According to Levin (1996), hope, love, contentment, empowerment, and other positive emotions might flow from prayer. Prayer may thus foster psychological benefits by creating a positive sense of meaning, hope, and empathy (Levin, 1996; McCullough, 1995).
Prayer can foster a sense of connection, whether it's to a higher power, what a person finds important in life or their values, said Ryan Bremner, an associate professor of psychology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Prayer can reduce feelings of isolation, anxiety and fear as well.
In sum, prayer can have a positive impact on recovery from mental illness and also on the well-being of people without mental illness. Additionally, these studies indicate that regular prayer can be especially important for people who are lonely or socially isolated.
Rosmarin says that the research that has been done on prayer shows it may have similar benefits to meditation: It can calm your nervous system, shutting down your fight or flight response. It can make you less reactive to negative emotions and less angry.
Impact of Spirituality on Mental Health
It encourages people to have better relationships with themselves, others, and the unknown. Spirituality can help you deal with stress by giving you a sense of peace, purpose, and forgiveness. It often becomes more important in times of emotional stress or illness.
For example, researchers at the Mayo Clinic concluded, “Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide.
Spirituality can promote close family and friendship bonds and help people cope with physical or emotional pain and other life stressors. It can also offer people a strong sense of community, particularly for those who are part of a spiritual group or community.
Prayer and spirituality can help ease depression and act as a cushion when life throws curve balls your way. Saying a small prayer to get through a difficult time is not unusual. A plea for help from a higher power is one way people seek and find the benefits of spirituality.
Prayer helps you gain an understanding of God's loving nature. The scriptures teach, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). You can feel that love as you speak daily with Him through prayer, seeking His guidance in your life.
Prayer is an easy way to reduce stress. It is simply addressing your thoughts and concerns to a higher power. Interestingly, researchers have found that the way a person views the deity they pray to has an impact on their mental health.
First, engaging in 12 minutes of personal reflection and prayer each day makes a profound impact on our brain. It strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhances our social awareness and empathy and helps us love our neighbor by developing a heightened sense of compassion and subduing negative emotions.
Prayer is important because it helps us to stay close to God. When we pray, we are opening up our hearts to Him and He is able to work in us and through us. Prayer also helps us to grow in our relationship with God. The more we talk and spend time with someone the more we get to know them.
A Prayer to Heal Stress
Loving God, please grant me peace of mind and calm my troubled heart. My soul is like a turbulent sea. I can't seem to find my balance so I stumble and worry constantly. Give me the strength and clarity of mind to find my purpose and walk the path you've laid out for me.
All: O God, our liberation and shalom, we seek the power of your Spirit, that we may live in fuller union with you, ourselves and our sisters and brothers with mental illness. Also grant that we may gain courage to love and understand each other. Amen.
Prayer is a potent mechanism that brings this human awareness back into our conscience. This in turn can have a profound effect of helping one to focus on things that really matter in life, and thus, be a helpful therapeutic aid in sorting out priorities and discovering oneself.
Yet, although prayer does not actually change God's mind, prayer does change things. “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). We do not know God's eternal, sovereign plan in all its details, but we do know that He works through prayer and answers prayer.
Healing presence - prayer can bring a sense of a spiritual or loving presence and alignment with God or an immersion into a universal unconsciousness. Positive feelings - prayer can elicit feelings of gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and hope, all of which are associated with healing and wellness.
Through prayer, we are able to find relief for anxiety and receive the peace of God. Jesus acknowledges and gives voice to our depression when he said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
The Good News: Depression and anxiety can be isolating experiences. But Jesus is there, and He cares about you. You can turn to Him for help with whatever you may be feeling.
Sometimes ideas flood our mind as we listen after our prayers. Sometimes feelings press upon us. A spirit of calmness assures us that all will be well. But always, if we have been honest and earnest, we will experience a good feeling—a feeling of warmth for our Father in Heaven and a sense of his love for us.
Spiritual experiences were associated with lower levels of activity in certain parts of the brain: The inferior parietal lobe (IPL), the part of the brain associated with perceptual processing, relating to the concept of self in time and space.
1. a concern for or sensitivity to things of the spirit or soul, especially as opposed to materialistic concerns. 2. more specifically, a concern for God and a sensitivity to religious experience, which may include the practice of a particular religion but may also exist without such practice.