Prayer and Good Health

For the last decade or so medical researchers have increasingly considered whether prayer has an effect on people’s physical health.  The clear conclusion from a number of studies, conducted by universities, medical schools, government agencies and professional journals across the country, is yes. The regular practice of prayer can have positive benefits for our physical health. Here’s a sampling of the findings.

Hypertension

                According the Center for Disease Control hypertension is one of the United State's most serious public health issues. One third of US adults (approximately 70 million) have high blood pressure. And, another third are prehypertensive, that is they have elevated blood pressure.  It is estimated that hypertension costs $46 billion a year for medication, health care and days missed from work.

                A study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed that people who prayed daily were 40 percent less likely to have high blood pressure than those who did not.

Depression and Anxiety

                “Major depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States,” says a report from the National Institute of Mental Health. “In 2012, an estimated 16 million adults aged 18 or older in the U.S. had at least one major depressive episode.” That works out the 6.9 percent of American adults.

                Anxiety affects even more people. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America states that “anxiety disorders are the most common mental health illness in the US affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18% of the US population).”

                Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School said that studies showed that during prayer “the body’s metabolism decreases, the heart rate slows, blood pressure goes down and our breath becomes calmer and more regular.” This, Benson said, “correlates with slower brain waves, and feelings of control, tranquil alertness and peace of mind.” That is, people who pray regularly tend to suffer less from depression and anxiety.

                And, the reverse is also true. People who pray are not just less depressed, they are happier. A study at the University of Pennsylvania showed that “prayer increased levels of dopamine, which is associated with states of well-being and joy.”

Quicker Recoveries

                Researchers at Dartmouth medical school found that people with “religious belief were three times more likely to recover from heart surgery.” Separate studies at Duke and Yale concluded that heart patients who did not pray regularly were 14 times more likely to die following surgery.

General Good Health and Longer Lives

                In 2011 a University of Cincinnati study of inner city youths with asthma showed that those with a regular practice of prayer “experienced fewer and less severe symptoms than those who did not.” And, a survey conducted by The Journal of Gerontology of 4,000 seniors in Durham, NC concluded that people who prayed regularly "coped better with illness in general and lived longer lives than those who did not."

            The results of these studies are not surprising. God created people as beings that are both physical and spiritual. Our wisest and best course is to care for our bodies and our spirits. Solomon had it right when he wrote:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
  in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

  Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and shun evil.
  This will bring health to your body
    and nourishment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8)

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This Is For You Dad

My Daughter's blog today addresses issues of depression, both hers and my profound sadness, a little of what it was like to be my daughter and her encouragement to me to seek Joy. It's a touching read and I hope you'll take the time to see for yourself.

Thank you Daughter: I love you, Dad


I was originally going to just e-mail this to my father but he has decided to go though the gift we gave in publicly on his blog.

So a little of back story. Depression is a terrible thing. I have struggled with bouts of it. Where I am tired, and apathetic and nothing seems to be important, or matter,or make me happy and the worst part of it for me is that I don't feel like this is a bad thing, because nothing really seems to matter. I just want to read and sleep. Reading takes me out of my world where nothing matters into a place where things do and people feel. The first time this hit me after we were married I did not realize how much it had altered my behavior until I saw how much it worried my husband. My depression is very manageable. Control stress, eat well, get enough sleep and I am usually fine.

My father has a much harder time managing what he calls his "profound sadness." Its hard to be the child of someone who rarely seem happy with you. I mean my dad did everything he could to let us know he loved us and he was proud of us. He never missed a single track meet. But there was the underlying current that none of this was enough to be happy. As an adult I understand this much better and as a child I don't think I was aware of it as it was pretty much a constant, but it makes my heart break for him. So I put together a little appointment style calendar with bible verses, questions, and random acts of kindness that I hoped would help him discover how to choose to be joyful even when sadness seems to be the only real option. You see it is my belief that joy is different than happiness. Joy is one of the fruit of the spirit according to the list in Galatians. This means Joy comes from God. It is something that is there despite, or perhaps regardless of circumstances something you can choose to have if you only reach out for it.
Read the rest of my daughter's blog at:

http://homegrownstrawberries.blogspot.com/2012/12/you-still-need-cough-suppressant.html#more


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Joy - Our Deepest Desire

            In yesterday’s blog post I shared that in 2013 I’m going to attempt A Year of Living Joyfully. As a Christmas gift my daughter gave me a year long plan of Bible verses to meditate upon and projects to do that will point me toward Joy. I also shared that as a life-long sufferer from profound sadness (depression?) I was looking forward to see if this pursuit of Joy might turn out to be the antidote for which I’ve always longed.

            As I prepare for the official kick off of A Year of Living Joyfully next week on January 1 I’m spending this week thinking about Joy. What is it? Why is important? Is there something to Joy that’s more profound than just “feeling good?” Here are a couple of things I came across yesterday.

C.S. Lewis, in his book Surprised by Joy, wrote that Joy is “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." Lewis used Joy in a very specific sense. He did not think of Joy as just a synonym happiness, as many of us do. For him Joy was the deepest of all desires that could never be satisfied by any of the pleasures of this world – it as an other-worldly quality that can only be satisfied by an intimate encounter with God.

