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Healthful Effects of Prayer

Many popular magazines, Time, Reader’s Digest, PARADE, have featured cover stories about the benefits of prayer on health and healing. Even scientists have begun to conduct studies to qualify and quantify the healing power of prayer.

Harold Koenig, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke University, is senior author of a book titled, Handbook of Religion and Health. The book documents 1200 studies involving the effects of prayer on health. These studies conclude that people who pray tend to live healthier lifestyles and get sick less often than their non-praying counterparts.

Some interesting facts are emerging…

• People who do not attend regular religious services generally have hospitalizations three times as long as those who do
• Non-religious heart practice members were 14 times more likely to die following surgery than those who participated in a religion
• Elderly people who attend regular religious services are half as likely to suffer from strokes as those who do not.

In addition, people who participate in a religion tend to become depressed less often, or they recover more quickly if they do get depressed. They also tend to suffer less from stress, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Some studies indicate that sick people who are prayed for face better chances for recovery than those for whom no prayers are offered. In fact, there are studies that document this, even when the practice members are unaware that anyone is praying for them!