TruthBook Religious News Blog

Submitted by Tyler Woods Ph.D.
Nov 20th, 2009

Depression is the opposite of a state of thankfulness and being thankful and grateful could help symptoms of depression. Research that appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology confirmed that those individuals who kept a weekly gratitude journal were more optimistic about life, more likely to exercise regularly, and felt better physically compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events.

More and more studies just like this are coming to light about the powers of gratitude and healing depression. There have been many studies and surveys on the power of gratitude and depression. In a survey commissioned by spirituality.com, 84% of Americans said expressing gratitude reduces stress and depression and fosters better health and optimism.

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Labels: depression, gratitude, health, spirituality, Tyler Woods

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2008) —

Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.

Lead researcher Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., characterized the religiosity of 918 study participants in terms of three domains of religiosity: religious service attendance, which refers to being involved with a church; religious well-being, which refers to the quality of a person's relationship with a higher power; and existential well-being, which refers to a person's sense of meaning and their purpose in life.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article.

Labels: depression, Joanna Maselko, mental health, religiosity, worship

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Cost of Unbelief

By: Simon Smart
Posted: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 9:43 (EST)

This is the first of a three-page article - well worth reading. Just click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Australian atheists were recently prevented from running a series of ads on buses with the message, “There’s probably no God, so sleep in on Sundays.” It was a funny ad and should have been permitted, and if the Bureau of Statistics A Picture of a Nation report is anything to go by, there’s a generation of young people who don’t need convincing. According to the latest figures young Australians are increasingly secular with the proportion of people stating ‘no religion’ on their census form up from 6.7% in 1971 to 19% in 2006; the younger generation leading the charge to the beach on Sunday mornings (or perhaps staying under the doona). 23.5% of 15 – 34 year-olds did not specify a religion compared with 7.9% of Australians 65 and older.

No doubt this finding will be good news to those who believe religion has only paranoia, superstition, violence and hypocrisy to contribute to society, and there are plenty of them. Freud famously articulated the notion that religion is a neurosis. Likewise, Psychologist Albert Ellis saw only the pernicious effects of religion on individuals, claiming that ‘Religiosity … is in many respects equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance.’ (Ellis, 1980, 67)

But the latest scientific data on the effects of religiosity on health, might give us reason to pause. In 2001 Duke University researchers conducted a large survey of 100 evidence-based studies of the correlation between religion and well-being and found that 79 reported a positive correlation, 13 no correlation, 7 mixed correlation and 1 a negative correlation.1 The masses of research completed since then has largely pointed in the same direction.

This is a growing field. It reflects a more serious attempt to integrate ‘whole-person care’ in medical areas that previously gave little importance to the spiritual side of patient management. Of the 141 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada 70% now offer courses on religion, spirituality and medicine.

This is largely a response to the vast amount of data emerging over the last eight years that reveals positive correlations between commitment to religion and better outcomes for dealing with depression and anxiety, strength of immune systems, cardiovascular health and even longevity.

It is well accepted that stress and depression have serious adverse health impacts and studies that show religious coping improves outcomes in this area need to be taken seriously. It is the scientists who are telling us that religious involvement is associated with lower rates of a host of stress-related medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, stroke, immune and endocrine functioning, cancer—especially gastrointestinal, breast and oral—and better outcomes for cancer in general.

It is worth quoting some research to give a small taste of the sort of data being reported:

Labels: atheism, depression, mental health, religion, science, Simon Smart, spirituality

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Not Much Behavior Change during Christmas, Survey Finds

By Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Dec. 15 2008

Unlike what most people expect, most Americans do not dramatically change their lifestyle during the Christmas season, according to a survey that examined five seasonal behaviors.

In terms of church attendance for Christmas, there is an expected increase in the number of attendees, but not from the expected crowd, according to the survey. While people may expect a large turnout of CEOs – Christmas and Easter Only attendees – the Barna study found that most of the increase in attendance is expected from regular churchgoers.

One out of five adults say they will attend more religious services at a church, synagogue or other place of worship during the holiday season than they normally would. But the group that was most likely to say that was regular attendees (27 percent) rather than those who don’t normally attend service (4 percent), the study found.

In other findings, one out of five adults (18 percent), said they would definitely donate more money to their religious center during the holidays than at other times of the year. Evangelicals are the most likely group to donate (30 percent), followed by African Americans (29 percent) and Catholics (24 percent).

Out of the five behaviors explored in the latest Barna Group survey, the only one that a majority of people said they change during the holidays is listening to Christmas carols in their home.

Six out of ten American adults (59 percent) said they will definitely listen to carols this holiday season, with evangelicals being most likely to do so (82 percent).

Among the non-born again population, 50 percent said they will play carols at home, including one-third (34 percent) of atheists and agnostics.

Interestingly, there was a racial correlation for Christmas carols: 63 percent of whites, 55 percent of African Americans, and 48 percent of Hispanics and of Asians said they would listen to carols at home.

But the holiday is not a joyful time for everyone, with a small but significant percentage of Americans saying they would struggle with loneliness or depression during this season.

The group that was most likely to suffer with loneliness or depression was downscale adults, or individuals whose annual income is less than $20,000 and those who did not attend college. More than one out of ten (11 percent) said they would definitely face depression or loneliness during the Christmas season, according to the Barna study.

Evangelicals and atheists were among the people least likely to have these emotions and experiences, with less than one percent of each group saying they would struggle with these unwanted emotions.

The study also found that some Americans expect to drink more alcohol during the holidays. Those most likely to drink are people under 25 years old (12 percent), atheists and agnostics (11 percent), and liberals (11 percent).

The survey is based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,203 adults across the United States from November 1 to 5, 2008.

