People who never attend church or religious services appear nearly twice as likely to die early as those who attend regularly. A study of nearly 4,000 elderly North Carolina residents found that people attending religious services at least one time per week were more than 25 percent less likely to die early than were non-attendees – taking age, race, health, and social factors into account.
Other studies have found that attending church services and cultural events such as concerts, museums, and art galleries are beneficial in extending life. People who volunteer their time (for a particular agency or cause, for example) in addition to regularly attending religious services were even more likely to experience longevity.
It's not necessarily "attending" that keeps you living longer; rather it could be the social contacts gained from church attendance that makes the difference. Frequent church attendees have almost three times as many social support contacts than do non-attendees. People closely connected with a church have a greater number of friends to call upon for help. They also have more frequent contact with those friends in person or by telephone.
Personal Spirituality Has Effect
Researchers have found that healthy seniors who participate in private religious activity have an advantage when it comes to survival. Meditation, prayer, and other forms of spirituality have been associated with decreased mortality from heart and other diseases. Prayer, Bible study, meditation, and other forms of spiritual activity have been found to lower blood pressure. Interestingly, those who tune into religious programming on television or radio have higher blood pressure.
A number of studies have found positive medical benefits to meditation – possibly due to the body's reaction to reduced excretion of stress hormones, decreased heart rate and blood pressure, reduced oxygen consumption, and even changes in brain wave activity. Prayer appears to have similar benefits to Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness meditation, and chanting.
Some medical experts warn against the danger of believing that prayer or religious piety can protect against all disease and death, citing the fact that both spiritual and non-spiritual people become ill and die. If someone believes good health depends on prayer or spirituality, there might be a tendency to blame themselves or others for not being spiritual enough when dealing with sickness or facing death. |
