benefits of faith on health Archives - James K. Abshire, M.D.

Faith and Health

April 2, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

In the last blog, we looked at the benefits of faith on physical health. Now I’d like to turn to the interaction of faith and mental health.

A number of studies have looked at the benefits of faith on mental health. These studies are generally examining people who attend church on a fairly regular and weekly basis. A summary of these mental health benefits is listed below: faith 11

* Better social support1

* Better insight to medical condition and more compliant with medication2

* Lower rates of suicide3

* Improved coping skills4

* Protection against depression5

Faith – Love – Health

March 24, 2016 by Dr. James Abshire Leave a Comment

There Are Three important aspects of life that we tend to seek and develop separately. However, they are synergistically linked – improvements in one area can help us in the other areas as well.

The next several blogs will explore faith, love, and health and their interrelationships.

Faith has benefits on both our physical and mental health. Let’s start with some of the physical benefits:

Increased life expectancy by up to 2-8 years ¹
Reduced incidence of meningitis²
Reduced alcohol abuse³
Reduced drug abuse⁴
Involvement in religion (prayer and attending church) lowers blood pressure⁵