Religion and medicine are connected in a way that cannot be fully explained, untangled. Doctors see this connection from time to time. It is not just organized religion that gives strength to some patients. Everyone has a spirituality that gives life meaning.
The connection between mind and body is ancient, but as a treatment it has become a science. Until recently, Western doctors have moved away from spirituality and religious faith. Now patient demands, along with scientific studies linking faith to good health, are slowly converting the skeptical medical community. Scholarly journals and many new books accept to consider the subject. An increasing number of doctors attend gatherings where faith and healing are discussed.
A wave of recent investigations is moving the wall between the church and the laboratory. For example, research shows that people who go to places of worship more than once a week live an average of seven years longer than those who don't go at all. Research conducted at the American Duke University Medical School found that those people who go to church, mosque, and temple on a weekly basis are less likely to be hospitalized (for any reason) than those who go less often. If they are hospitalized, they spend less time in the hospital than others.
Psychiatrist Martin Jones, of Howard University, who studies the connection between faith and healing, says: "To fully explain how spirituality has a positive effect on health is not that important. Likewise, we do not understand the mechanism of action of many drugs. But we do know, by looking at the cause and effect, that they work. Similarly, we can see the effects of personal spiritual awareness on the final result, so why not use it? It's like a placebo effect. Why does it work? Belief. It's a very powerful force."
Understandably, however, even those doctors who include "spirituality" in their medical bag allow the use of faith only as an adjunct to medical care and only if the patient is open to discussing their beliefs.
Despite the still present debates about the application of meditation and deep thought prayers for the purpose of calming the mind, there is evidence in the professional literature that stress damages the immune, defense system in the body.
Hundreds of research studies prove the connection between faith, piety and health. We will mention only some of the results that were reached in those researches. Elderly people who considered themselves religious had fewer health problems and had better physical functioning than non-religious people.
Respondents who prayed regularly were 70 percent less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease. Also, those who considered religion very important and who regularly went to church, significantly less often had high blood pressure, and suffered from depression and anxiety less often. Numerous studies have shown that repeating prayers and meditating can reduce psychological stress, elevated blood pressure, slow down the rhythm of heartbeats and breathing, as well as increase the body's immune and defense forces.
When the organism undergoes a physical collapse, then the spiritual growth is extremely great. Faith brings a person to a balanced state when he no longer feels illness as a burden.
Cultural and spiritual issues, as well as issues of death, have emerged as significant themes in medical care. Medical faculties responded to such demands of society. Today, some fifty medical faculties out of 125 in the USA have subjects in their curricula dedicated to such issues. Students are taught how to communicate with patients, how to care for them with their soul.
The healing process can take the form of accepting your situation, dealing with yourself and others in a different way, and maintaining a sense of peace in the face of suffering and pain. Faith is a supplement to medical treatment. Illness has a physical foundation, however, there is a hierarchy: physical level, emotional level, intellectual level and spiritual level.
In medical practice, a shift from the treatment of only the disease to the treatment of the whole person is desirable.
Certainly, when it comes to disease, science has achieved incredible successes. In the last century, life expectancy increased by almost two-thirds, mainly thanks to science.
Prof. Christine Puchalski, an internist at George Washington University, says, "It's not always all about science. There's a bond of trust that may not appear if you focus only on someone's physical aspect. And that doesn't take a lot of time; it's enough enter the infirmary with an open heart."
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