spiritual support

For thousands of years, prayer was the only “therapy” available to the vast majority, and only in the last century has scientific medicine superceded it as the primary means of dealing with injuries and illness. But in the last few years, doctors have been investigating the health benefits of prayer again, and have made some remarkable findings.

A large number of studies have found that prayer can relieve pain, speed the healing of injuries, and help with the recovery from disease. There are several scientific explanations for these observations, generally of the mind over body type; one is that prayer has effects on the body similar to those of meditation, which it resembles, by inducing a relaxation reaction that lowers heart rate, releases beneficial hormones and neurotransmitters and has many other benefits; another is that it works something like the placebo affect-- in other words, if a person deeply, truly believes that it will help, then it will help.

The worldview of a truly religious person probably has benefits in itself, by giving the person a single, clear framework within which to explain, understand and cope with life, which probably means less worry and stress.

Much more difficult to explain scientifically is the fact that some of these studies have also shown that praying for other people’s health also seems to work to a significant degree, even when the person being prayed for is not aware of it. Of course, not everyone is a “believer” in a particular religion, but the benefits of spirituality are accessible even to the most skeptical, through the introduction of a measure of spiritual activity such as prayer, not necessarily addressed to a divine being but simply as a routine way of sorting out deep thoughts, feelings and needs, or meditation into their everyday lives.

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