{"id":687,"date":"2009-04-24T08:44:27","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T08:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/?p=687"},"modified":"2009-04-24T08:44:27","modified_gmt":"2009-04-24T08:44:27","slug":"spirituality-can-benefit-your-mental-and-physical-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/?p=687","title":{"rendered":"Spirituality Can Benefit Your Mental and Physical Health."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Friday All! <\/p>\n<p>I hope you all have something splendid planned for this weekend! It looks like Spring has *finally* Sprung around here, but I&#39;m trying not to get my hopes up too high, as we have definitely had snow later than late April before.<\/p>\n<p>I came across this wonderful article that talks about how people who are on a spiritual path (any spiritual path, it doesnt matter which one) show some clear health benefits! I thought this was a must read for those of you out there! Read the article through, and I will see you on the other side &#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;-begin article&#8212;-<\/p>\n<h2>Spirituality Can Benefit Your Mental and Physical Health <br \/><\/h2>\n<p>By Elizabeth Scott, M.S.<\/p>\n<p>While people use many different religions and paths to find God,<br \/>\nresearch has shown that those who are more religious or spiritual, and<br \/>\nuse their spirituality to cope with life, experience many benefits to<br \/>\ntheir health and well-being. For many, this news would come as no<br \/>\nsurprise; spirituality and religious activity have been a source of<br \/>\ncomfort and relief from stress<br \/>\nfor multitudes of people. In fact, according to a study from the<br \/>\nUniversity of Florida in Gainesville and Wayne State University in<br \/>\nDetroit, older adults use prayer more than any other alternative<br \/>\ntherapy for health; 96% of study participants use prayer specifically<br \/>\nto cope with stress. Here are just a few more of the many positive<br \/>\nfindings about spirituality and its influence on physical and mental<br \/>\nhealth:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Canadian college students who are involved with campus ministries visited the doctor less, scored higher on tests of psychological well-being, and coped with stress more effectively.<\/li>\n<li> Older women are more grateful to God than older men, and they receive greater stress-buffering health effects due to this gratitude.<\/li>\n<li>Those with an intrinsic religious orientation, regardless of gender, exhibited less physiological reactivity toward stress than those with an extrinsic religious orientation. They were also less afraid of death and had greater feelings of well-being.<br \/>\n(Those who were intrinsically oriented dedicated their lives to God or<br \/>\na \u2018higher power,\u2019 while the extrinsically oriented ones used religion<br \/>\nfor external ends like making friends or increasing community social<br \/>\nstanding.)<\/li>\n<\/p>\n<li>Prayer works for young and old alike. Prayer and spirituality have been linked to:\n<ul>\n<li>Better health<\/li>\n<li>Less hypertension<\/li>\n<li>Less stress, even during difficult times<\/li>\n<li>More positive feelings<\/li>\n<li>Less depression<\/li>\n<li>Greater psychological well-being<\/li>\n<li>Superior ability to handle stress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nWhether this information inspires you to rediscover a forgotten<br \/>\nspiritual path, reinforces your commitment to an already<br \/>\nwell-established one, or simply provides interesting food for thought,<br \/>\nthis is just a sample of all the encouraging research that\u2019s been done<br \/>\non the topic.<\/p>\n<p>\nSpirituality is personal, and everyone\u2019s spiritual path may be unique. However, some spiritual stress relief strategies have been helpful to many, regardless of faith.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;-end article&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Imagine that \ud83d\ude09 Spirituality can help us feel healthier and be healthier! No specific path&#0160; is right for everyone, whether you choose Voodoo or any other path, the fact that you are on a path that fits well with your beliefs is what matters.<\/p>\n<p>Near the end of the article it mentions about spiritual stress relief strategies. Those of you feeling stressed and would like some relief, be sure to write your <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spellmaker.com\/caseworkers.htm\" target=\"_blank\">caseworker<\/a>. We are just full of great ideas!&#0160; Also, be sure to stop over at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voodooboutique.typepad.com\/candelaria\" target=\"_blank\">Sister Candelaria&#39;s blog about Spiritual Boot Camp!<\/a>&#0160;&#0160; for lots of great ideas and exercises as well. <\/p>\n<p>Have a great weekend everyone!<br \/>Light and Love<br \/>Sister Bridget<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/voodooboutique.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e54edc5c68883301156f55763d970c-pi\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Images\" class=\"at-xid-6a00e54edc5c68883301156f55763d970c \" src=\"https:\/\/voodooboutique.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e54edc5c68883301156f55763d970c-500wi\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Friday All! I hope you all have something splendid planned for this weekend! It looks like Spring has *finally* Sprung around here, but I&#39;m trying not to get my hopes up too high, as we have definitely had snow later than late April before. I came across this wonderful article that talks about how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[342],"tags":[7,149,120,15,420,3,25,143,42,4,9],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality","tag-free-spells","tag-magic","tag-magick","tag-mambo-sam","tag-sister-bridget","tag-spellmaker","tag-spellmaker-com","tag-spells","tag-vodou","tag-voodoo","tag-voodoo-dolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}