Labels: atheists, Barna Group, carols, Christmas, church, depression, evangelicals, religion

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Building Resilience in a Turbulent World

Summer 2008 Issue

This excellent article by Gina Stepp, in the online magazine called "VISION" is worth a look. It is not quoted here, just because it is a long article, and not that easily edited to a short version, which is what is done with most articles that are posted here.

In this article, Ms Stepp addresses the issue of depression, and it's impact on the whole of society; also, the ways in which families and societies can develop resilience to dpression, fear and other emotionally distressing emotions during these times of global stress.

In this article, the issues of adversity, positive outlook, and finding meaning in life outside oneself are discussed in depth.

Labels: adversity, depression, Gina Stepp, purpose, resilience, World Health Organization

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Chemical vs Spiritual

Michael Craven
Author, Speaker, Founding Director of the Center for Christ & Culture

Please click on the link to "external source" for complete article

As I shared last month, a joint study conducted by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School reveals that the U.S. has the highest rate of depression among a survey group of 14 countries.

However, this may have more to do with how we define and diagnose “depression.” As reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer last month, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official diagnostic manual used by mental-health professionals, defines depression as “two continuous weeks of such symptoms as despondency, diminished pleasure in life, and difficulties in sleeping and eating.” As the authors, Horwitz and Wakefield point out; “In the manual, it doesn’t matter why a person is despondent. If you’ve lost your job, or your romantic partner dumped you, or you’ve been given a diagnosis of cancer, you’re still deemed ‘clinically depressed’ if you’re sad for two weeks or more.”

This might account for the recent 300 percent increase in Americans diagnosed with depression. Real depression can be a serious mental illness, however, being “sad” in the wake of real disappointment or loss is a normal part of life. Nonetheless, the increasing response to these events is restoration through chemistry. According to a November 2005 report in Fortune Magazine:

Nearly 150 million U.S. prescriptions were dispensed in 2004 for SSRIs and similar antidepressants called SNRIs, [psychotropic drugs used in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders] according to IMS Health, a Fairfield, Conn., drug data and consulting company – more than for any other drug except codeine. Perhaps one out of 20 adult Americans are on them now, making brands like Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, Forest Laboratories' Celexa, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals' Luvox household names.… In fact, we're popping so many SSRIs that their breakdown products in urine, gushing into waterways, have accumulated in fish tissues, raising concerns that aquatic animals may be getting toxic doses, according to recent research at Baylor University.

However, the “poisoning of fish” may not be the worst side-effect of over-diagnosis of depression and prescription of these powerful psychotropic drugs. We’ve all seen the plethora of pharmaceutical ads in which a benign voice recites a laundry list of bizarre side effects. However, two that you will rarely hear are “homicidal” and “suicidal ideation,” meaning these drugs may produce thoughts of murder and suicide!

The fact is, these potential side effects are common to this class of anti-depressant drugs and a survey of the nation’s most notorious mass murders and school shootings reveals an all too frequent connection.

This is the tragic consequence of remedies formed from a false worldview. If man is merely a biological organism, as the materialistic humanist worldview believes, and not the unity of body and soul as the Bible teaches then the logical response to disappointment, heartbreak and the like is chemical manipulation. If however, mankind is a unique being combining spirit and body then perhaps the solutions require a more holistic response that considers both body and soul.

The continuing loss of Christian influence in shaping the consensus worldview will only produce more misguided responses to real human problems that are likely to produce similarly devastating results. Christians must undertake the hard work of knowing and offering the biblical interpretation of reality that can accurately shape the culture’s understanding of the human condition and thus provide real solutions.

Labels: Center for Christ and Culture, chemicals, Christianity, depression, drugs, holistic, Michael Craven, poison

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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Religious faith may help stroke victims: study

By Ed Stoddard Thu Feb 15, 4:24 PM ET

DALLAS (Reuters) - People of faith have long contended that the power of prayer can help heal the sick. Now a study conducted in Rome suggests that religious faith may help people recover from a stroke.

Researchers at the San Raffaele Pisana Rehabilitation Center in the Italian capital of Rome interviewed 132 stroke survivors about their religious beliefs and spirituality. The median age of the study participants was 72.

The responses were compared with their scores on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, a self-assessment tool.

"The analysis showed higher scores on the anxiety and depression scale correlated significantly with lower scores on the religious and spirituality questionnaire," said the American Heart Association, which publishes Stroke.

"The association remained significant after adjusting for other factors that could influence a stroke patient's degree of emotional distress (such as mental and physical functioning, living conditions and marital status)," it said in a statement.

The reasons for this possible link between faith and post-stroke emotional distress are hard to pin down, though the researchers gave tentative explanations.

"Religious people who are active in their communities are more likely to receive external aid that can be provided by volunteers," said Dr. Salvatore Giaquinto, chairman of the department of rehabilitation at the San Raffaele Pisana Rehabilitation Center.

"Social support lets them experience feelings of care, love and esteem. The new experience of support and the background of faith tell the patients that they are not alone."

The research chimes to some extent with other studies that have suggested that spiritual pursuits such as reciting the rosary and yoga chanting may be beneficial for heart rate variability and stress relief.

But some researchers say the possible links uncovered in the Rome study should not be mistaken for direct causality.

"The study does not establish that religious beliefs will definitely reduce emotional distress but shows that people who are religious have better coping abilities," Dr. Lalit Kalra, a stroke professor at King's College London School of Medicine in Britain, wrote in an accompanying commentary.

"Hence, both these variables may define personal attributes of the patient, in other words religious beliefs do not make a person cope better but identify patients who have better abilities to cope with chronic illness," Kalra wrote.

The researchers did note that most of Rome's residents are Catholic. But they said their findings might extend to other religions as well.

Labels: anxiety, depression, Ed Stoddard, faith, prayer, religion, spirituality, stroke