With today being Easter Sunday and having personally just completed the Passover seders this week, I thought it was a good day to highlight the benefits of religion for good mental health.  Research is very clear and consistent that those who are involved in some sort of religious practice are healthier and happier than those who don’t!  Hard to believe?  Well, the good news is, you actually don’t have to be a true believer to be positively impacted.  Just the act of engaging in a religious practice is a process that can bring you a greater sense of peace and life satisfaction.

Overall, research shows that religious practice can help a person tolerate stress and generate a sense of purpose and forgiveness.  Religiosity reduces suicide rates, alcoholism, and drug use.  Large studies by the Pew Research Center show that adults who describe themselves as religious report higher life satisfaction, better family life experience, and are more likely to be engaged in their community.   Considerable research finds positive associations between religiosity and various dimensions of wellbeing, including physical health, mental health, life satisfaction, and happiness.  

The benefits of religion happen on many levels, which is why the results are so powerful.  One big benefit is the sense of community that religion can bring.  By being part of a religious community a person develops a sense of belonging in a group, social connections with other members, and access to reliable and safe social gatherings.  Religion also provides structure that helps with life transitions.  Rituals and ceremonies help people cope with loss as well as celebrate milestones and holidays.  And in doing so, religion provides teachings and guidelines in how to endure in hard circumstances, find moral clarity, and find forgiveness and gratitude.  

But what I found striking in my review of the effects of religion on mental health was how the process of engaging in religious practices of prayer and other ways of connecting to a higher power is much like the scientifically proven practices of mindfulness and cognitive therapy. Religious practice often involves a self reflective process that can lead to a sense of peace and greater awareness.  In a book based on her studies, Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann writes, “Prayer is a lot like cognitive behavioral therapy.  It’s a way you attend to your own inner experience, let go of distracting thoughts and focus on more positive thoughts.  By expressing gratitude, you shift your attention from the way that things are going wrong to the ways they are going right.”  In her studies, Luhrmann notes that MRI brain imaging indicates that in terms of results, talking to God resembles talking to a friend. Our efforts to connect to God are helpful in putting our thoughts and feelings into words and finding comfort and perspective in sharing them.  

So, for me, it’s easy to doubt my religious beliefs.  Especially when cleaning up all the dishes of the second night of the seders and sweeping up the layers of matzah crumbs, I begin to wonder if it’s worth all the fuss.  But then I look around the room at the people who have come together and the efforts we collectively engage in to  uphold our religious rituals and I feel truly moved.  I feel the thread of connection from the generations before me, now gone, who created these traditions, through the present generation who keep it going, and on to my children and nephews and imagine how they may carry it on in the future.  There is something truly profound in having traditions that connect us to something much bigger than ourselves, whatever religious foundation they may come from, that we share each and every year and with each and every generation.  Whether it’s an Easter egg hunt or a kugel recipe, a prayer or a psalm, the familiar rituals done in community are good for our hearts as well as our souls.  And in general, they are cheaper and easier to find than good therapy!