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Jan. 20, 2006
Devotion to God: good medicine
A recent study shows that religious Israelis live longer and more
contentedly than their secular counterparts.
SHARON KANON ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE
The Israeli media was abuzz last November with the results of a
new study showing a direct correlation between religion and health,
which indicated that "Jewish men in every socioeconomic strata,
and women in the middle and lower socioeconomic strata living in
religious neighborhoods, live significantly longer than people living
in secular neighborhoods."
Dr. Dena Jaffe and colleagues at the School of Public Health of
the Hebrew University based their findings on statistics provided
by the Israeli national census, linking them to mortality records
over a 10-year period. The study tracked 141,683 individuals ranging
in age from 45 to 89.
"One of our goals was to study the effects of area-level religiosity
on mortality over and above that of individual characteristics,"
said Jaffe.
Men living in a religious neighborhood, for example, are 25 per
cent less likely to die in the next 10 years than men living in
a secular neighborhood. For women, the risk of death is reduced
by 14 per cent; although this effect was primarily for women living
in lower and middle socioeconomic areas. For women living in a higher
socioeconomic area, religion does not have an appreciable effect.
"Charedi [ultra-Orthodox] radio stations were excited
about the findings," said Jaffe. The survey, however, did not
include Charedim, "because in general they refused to take
part in the expanded census."
Researchers also discovered the health benefits of religious ritual
– during prayer, for example, the brain waves change. This
supports research by a group of neuroscientists at the University
of California, which claims that a particular region of the brain
appears to be linked to thoughts of spiritual matters and prayer
– "the God spot" – and inspires optimism as
well as creativity. Intense prayer, like meditation, is thought
to reduce brain waves to a lower frequency, inducing a relaxed,
dream-like state in which bodily functions, including breathing,
slow down. This is both calming and restorative.
Also, putting on tefillin (or phylacteries), the prayer-encased
leather boxes that are strapped to the head and arm during morning
prayer, creates an effect similar to acupuncture, according to Dr.
Steven Schram, a chemist and licensed acupuncturist. This ritual,
as mentioned in his 2002 article in the Chinese Journal of Medicine,
stimulates a very precise set of acupuncture points that clear the
mind and harmonize the spirit.
Other factors in religious observance that promote an overall sense
of well-being, improved health and reduced stress levels, according
to Jeremy D. Kark, a member of the Hebrew University team, include
a coherent world view and sense of belonging; belief in an external
divine source rather than an autonomous source within people; repetitive,
regulated ritualistic behavior; highly stable marital bonding; and
the collective religious experience.
"The religious lifestyle has a protective effect," Jaffe
agreed. "I can only hypothesize that in this age group, religious
life provides more social support, a stronger sense of belonging
and a healthier lifestyle. There may be practical reasons, too –
for example, fewer accidents because people do not travel on the
Sabbath and Jewish holidays."
For elderly men, going to synagogue to pray provides them with a
social, as well as religious, environment, thereby promoting better
mental health and a more positive outlook on life. Although women
from the lower and middle socio-economic strata also benefitted
from living in a religious environment, there was little difference
between religious and secular women in the upper socioeconomic strata.
(A previous study in Israel showed that women's social networks
are twice as large as men's.)
"I did not measure faith or prayer," said Jaffe, who relied
on hard, non-subjective statistics and focused on religious neighborhoods
defined by areas where at least 30 per cent of the population voted
for a religious party. "I don't think it would be possible
to do that now," she said, referring to the mishmash of Israeli
parties today.
The study also cited University of Michigan researcher Linda M.
Chatters, who referred to 22 studies in the 2000 Annual Review
of Public Health in making a strong case for the positive impact
of religious affiliation and involvement on mental health and diseases
such as cancer, hypertension, stroke, respiratory disease, infectious
disease, liver cirrhosis, physical disability and gastro-intestinal
disorders.
Kark was interested to know "if religion provides an extra
protective effect in kibbutz communities, where mortality risks
are generally lower than the population at large." The answer
was a resounding yes: "There was a distinctly lower mortality
rate in religious kibbutzim than in secular kibbutzim (evident in
both sexes)," said Kark. "The magnitude of the protective
effect was demonstrated by the fact that secular women did not live
longer than religious men, losing an advantage women usually have."
Kark was surprised by his findings. The social structure, social
support mechanism and lifestyle are highly similar on all kibbutzim
in Israel.
"We compared two societies living in almost identical cohesive
communal settlements," he observed, "with the same kibbutz
ideology of equality, sharing production and fulfilling needs."
Sociologist Emile Durkheim first recorded the beneficial link between
collective religious observance and health and studies of other
religious groups – Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Protestants
and others – more than 100 years ago. The new Israeli study
corroborates mounting evidence that religion, like laughter, is
good medicine.
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