The Power of Belief: Surprising Studies on Faith and Health
By Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D.
Do you think you know what makes for good health? A low-fat diet? Exercise? Flu shots? If you left out faith, some scientists say you could be overlooking something important.
Faith means having strong belief systems, whether you're religious or not. Spirituality can be practicing yoga or meditation, or just contemplating nature. An optimistic outlook and the ability to handle stress are qualities needed to prevent depression and to fight back when serious illness strikes.
Modern medicine can treat – and often conquer – disease. But we have yet to understand why some people overcome serious illness against all odds. After decades of research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere, experts have concluded that the mind plays a strong role in healing the body – and that belief can be powerful medicine. “Between 50 to 90 percent of all diseases can be affected by patient belief,” says Herbert Benson, M.D., president of the Mind/Body Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “And, 90 percent of Americans report that their strongest belief is in God.”
A recent conference in Boston revealed that medicine is taking a serious look at the role of “faith” in healing, and some observers call it one of the hottest topics in science today.
Can Faith “Heal?”
The three-day conference, “Spiritu*ality & Healing in Medicine,” sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Mind/Body Medical Institute, brought together 600 leading researchers, psychologists, clergy, physicians and educators active on this research. Their overwhelming conclusion: faith and the human spirit cannot be separated from clinical care and medicine. And they have the data to back it up.
Over the past 10 years, there have been almost 1,500 research studies into the effects of religious involvement or spirituality (prayer or meditation), conducted by a group of researchers affiliated with Harvard, Duke and Yale Universities, studying religious service attendance much in the same way diet and drugs are studied. These studies have found that people who practice a faith have less heart disease, lower blood pressure, fewer strokes, less depression, faster recovery from illness, and may even live longer.
“At least six studies in the past two years have found a relationship between involvement in a religious community and longer survival. Religious beliefs and activities are associated with better mental and physical health in the vast majority of the studies,” reported Harold G. Koenig, M.D., M.H.Sc., founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality and Health at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina.
For example, he says, frequent church attenders were only half as likely as non-attenders to have high levels of interleukin-6 (a blood protein indicative of immune system dysfunction), suggesting they have stronger immune systems. Researchers also find that spirituality or regular attendance at a church, synagogue or mosque helps people better cope with life stresses, provides crucial social supports, promotes a healthier lifestyle, lowers anxiety and encourages optimism. On the other hand, lack of religious involvement (or feeling alienated) has negative effects on health; in one study by Dr. Koenig, those negative effects were equivalent to 40 years of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Females, Faith and Health
“There are exceptions, but most religious organizations have a general philosophical outlook on the importance of taking care of your body because it is a gift from God,” observes William J. Strawbridge, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Human Population Laboratory in Berkeley.
“People who attend religious services regularly but have poor health behaviors, such as smoking or not exercising, are more likely to improve those behaviors over time than those who attend less. People who start out with good health behaviors are more likely to maintain them if they are regular attenders. One reason may be that religious attendance may expose people to messages that discourage smoking and encourage respect for the human body,” says Dr. Strawbridge. And women may be more receptive than men to those messages.
In a study published in the February 2001 Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Dr. Strawbridge found that people who attended religious services were more likely to quit smoking, become more physically active, become less depressed, increase social relationships, and initiate and maintain stable marriages. In the study of 2,600 California residents over nearly 30 years, Dr. Strawbridge noted that women were more likely than men to improve poor health behaviors and mental health. Women may be more involved in religious organizations than men, and may be more in tune with the messages they receive, he says. Women may also use religious organizations for support more often than men and benefit from the social networks they form.
“Clinically – at least what we can see from mortality studies – women benefit from religion more than men,” agrees David Larson, M.D., President of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Maryland. “The survival rate for women of faith with life-threatening illnesses is higher than that of their male counterparts.”
Belief is Strong Medicine
Over the years, Dr. Larson has catalogued many of the clinical findings in the field of “spiritual medicine.” Among them:
The greater their intrinsic “religious” experience, the faster patients recovered from depression.
Patients receiving religiously-oriented psychotherapy showed significantly more rapid improvement in anxiety symptoms than those receiving traditional therapy.
The strength of a patient's religious commitment predicted survival rates after heart surgery.
