THUMBNAIL, Woman praying with the bible on the table,
Traditional Western medicine hasn’t typically concerned itself with spiritual well-being. But that might be changing as a growing body of evidence shows spiritual and religious practice can have profound health effects, especially in regard to mental health.Higher levels of spirituality and religiousness are associated with lower levels of depression, suicide, and substance misuse in any number of studies.
And parts of the brain that appear thin when people are chronically depressed often appear thick when people who say spirituality is important to them engage in spiritual practices during and after recovery, she says, a topic she writes about in “The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and our Quest for an Inspired life.”
It could just mean, “I’m not a robot and I have deep emotions, and I care about humanity and the planet,” says Brandon Vaidyanathan, PhD, associate professor and chair of sociology at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. “Astronomers might be the first people to see the light of a particular star, and that is a profoundly important moment that can be a spiritual experience,” Vaidyanathan says. “Just as somebody watching a protein under a microscope might be in awe of this phenomenon of life that they’re seeing unfolding in front of them.”“Some of the language around spirituality can be very individualistic,” Vaidyanathan says. “But we are social creatures. We need other people. We need a place to belong.
Joining a meditation group or other non-religious spiritual community might accomplish the same thing, though more research is needed to be sure, he says.
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