Spirituality and Your Well-Being

YOU likely spend much of your time caring for your physical health. Each day, you may invest up to eight hours in sleeping, several hours in cooking and eating, and eight hours or more in working to pay for a place to sleep and food to eat. If you become ill, you probably spend time and money to see a medical professional or to prepare a traditional remedy. You clean, bathe, and may even exercise regularly, all in the interests of good health.

Maintaining good health, however, involves more than just caring for your physical needs. There is something else that plays a powerful role in your well-being. Medical research has shown that your physical health is closely linked with your spiritual health​—your spirituality or the lack of it.

A Positive Link

“Most original research articles on the topic have found positive associations between increased spirituality and better health outcomes,” says Professor Hedley G. Peach of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Commenting on these findings, The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) states: “Religiosity has also been associated with . . . lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol . . . and even lower risk for colon cancer.”

 Similarly, in the United States, a 2002 study of 6,545 people conducted by University of California (UC), Berkeley, found that “people who attended religious services once a week had significantly lower risks of death compared with those who attended less frequently or never.” Doug Oman, lead author of the study and a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said: “We found this difference even after adjusting for factors such as social connections and health behaviors, including smoking and exercising.”

Identifying other benefits for those who have a spiritual outlook on life, MJA says: “Australian studies have found greater marital stability, less alcohol and illicit drug use, lower rates of and more negative attitudes toward suicide, less anxiety and depression, and greater altruism among the religious.” In addition, BMJ (The British Medical Journal) reports: “People who profess stronger spiritual beliefs seem to resolve their grief more rapidly and completely after the death of a close person than do people with no spiritual beliefs.”

There are various thoughts about what genuine spirituality is. Yet, your spiritual condition does have an impact on your physical and mental health. This evidence is in harmony with a statement made by Jesus Christ nearly 2,000 years ago. He said: “Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need.” (Matthew 5:3) Since your health and happiness are influenced by your spiritual condition, it makes sense to ask: ‘Where can I find trustworthy spiritual guidance? And what is involved in being a spiritual person?’

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Photo Credits: Page 18: Mao Tse-tung and Golda Meir: Hulton/Archive by Getty Images; Francis Ferdinand: From the book The War of the Nations; Hirohito, Lindbergh, & Einstein: U.S. National Archives photo; Stalin: U.S. Army photo; Roosevelt: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Churchill: The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum (MH 26392)