If you ask a seriously ill person: “What keeps you going?”, he will most likely answer: “Faith.” It works miracles! But whether medicine recognizes this ability is still an open question.
Today, everyone goes to church for help – asking to stay healthy. Experts have found that prayer is still the most common alternative treatment for people. And the National Institutes of Health have allocated $3.1 million to conduct a study that will study how prayer affects heart disease, cancer, and AIDS compared to other methods. In addition, many scientists have undertaken to prove the healing power of faith.
Herbert Benson, an American cardiologist, professor at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues at Harvard described the relaxation response. This is a simple technique in which people were able to change their reaction to stress through rest, repetition of a certain word (or phrase), and deep breathing. Scientists have discovered that prayer can also have a relaxing effect.
This phenomenon is not only religious. Research shows that stress management techniques like exercise and meditation can have a similar effect on the heart. “It doesn’t matter where the relaxation comes from. The mechanism is inside us,” Benson is sure. “And depending on our beliefs, each person will decide for themselves whether the relief came from God or from evolution.”
Harold Koening, MD, spent many years looking for biological evidence that prayer and other religious practices prolong life. And in 1997, he discovered that believers who regularly attend church have low levels of a protein called interleukin, which is associated with inflammation. Its chronically elevated level in the body indicates a high risk of developing many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
Yes, faith can help you recover, but only in addition to real treatment. Spirituality is an aspect of people who want to be cured. It helps them find hope in the midst of despair. There are many examples of people who have fought serious diseases and survived thanks to the strength of their spirit. They relied on the miracles of modern medicine (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery). But a deep and rich spiritual life helped them come to their senses every time they were diagnosed with new manifestations of cancer or other serious illnesses.
Realizing that there is a place for faith in every treatment can give a person the spiritual healing he needs.
