‘Dear God, thank you for protecting and loving my family, friends and I. We trust in you and your divine illuminated path. You are the captain of my ship and as long as I walk in your light, I have no reason to STRESS.’
That’s gotta feels nice to say every day if you genuinely believe it! Regardless of the religion one is occupied by, there is undoubtedly a physiological impact. Whether there is or isn’t anyone on the other side of the receiver during your daily celestial transmission, if you genuinely conclude it is real, your biology does too! If you grew up in a ‘stable’ household, do you remember how comforting it was to know that dad is in charge and will protect you no matter the circumstance. (Wasn’t always my personal experience but thankfully I got some of that in my pre-teen years) Our stress response can relax in an environment engrossed in safety, predictability and purpose. Stress being an insidious seed of disease.
Does this mean religion is the answer to health? In my opinion, absolutely not. But for the right person, it can do wonders.
When you or your family are stricken with a severe obstacle such as cancer or perhaps heart disease, the belief that a higher power is in charge is quite motivating. He knows you can handle it and he is imposing this bum deal upon you to make you stronger in his name. This mind-boggling scenario of disease is of no fault of your own and you are safely guided by grace.
We are beginning to document and understand that stress alone is not so deleterious but instead our perception there of. Is it possible that heart attacks are correlative to our attitude toward life’s stressors? Dr Herman Nabi, from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health at Inserm, Villejuif, France, conducted a study which showed there is definitely a correlation. ” The study revealed that the people who said they believed stress “extremely” affected their health at the beginning of the study period were much more likely to suffer from a heart attack than those who said stress “did not affect their health at all”.
Can you think of anything that may ease your mind during the stressors of this modern world. Perhaps that there is a grand plan and you are simply a piece in the universal puzzle. Religion is a substantial void filler of the ostensibly distracting wiggle room that exist in a more agnostic world view. Once you commit to a secular dogmatic perspective on why we exist, it undoubtedly fills a ton of potentially questionable neural/spiritual blank space that could instead be occupied by a cacophony of anxiety in relation to why the hell am I here! Sure glad I met that dude on the subway ranting about the end of times rapture, he seemed pretty confident. The biggest question known to man; voila, answered. You can finally take a load off and abdicate yourself to a passenger on God’s bus instead of driving the thing solo, feels good doesn’t it…
Red Ford Williams at Duke University observed patients with severe coronary heart disease to be three times more likely to die within 5 years if they did not have strong social support. Once again, whether you do or don’t have a strong social network, what better place to look during tough times than the heavens for an extra hand. Is it me or do dire scenarios seem to spawn faith? Could this be an evolutionary response to stress and your biology’s way of finding homeostasis and clarity during a dust storm?
There was a study conducted in Finland with 148 patients in line to receive atheroscopic knee surgery. Half of the patients received a standard surgery and the other half, a fake! They cut the knee open, knocked around like they were following standard procedure, sowed them up and sent them home with the sense of a ‘new’ knee. A year following the ‘surgeries’, there was no distinguishable difference in either groups recovery! What does this mean? The power of our intentions whether we are being duped or not are a dominating factor in pain and recovery.
This seems to share qualities with the power of prayer, no? If we can genuinely convince ourselves we are healing because we trust in our doctor, mom, god or any authority of the sort, I believe healing will ensue. Our internal healing mechanism is extremely powerful and underrated in the western medical model and religiosity. God and or my doctor need to intervene because I am powerless. Alan Watts said something along the lines of ‘sometimes you need someone to steal your watch and sell it back to you for you, to realize you have ever had one.’ He also said religion represents a lack of faith but that is a different conversation. It’s clear in numerous situations western medicine is demonstrably valuable, but a staggering percentage of patients seeing doctors are there for psychogenic reasons and we are being trained away from trusting our internal compass. Belief is power and we can wield it in any way we see suitable..