Surprising health benefits of church
attendance
It makes sense ... God doesn’t need us to attend
Mass because it benefits Him.
Going to church is good for your soul, sure, but
did you know it may have other benefits, too? There are at least 5 surprising
improvements you might experience in a few areas of your life if you attend
church services regularly … Better sleep
Instead of reaching for the Ambien, you might want
to think about incorporating daily Mass into your routine. A recent study found
an association between better sleep and church attendance. According to
the study authors: “More religious adults in particular tend to
exhibit healthier sleep outcomes than their less religious counterparts.”
Researchers posit that religious involvement may
limit an individual’s “mental, chemical, and physiological arousal associated
with psychological distress, substance use, stress exposure, and allostatic
load,” thereby promoting better sleep outcomes in practicing individuals.
Less risk for depression and suicide
With all of the recent news concerning the suicide
of high-profile celebrities and sky-rocketing depression and suicide rates
overall, it is certainly worth looking into factors that may help protect
against depression and suicide risk. High up on that list of factors is church
attendance – especially Mass attendance for Catholics.
In a 2016 study published by JAMA Psychiatry,
researchers found that, between 1996 and 2010, “women who attended any religious
service once a week or more were five times less likely to commit suicide.”
And while Protestant women attending weekly services had better protection
against suicide risk than the average non-practicing woman, Catholic women were
seven times less likely than practicing Protestant women to commit suicide.
More stable, happy, and sexually satisfying
marriages
According to the Institute for Family
Studies, “the couple that prays together,
stays together,” that is, couples who practice their faith
through regular church attendance together tend to report significantly higher
relationship quality than those couples who do not attend services together.
What’s more, attending church together seems to
make for sexier marriages, too. According to the Marriage and Religion
Research Institute, “Adults aged 18 to 59 in intact
marriages who worshiped weekly were most likely to report enjoying intercourse ‘extremely’
or ‘very’ much with their current sexual partner, according to the National
Health and Social Life Survey (1992), the most detailed analysis of sexual behaviour
in America.”
It seems like striving to get to heaven may
actually keep you on Earth a little bit longer …According to
2016 study from JAMA Internal Medicine, women who reported attending
religious services “more than once a week had a 33 percent lower risk of dying during
the study period compared with those who said they never went.” Women who
attended once a week also benefited from a 26 percent lower risk of mortality
than their non-attending counterparts. The study did not examine the
association between religious attendance and mortality in men, and most of the
women studied were Christian. Researchers concluded that “Religion and spirituality may be an
underappreciated resource that physicians could explore with
their patients, as appropriate.”
Lower blood pressure
A 1998 study found that “religiously active older adults tend to have lower blood
pressures than those who are less active.” By “religiously
active,” researchers meant those who engaged in frequent church attendance,
praying, and studying the Bible. Researchers found that “among participants who
both attended religious services and prayed or studied the Bible frequently,
the likelihood of having a diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher was
40 percent lower than found in participants who attended religious services
infrequently and prayed or studied the Bible infrequently.” Interestingly,
“those who frequently watched religious TV or listened to religious radio
actually had higher blood pressures.”
It makes sense that church attendance would have
benefits beyond improving the health of our souls — after all, God doesn’t need
us to attend Mass because it benefits Him. And obviously, we
shouldn’t just be attending church to get something out of it. But when we do
make Mass or worship services a priority, we not only improve our relationship
with God, but we strengthen ourselves and improve our relationships with those
around us.
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