Another way of looking at it is that the desire for Joy was hardwired into humans at the time of our creation. It is part of being in the Image of God that our deepest longings are not for this world but are for God.

The 13^th Century theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote something similar, “Man cannot live without joy.” The desire for Joy is part of what it means to be human. But Aquinas also went on with the profound observation that when people do not find Joy from their relationship with God, then are then prone to start searching for Joy from the things of the world, things that can never really satisfy. “When man is deprived is true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”

I know exactly what Aquinas was saying. As I’ve previously written, in my best moments, I’ve tried to treat my sadness with a variety of positive means – nutrition, exercise, meditation, spiritual disciplines, counseling, and medication. But there have been many times, when the sadness as been unbearable, in some of my worst moments, when I have turned to “carnal pleasures” in an attempt to escape – food, drink, unhealthy relationships, entertainment, to name a few. The results have almost always been dreadful.

This desire, no more than that, this need for Joy is not optional. It is a God-given thing designed to drive people, to drive me, toward him. Other things will not satisfy, not for long. It is the way people and the world were designed from the beginning. Ultimate Joy is only found him.

These are some of my thoughts today about what real Joy is and where it is found. What do you think about Joy?

 

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A Year of Living Joyfully

     As I've previously shared on this blog, I suffer from sadness. For as long as I can remember a deep and profound sadness has doggedly followed me. I've never known if it was because I was simply born with a melancholy personality or if what I have is actual clinical depression. I've tried all kinds of things over the years to treat my sadness from changing my diet to increasing how much exercise I get to various therapies with different counselors to medications. Though many of these things have helped some, the sadness always returns.

     This year for Christmas my older daughter and her family gave me a gift that just might make 2013 a different experience for me. She gave me "A Year of Living Joyfully."
  
     Joy is an antidote for sadness. Joseph Campbell said that joy will burn out pain and that includes the pain of depression. Of course I've known that for sometime. But how does one remain joyful when all you feel is sad? I've never known. Charles Kuralt said that joy in our lives is often hard to find and look hard for it. I've never known where to look. My daughter has given me a very practical way to not only look for Joy but to find it.

     How did she do it? She took a 2013 calendar and went throughout the year scheduling Bible verses to read and little projects to do that will point me toward Joy. She also encouraged me to take time each day to find something that gives me Joy and record it in the calendar like a journal. I think these are great ideas. In fact, I think that these ideas are so great I've decided to write about them here on this blog. I hope that you will you join me here and follow along for A Year of Living Joyfully?

     Even though the project doesn't officially begin until January 1, I can't help myself from jumping the gun and starting early. So what's one thing that gives me Joy today?

     Having a daughter that loves me enough to give me A Year of Living Joyfully.

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Hope for Holiday Depression

One of the songs you often hear during this season says that this is the “most wonderful time of the year.” For many people it is. Lights and parties and decorated trees and presents make this for them a festive and joyous time. But like a pack of wolves stalking prey on a cold winter night, just on the edge of all that seasonal happiness, for some of us there lurks a frightful foe, an enemy of our soul – depression. 

Polly Toynbee wrote that “One in six people suffer depression or a chronic anxiety disorder… severe mental pain with conditions crippling enough to prevent them living normal lives.” During the holidays that number increases. For those of us afflicted with depression this time of year is often anything but wonderful. I write “those of us” because I too am a sufferer. 

Ed Welch of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation called depression a stubborn darkness. Winston Churchill, another sufferer, called it his black dog. We depressed people can feel sad, anxious, worthless, and guilty. When I’m depressed what I most often feel is hopeless. And, when one has no hope it’s very hard to even think of, much less plan for, a future. Psychologist Rollo May said that depressed people are incapable of conceiving of a future. 

If you think that you might be depressed but are not sure check out the symptoms of depression at this website: http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-symptoms-and-types 

So what can a depressed person do when the “black dog” is upon him? Can a hopeless person find hope? I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I have found hope from another fellow sufferer – David. 

In Psalm 6 David wrote about his own experience with depression. He wrote that he was languishing (verse 2) and greatly troubled (verse 3). He said that he was weary from moaning and that he had wept so much he soaked his bed (verse 6). Yes, David knew what it was to be depressed. 

David did find hope however. He found it by calling out to God, reaching out to and trusting in him. By the end of Psalm 6 David is trusting that God has heard his plea and accepted his prayers. Help is on the way. He knew that God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those whose spirit has been crushed (Psalm 34:18). That’s what I have to be true as well. 

I’ve tried many things when I’ve been depressed. I’ve been to numerous counselors, I’ve tried various therapies, I’ve used medications. All have helped some. But nothing has helped more than calling out to God. He is the lover of my soul. He rescues me not only from my sin but also from my enemy depression. He can and he does lift my spirit like no one and nothing else can.

When things seem bleak and dark to me at this time of year it is a great help to remember that he is not only the reason for this season but he is the one who is near by and will get us through.