Improve Mood with Religion and Spirituality
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“my Church serves as a safe haven where I can thank God, or ask for grace, strength and guidance to face the tribulations of daily life. There’s peace and contentment in this.” – Joseph Wegmann
Psychological well-being is sometimes thought of as a lack of mental illness. But, it is more than just a lack of something. It is a positive set of characteristics that lead to happy, well-adjusted life. These include the ability to be aware of and accept one’s strengths and weaknesses, to have goals that give meaning to life, to truly believe that your potential capabilities are going to be realized, to have close and valuable relations with others, the ability to effectively manage life issues especially daily issues, and the ability to follow personal principles even when opposed to society.
Religion and spirituality have been promulgated as solutions to the challenges of life both in a transcendent sense and in a practical sense. What evidence is there that these claims are in fact true? The transcendent claims are untestable with the scientific method. But, the practical claims are amenable to scientific analysis. There have been a number of studies of the influence of religiosity and spirituality on the physical and psychological well-being of practitioners mostly showing positive benefits, with spirituality encouraging personal growth and mental health.
In today’s Research News article, Use of Daily Phone Diary to study religiosity and mood: Convergent validity See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5360558/, Szczesniak and colleagues studied the relationships between spiritual / religious practice and thee individual’s mood. Adult participants completed measures of depression, religiosity, and spiritual coping and were asked to recall events, lasting more than 5 minutes, that happened over the prior 24 hours and their mood associated with each event on a 7-point scale from negative to positive.
They found that during religious / spiritual activities there was a high probability of improved mood. This improvement was greater in females than in males and in Protestants and Catholics than in non-denominational Christians. In addition, this mood improvement after participation in religious / spiritual activities was highly likely to be maintained for the remainder of the 24-hour recording period. These results suggest that engaging in religious / spiritual activities is associated with more positive emotions and this improved mood continues afterward. This emotional improvement may, at least in part, be responsible for the positive mental health benefits of spirituality and religiosity.
So, improve mood with religion and spirituality.
“If you want to feel peaceful, loving, and joyful, surround yourself with as many uplifting people and things as possible, Fishel says. “We are all energetic beings. We become what we eat, what we watch, the people we surround ourselves with.”” – Claudia Pinto
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Szczesniak, R. D., Zou, Y., Dimitriou, S. M., Quittner, A. L., & Grossoehme, D. H. (2017). Use of Daily Phone Diary to study religiosity and mood: Convergent validity. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 23(2), 67–85. http://doi.org/10.1080/08854726.2016.1253955
Abstract
Studies of religious/spiritual behavior frequently rely on self-reported questionnaire data, which is susceptible to bias. The Daily Phone Diary (DPD) was developed to minimize bias in reporting activities and behavior across a 24-hour period. A cross-sectional study of 126 parents of children with cystic fibrosis was used to establish the validity of the DPD to study religious/spiritual behaviors. Longitudinal models were used to determine the odds of improved mood during religious/spiritual activities. Convergent validity was found. Participants had increased odds of improved mood during religious/spiritual activities compared to non-religious/spiritual activities. Associations with gender and religious affiliations were found. The DPD is a valid tool for studying religious/spiritual activities and opens novel avenues for chaplaincy research and the development of chaplaincy interventions incorporating these findings.