2010年10月20日星期三

Do you think religion is a good prescription?

Devout recommendations are better left to the religious specialists not health experts. But, a few medical doctors do prescribe secular methods like yoga or recreation methods and that looks like a good thing. My mother's doctor had her begin Transcendental Meditation and it's done wonders for her blood pressure.

A few medical doctors assert of the fact that health profit are so obvious, and so pronounced that they ought to be prescribing belief! This attitude is a bit na?ve. After all, rich people live healthier life than the poor. Does this mean that physicians ought to be prescribing wealth? Or how about advising single people to marry?

Moreover, when scientific medicine turns around and involves itself in religion, it begins to look much more like the shamanism of old and much less than science. Secular equivalents of religion's effects, such as yoga and relaxation training are more appropriate for doctors to investigate and recommend.

Health benefits of religion
With these phenomena in mind, some doctors claim they should advise patients to be more active in their churches in much the same vein as they are advising them to exercise or control their cholesterol level. Yet, they may be getting ahead of the evidence.

Oddly enough, there is no evidence that religion, per se, provides any health advantage. In other words, religious people benefit from church membership but they do so irrespective of the doctrinal content, religious practices, or even health behavior, advocated by their particular belief system. We know this because the health advantages of all of the major world religions are about the same with the qualification that most of the research has looked at Christians and Jews.

However inconsistent mainstream religions are in their practices and rituals, they may nevertheless promote the conviction that our existence is purposeful and our lives worthwhile. Such optimism carries a substantial health premium. Optimists are healthier. Their immune systems are more robust and they are more long-lived according to abundant research in the field of positive psychology.

Secular equivalents of religion
In conceding that religious people tend to have a more optimistic view of life, one must realize that there is nothing peculiar to religion in this respect. One does not have to be religious to enjoy a sense of purpose in life. The same boost can be obtained from secular activities such as sports, gardening, playing music, painting, political activism, or conducting scientific research.

Even prayers and rituals have their secular counterparts that may produce the same stress-management benefits. Secular meditation counteracts stress in much the same way as prayer, for instance, according to experiments.

Health researchers have long known that a substantial part of the health benefit from religion is really social. A religious congregation is, among other aspects, a social support network.

The social benefits and stress-management advantages from attending a weekly religious service also resemble those of a regular singing group, poetry reading, jam session, dance class, or any other such social outlet.

Experts who are well informed on these things will admit that there is no require in promoting faith for their customers. Instead, they ought to concentrate on secular equivalents that offer the same health profit but with no the luggage of combining secular health-promotion services with proselytism.

I agree that societal connect accounts for much of the benefit of relationship with a congregation. On the other hand, pious belief, faith, whatever word one uses and whether or not the beliefs are real, can also be an instrument for handling existential concerns and stressors like fear of death, meaning, and trouble in relationships. I believe that it is life if you believe in prayer are not just think of your life.

Copyright by Lucy, a beautiful girl who likes collecting things, shopping online and playing computer, has a coach outlet online and a coach purses outlet with lots of fashion things.

没有评论:

发表评论