hold to God, and their outcomes. A comfort and strength attachment, compared to an insecure and avoidant attachment. Findings showed that people who pray with faith and hope in a positive outcome are less likely to experience OCD, stress, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and fear- in comparison to those who pray but do not believe in an outcome. Aside from the Baylor study this article also includes research from Columbia and Oregon university. I highly suggest reading through it.
Hi Emily,
This was an incredibly interesting, well-written, and explained article. I was really interested in how you explained that prayer and worship has a lot to do with mental health, instead of the prayer “working” for the benefit of the person through a higher power making it so. I believe this is true, that prayer and worship can really benefit a person by mentally helping them feel at ease, hopeful, calm, and peaceful. Even if a higher power is not actively doing something to “help” that person, I believe prayer still “helps” in that way, a cognitive way, that the person is actually helping themselves by praying. Prayer is all about putting your trust and faith into something, and that is good and helpful for some people, and can give a lot of people hope in rather dark times. I believe prayer does do “something,” and your article explains that really well. Check out this article I found on how prayer can help reduce stress. Here is another article I found how prayer can help reduce depression! Great article.
-Claire
A very interesting topic! I like how you expanded on something we discussed in class. I wanted to use your research as a basis and deeper explore this correlation between prayer and health. Thus, I decided to broaden the focus of this research and explore the connection between religion in general and prayer. I wanted to know if engaging in a variety of religious activities, not exclusively prayer, has any effect on health. I found an interesting study (link below) which involved a meta-analysis of several studies examining this relationship. The analysis found that “religious intervention… may improve success rates of in vitro fertilization, decrease length of hospital stay and duration of fever in septic patients, increase immune function, improve rheumatoid arthritis, and reduce anxiety.” Five of the studies included in this meta-analysis were randomized controlled trials, thus rendering the conclusion of this study more valid. The results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that there is a correlation between religious activity and health. Of course, this correlation could be due to confounding variables, however, people should continue to engage in religious activities for their own spiritual well-being and possibly for their physical health.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830705001424
The live link doesn’t appear to be working. To the graders and the author, here is the best link I can give.
http://www.antiochian.org/morelli/the-ethos-of-orthodox-christian-healing
I have always been interested in the scientific aspect of this topic. As a religious Orthodox Christian, I am under the impression that prayer does heal, as some of your cited sources agree with. One thing I thought was necessary for your article that you incorporated that praying to any denomination of any religion (or even certain shrines) counts as prayer because the mental process is the same. Check out this article on Orthodox prayer if you’d like.
I thought this blog post and topic was really interesting, but I think you were definitely right at the end of the post where you mentioned keep various third variables in mind. If you were to ever write a follow-up article or something, I would definitely look at the way each of the studies were done and compare and contrast the patients and the methods to see the similarities and differences to better determine how much of an effect those third variables have.
I really enjoyed how you expanded on the topic of prayer from what we had discussed in class. I agree with the idea that times of prayer and meditation relax the body, but like always, evidence needs to be shown in order to determine anything and you did just that. The list of lasting health improvements due to prayer are all incredibly interesting correlational observations. I wonder what the mechanisms are in each case that would allow such results. Newborn cited increased levels of dopamine as a potential mechanism, causing me to wonder if this neurotransmitter has any effect on the listed experiments or if something completely different is involved.