Does religion affect health?
Does religion affect health?
Many doctors, professors, and clergy claim that religious involvement promotes
greater well-being
greater happiness
healthier lifestyles
better mental health
greater social support
better physical health
faster recovery from illness.
This claim about religious beliefs and practices was made at the beginning of a documentary film I saw recently on PBS-TV, entitled, Your Health: A Sacred Matter. I found the film intriguing on the whole, as I’m always interested in learning more about the relation between spirituality and health, but it raised questions in my mind. It especially made me wonder what kind of religious involvement promotes health. Do all religious beliefs and practices have beneficial effects on health, I wondered, or can some actually be harmful?
Finding a love connection
Several doctors who spoke in the film saw medicine as a calling. They were learning to integrate the whole-person model of care, they explained, making deliberate efforts to be open and to pay attention to clues their patients gave about the struggles they were facing.
Some of these doctors found, they said, that the discontent that leads to burnout for many primary-care physicians is heavily influenced by not finding meaning in their work. They need to feel a “love connection” with their patients, and they rarely find that connection. I wonder if that’s also true of people in other service-oriented occupations such as social workers, therapists, and even pastors. I suspect that it is.
The last taboo
One doctor observed, however, that talking with patients about their spiritual lives was typically seen as the last taboo for doctors; they found that they could talk to patients about sex and other intimate aspects of their lives easier than they could talk about spirituality.
When a physician felt uncomfortable with such talk or unable to do it, the film suggested, he or she should refer patients to clergy or chaplains, who are trained and who have the necessary time to address religious and spiritual problems. Chaplains’ goal, the film explained, is to bring comfort and reassurance, which is best done when a relationship of trust can be established with the patient. The film showed a chaplain doing this. She did it especially through asking questions such as “what are you worried about?”
Helpful and unhelpful clergy
This presentation of chaplains was interesting to me because it was different from my experience. Fortunately my times in the hospital have never been for life-threatening illnesses, so I wasn’t worried about their outcome or about anything else that was happening in my life at the time. But the chaplains and other clergy who have visited me in the hospital didn’t ever try to learn that. Instead, they mostly just asked to pray at my bedside, which I found awkward rather than helpful. Once, I remember, a chaplain was simply going from bed to bed in the surgery-preparation area and praying aloud for each patient although he knew nothing about them. His prayers were mere platitudes, which I found intrusive and meaningless, although a patient who unlike me was facing surgery that was a matter of life and death may have felt very differently.
Thinking about the film’s presentation of chaplains and its relation to my experience made me rethink my impressions of clergy. It reminded me that when I’ve felt that pastors influenced my health, it has been through personal friendship and conversations that let me know they knew and cared about me as an individual. It has never been through standardized prayers that merely affirm religious doctrines.
The Bible’s miracle of choice
The film’s speakers pointed out that the New Testament says a lot about sick people who come to Jesus and are healed. Healing, it seems, is the “miracle of choice” in the Bible.
In the 16th century, several speakers observed, medicine’s focus became explaining what caused disease. With the scientific revolution, the source of illness came to be recognized as microorganisms, not moral failure to which disease had typically been attributed in earlier centuries. Later centuries then brought a new focus on meditative practices, many of which originally came from Eastern religions. Research showed that people experienced dramatic changes in their bodies when meditating. There was a “mind effect” that showed up in physical ways.
What difference does religious involvement make?
Amazingly, the film pointed out, 60 to 90% of visits to doctors are for stress-related disorders. Patients therefore can often be helped by finding what evokes a relaxation response. This often can come from millennium-old practices such as yoga or tai chi. Apparently there is a direct link between the mind, the body, and spiritual health, and that link has been scientifically proven. Meditative practices, it seems, activate areas of the brain that control emotions, thought, and behavior. Research shows, the film’s speakers claimed, that religious involvement helps people cope with psychological, social, and physical stressors.
Especially surprising to me was a speaker’s claim that a great longevity benefit comes from regular attendance at religious services; this speaker said that people who attend religious services once a week or more will live on average 8 years longer. Also, she reported, more than 300 studies have shown that religious people are significantly happier than those who are not religious.
What kind of religious involvement?
As I watched this film, I kept wondering if the nature of the religious services that a person attended, and of the person’s reaction to them, made a difference in the health effect of the person’s attendance. If I attend a boring religious service once a week for a long time, will that have a positive influence on my health, or does such an influence come only from attending services that I find inspiring? Will thought-provoking content affect my health in desirable ways? What about attending services that present theological perspectives very different from mine? If I have a so-called progressive understanding of Christianity but can attend only conservative, traditionalist worship services, will their effect on my health be beneficial, worthless, or even harmful? If I get angry whenever I attend my church’s worship services, because of what I hear there, what kind of effect is that likely to have on my health?
I strongly feel that thinking about the religious services we attend is important. Merely occupying a pew and going through all the expected motions in a worship service without giving thought to the service’s content is essentially pointless, in my opinion. I think it’s important to analyze and even question what one hears.
Maybe going through the motions mindlessly can have the relaxing meditative effect that relieves stress. Maybe thinking about the content can be an unhelpful distraction, but I doubt that.
Does quality or style matter?
Also, does the quality of a religious event’s execution influence its effect on attenders’ health? Is hearing a stumbling pianist every Sunday as effective as hearing a top-quality choir or instrumentalist? What about the style? Does hearing hymns sung in country-western style have a favorable effect on the health of a lover of Bach or Messiaen? Should I just mentally tune out the music that grates on my ears in a worship service? Will I still get a health benefit if I do that? I doubt it, but maybe I’m wrong.
I reached the end of the film without being sure what I thought about religion’s relation to health. I’m still thinking about it. And maybe that was the most important thing for the film to accomplish.
How do you answer these questions: Do you believe all religious beliefs and practices have beneficial effects on health, or can some actually be harmful?
Have you ever been angry because of attending your church’s worship services, and have you ever thought about what kind of effect that is likely to have on your health?
Comment below or send me an email and let’s start a conversation on this topic.