Heart transplant patients who had strong beliefs, and who participated in religious activities, showed more improved physical functioning.
Elderly women who had the best surgical outcomes after hip fractures were those who found belief in God a strong source of strength and comfort, and who frequently attended religious services. They could also walk farther at discharge than patients who lacked a strong religious commitment.
Mixing Medicine and Spirituality
Medicine has been taking note of these trends. More than half the nation's medical schools are now providing coursework or lectures on the subject, compared to just a handful a few years ago. The venerable American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine have both suggested that doctors review the beliefs of patients with serious illness.
Of course, some scientists do not believe that medicine and spirituality can or should be mixed. But experts note that prayer can be seen as a form of meditation, and meditation has a number of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure. Numerous studies have also shown that optimism and social support can help people recover from serious illness. Dr. Benson believes psycho-spiritual factors are so important that he'd like to rename the much misunderstood placebo effect “Remembered Wellness,” because its powers are so intrinsic to human experience.
“We need to learn how religious attendance may increase survival and improve health,” concludes Dr. Strawbridge. “Discovering exactly how it affects adopting good health
behaviors can help us design strategies to improve public health as a whole, to intervene before illness strikes, and to provide effective self-care treatment when it does.”
Including spirituality in your life
Researchers in mind/body medicine emphasize that faith cannot be applied like a prescription drug. The beneficial influences of religion and spirituality accumulate over a lifetime. But assuming that these factors can only aid good health, here are some ways you might include spirituality in your life:
Try attending religious services (or a spiritual group activity). Participation can be therapeutic, if you believe in it.
If you wish to pray, pray for understanding and acceptance, not specific outcomes. Just feeling connected is better than petitioning for guaranteed results.
In counseling? Find a therapist who can address your soul and as well as your mind and emotions.
Think good thoughts. Optimism and cheerfulness can make a positive difference.
http://www.lupusmn.org/Education/Articles/ThePowerofBeliefSurprisingStudiesonFaithandHealth.htm
This makes sense to me, and shows how religion CAN be a good thing. Too bad that's almost always not the case though.
Any other thoughts?
By Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D.
Do you think you know what makes for good health? A low-fat diet? Exercise? Flu shots? If you left out faith, some scientists say you could be overlooking something important.
Faith means having strong belief systems, whether you're religious or not. Spirituality can be practicing yoga or meditation, or just contemplating nature. An optimistic outlook and the ability to handle stress are qualities needed to prevent depression and to fight back when serious illness strikes.
Modern medicine can treat – and often conquer – disease. But we have yet to understand why some people overcome serious illness against all odds. After decades of research at Harvard Medical School and elsewhere, experts have concluded that the mind plays a strong role in healing the body – and that belief can be powerful medicine. “Between 50 to 90 percent of all diseases can be affected by patient belief,” says Herbert Benson, M.D., president of the Mind/Body Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “And, 90 percent of Americans report that their strongest belief is in God.”
A recent conference in Boston revealed that medicine is taking a serious look at the role of “faith” in healing, and some observers call it one of the hottest topics in science today.
Can Faith “Heal?”
The three-day conference, “Spiritu*ality & Healing in Medicine,” sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Mind/Body Medical Institute, brought together 600 leading researchers, psychologists, clergy, physicians and educators active on this research. Their overwhelming conclusion: faith and the human spirit cannot be separated from clinical care and medicine. And they have the data to back it up.
Over the past 10 years, there have been almost 1,500 research studies into the effects of religious involvement or spirituality (prayer or meditation), conducted by a group of researchers affiliated with Harvard, Duke and Yale Universities, studying religious service attendance much in the same way diet and drugs are studied. These studies have found that people who practice a faith have less heart disease, lower blood pressure, fewer strokes, less depression, faster recovery from illness, and may even live longer.
“At least six studies in the past two years have found a relationship between involvement in a religious community and longer survival. Religious beliefs and activities are associated with better mental and physical health in the vast majority of the studies,” reported Harold G. Koenig, M.D., M.H.Sc., founding director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality and Health at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina.
