Tuesday, January 8, 2008
religion helps those with anxiety and panic disorder
2:35 AM Posted by Joylene GreenLabels: counseling, resources
John Hopkins put out an informative article recently demonstrating empirically how faith and religion can help folks with mental health difficulties:
A study reported in the journal Depression and Anxiety (Volume 23, page 266) shows that people with panic disorder who perceive themselves as being religious are more likely to experience improvements in their panic symptoms than people who rank religion or spirituality as unimportant to them.
The investigators assessed the participants’ ratings of the importance of religion, perceived stress, self-esteem, sense of control over one’s life (mastery), and social isolation at the start of the study, at six months, and at 12 months.
Placing a high value on religion was more important in predicting improvements in panic symptoms than age, gender, lifetime presence of moderate mania symptoms, self-esteem, mastery, and feeling socially isolated. Those who rated religion as very important had fewer anxiety, panic, and phobia symptoms and less perceived stress than other participants.
Previous research suggests that engaging in organized religious activities leads to many health benefits, such as reduced reliance on alcohol. The social aspect of attending religious functions now also appears to help quell panic and anxiety.
For the full article click here.
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5 comments:
I emailed you. I'm not sure if you got it...but I did:o)!!
thanks Debbie
I've always shyed away from religion because of things like that, because of how people use it as a crutch.
Sometimes it seems that people cling to religion because they want something concrete to hold onto, to give them hope, to help attempt to come up with some explaination for how the world is and be at peace with it and themselves. Some sense of consolation. Or looking upwards to avoid looking around themselves or within themselves.
Also, it sometimes seems like it’s another thing for people to define themselves by because people want to feel as if they're a part of something. Maybe it comes from fear of not knowing what to do if you don't define yourself by some label that gives you an outline of what you should ideally act like.
Sometmes it seems like people just follow religion because they're afraid to question themselves and define their own personal morals and need to just follow a set of rules because they're afraid to think for themselves. It sometimes seems like people don't want to take responsibility for their life and their choices so they kind of toss it on God a little bit. I'm not saying all people do this, it's just that these are the thoughts in my brain that I've had for years, and I ponder them for a while, come to no conclusions, I move on, and they come back, different things cause me to begin thinking about it again.
So, it sounds like I'm all anti-religion, I guess I sort of am...
It's what people do to religion, that then affects my feelings towards spirituality as a whole, but I shouldn't let that happen, because religion and spirituality are two extremely separate entities. I guess organized religion is just a vessel through which people can rejoice and celebrate their spiritual nature through, and get in touch with or rekindle the spiritual nature that all pepole have, well...those are the "pros" of religion, but mostly religion is just the great divider, and makes people act stupid towards other people at times, and in mass proportions.
But beyond religion, it's difficult sometimes for me not to be all bitter towards the idea of God, and be all lame and immature be like "if there is a God, or anything, why would people be born to unloving parents, because it's not like defenseless children suffering is going to make them stronger, you don't know anything when you're a child, you don't know you're being treated wrong until it's too late and then you're messed up for life, or at least a decent sized portion of it," because I know that's stupid to think, but so many people are hurt for various reasons, and why is that allowed to be? I'm not saying things should be all utopian and perfect and hedonistic, I just have a hard time thinking people would be placed in situations in which they have no means of control or choice.
Ok. I'm done now.
Post script: Although I just said all of that, I actually sometimes long to be able to have a relationship with Jesus, but just really have never been able to feel anything. I don't know how to. The only time I ever feel in any way connected to my spiritual side is sometimes within nature I feel it for like a few seconds.
puddlesplasher - thanks for the comment. I am glad you took the time to give a thoughtful comment. I appreciate it. I've been thinking about what you said and I want to give a thoughtful response so check back in a couple days.... when I am not working on a only a couple hours of sleep!
:P
Alright, awesome. Thanks! :D
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