Body, Soul & Spirit

IN THE NEWS

Search Within; There You Will Discover Your Soul (Religious Worldview)

Spiritual science: how a new perspective on consciousness could help us understand ourselves(Secular Worldview)

RESEARCH STUDIES

Purpose in Life and Cerebral Infarcts in Community-Dwelling Older People,
Following almost 1,000 people for up to seven years, the study show the ones with high purpose scores were 2.4 times more likely to remain free of Alzheimer’s than those with low scores; they were also less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment. Purposeful people were less likely to develop disabilities. And they were less likely to die: a sample of 1,238 people followed for up to five years by the researchers found that those with high purpose had roughly half the mortality rate of those with low purpose.

Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications,
A large volume of research shows that people who are more Religious/Spiritual or R/S have better mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems compared to those who are less R/S. The majority of studies report significant relationships between R/S and better health.

The heart's content: the association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular health Positive psychological well-being (PPWB) protects consistently against CVD, independently of traditional risk factors and ill-being. Specifically, optimism is most robustly associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular events. In general, PPWB is also positively associated with restorative health behaviors and biological function and inversely associated with deteriorative health behaviors and biological function.

Chida Y, Steptoe A. Positive psychological well-being and mortality: A quantitative review of prospective observational studies. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2008:70(7):741-756. 3.
Both positive affect (e.g., emotional well-being, positive mood, joy, happiness, vigor, energy) and positive trait-like dispositions (e.g., life satisfaction, hopefulness, optimism, sense of humor) were associated with reduced mortality in healthy population studies. Positive psychological well-being was significantly associated with reduced cardiovascular mortality in healthy population studies, and with reduced death rates in patients with renal failure and with human immunodeficiency virus-infection.

Cohen R, Bavishi C, Rozanski A. Purpose in life and its relationship to all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events: A meta-analysis. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2016;78(2):122- 133.
Possessing a high sense of purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events.

Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse; a multimeasure, genetic-epidemiologic study