Get In Touch With Your Spirituality:
Experts say it can keep you healthy.
by Laura Morice
from MSN WomenCentral

Imagine your doctor telling you to say two "Hail Marys" (or another prayer appropriate to your religious upbringing) and call her in the morning. Believe it or not, in today's medical community, that's not as wacky as it sounds. A growing number of mainstream medical practitioners are taking a serious look at the impact a person's faith has on her health. Among the surprising trends: Medical school students are likely to sandwich a theology course between anatomy and physiology, and, in a distinctly New Age manner, surgeons at old-school institutions are inviting clergy into the operating room to pray for patients.

What's causing this change of heart in a profession that's traditionally been all science? "There's a critical mass of research that we can no longer ignore," says Harold Koenig, M.D., director of Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health and author of "A Handbook of Religion and Mental Health." In his book, Dr. Koenig details more than 1,200 studies that examine the relationship between faith and healing." Virtually every one suggests that involvement in a religious community is associated with about a seven-year difference in survival." In terms of longevity, "that makes having religious faith the equivalent of not smoking cigarettes."

One famous study, published in 1988 by Randolph Byrd, M.D., tracked two separate groups of heart attack patients in San Francisco General Hospital's coronary-care unit: One group was prayed for by others (though the patients didn't know it); the other wasn't. Dr. Byrd's results were startling: Patients who weren't mentioned in prayers were nearly twice as likely to suffer health complications as those who were. Still, such studies provoke skepticism from many scientists, so faith researchers are now focusing on how "a person's own religious beliefs and practices impact his or her physical and mental health," explains Koenig.

The perks of prayer may actually be scientific rather than spiritual. A case in point: Activities such as attending worship services slow metabolic and heart rates, easing stress and promoting overall good health. And many devout people tend to lead relatively healthy lives anyway, points out Dale A. Matthews, M.D., a physician in Washington DC, and author of "The Faith Factor." "If you look at a Mormon, an Orthodox Jew or a Fundamentalist Christian, you'll see that they're much less likely to drink, smoke or get divorced," he says. People who belong to a religious community also benefit from a strong support network — and recent research has shown that people with solid interpersonal connections are better off, health-wise. There are even researchers who contend that religious faith creates a so-called placebo effect, in which patients get better simply because they believe they will.

The bottom line? Faith is good for you for a variety of reasons. "Whether it's the healthy lifestyle effect, the placebo effect, the group support or simply that believing in something adds meaning to life, there's just nothing in medicine that can compare," says Dr. Matthews. Amen to that!