For example, he says, frequent church attenders were only half as likely as non-attenders to have high levels of interleukin-6 (a blood protein indicative of immune system dysfunction), suggesting they have stronger immune systems. Researchers also find that spirituality or regular attendance at a church, synagogue or mosque helps people better cope with life stresses, provides crucial social supports, promotes a healthier lifestyle, lowers anxiety and encourages optimism. On the other hand, lack of religious involvement (or feeling alienated) has negative effects on health; in one study by Dr. Koenig, those negative effects were equivalent to 40 years of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Females, Faith and Health
“There are exceptions, but most religious organizations have a general philosophical outlook on the importance of taking care of your body because it is a gift from God,” observes William J. Strawbridge, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Human Population Laboratory in Berkeley.
“People who attend religious services regularly but have poor health behaviors, such as smoking or not exercising, are more likely to improve those behaviors over time than those who attend less. People who start out with good health behaviors are more likely to maintain them if they are regular attenders. One reason may be that religious attendance may expose people to messages that discourage smoking and encourage respect for the human body,” says Dr. Strawbridge. And women may be more receptive than men to those messages.
In a study published in the February 2001 Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Dr. Strawbridge found that people who attended religious services were more likely to quit smoking, become more physically active, become less depressed, increase social relationships, and initiate and maintain stable marriages. In the study of 2,600 California residents over nearly 30 years, Dr. Strawbridge noted that women were more likely than men to improve poor health behaviors and mental health. Women may be more involved in religious organizations than men, and may be more in tune with the messages they receive, he says. Women may also use religious organizations for support more often than men and benefit from the social networks they form.
“Clinically – at least what we can see from mortality studies – women benefit from religion more than men,” agrees David Larson, M.D., President of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Maryland. “The survival rate for women of faith with life-threatening illnesses is higher than that of their male counterparts.”
Belief is Strong Medicine
Over the years, Dr. Larson has catalogued many of the clinical findings in the field of “spiritual medicine.” Among them:
The greater their intrinsic “religious” experience, the faster patients recovered from depression.
Patients receiving religiously-oriented psychotherapy showed significantly more rapid improvement in anxiety symptoms than those receiving traditional therapy.
The strength of a patient's religious commitment predicted survival rates after heart surgery.
Heart transplant patients who had strong beliefs, and who participated in religious activities, showed more improved physical functioning.
Elderly women who had the best surgical outcomes after hip fractures were those who found belief in God a strong source of strength and comfort, and who frequently attended religious services. They could also walk farther at discharge than patients who lacked a strong religious commitment.
Mixing Medicine and Spirituality
Medicine has been taking note of these trends. More than half the nation's medical schools are now providing coursework or lectures on the subject, compared to just a handful a few years ago. The venerable American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine have both suggested that doctors review the beliefs of patients with serious illness.
Of course, some scientists do not believe that medicine and spirituality can or should be mixed. But experts note that prayer can be seen as a form of meditation, and meditation has a number of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure. Numerous studies have also shown that optimism and social support can help people recover from serious illness. Dr. Benson believes psycho-spiritual factors are so important that he'd like to rename the much misunderstood placebo effect “Remembered Wellness,” because its powers are so intrinsic to human experience.
“We need to learn how religious attendance may increase survival and improve health,” concludes Dr. Strawbridge. “Discovering exactly how it affects adopting good health
behaviors can help us design strategies to improve public health as a whole, to intervene before illness strikes, and to provide effective self-care treatment when it does.”
Including spirituality in your life
Researchers in mind/body medicine emphasize that faith cannot be applied like a prescription drug. The beneficial influences of religion and spirituality accumulate over a lifetime. But assuming that these factors can only aid good health, here are some ways you might include spirituality in your life:
Try attending religious services (or a spiritual group activity). Participation can be therapeutic, if you believe in it.
If you wish to pray, pray for understanding and acceptance, not specific outcomes. Just feeling connected is better than petitioning for guaranteed results.
In counseling? Find a therapist who can address your soul and as well as your mind and emotions.
Think good thoughts. Optimism and cheerfulness can make a positive difference.
http://www.lupusmn.org/Education/Articles/ThePowerofBeliefSurprisingStudiesonFaithandHealth.htm
This makes sense to me, and shows how religion CAN be a good thing. Too bad that's almost always not the case though.
Any other thoughts?
