Editor's Choice Main Category: Mental Health Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine Article Date: 22 Aug 2012 - 9:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Spirituality Is Linked To Better Mental Health

5 (1 votes)

The team highlight that healthcare providers could tailor treatments and rehabilitation programs to accommodate an individual's spiritual inclinations.

Dan Cohen, assistant teaching professor of religious studies at MU, explained:

The team examined the results of three surveys in order to find out if correlation existed among participants' self-reported mental and physical health, personality factors, and spirituality in Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants.

The team found that in all five faiths, spirituality was associated to better mental health, specifically lower levels of neuroticism and greater extraversion. The only spiritual trait predictive of mental health after personality variables were considered was forgiveness.

Cohen, said:

According to Cohen, spirituality could help an individual's mental healthy by lowering their self-centeredness and developing their sense of belonging to a larger whole.

Spirituality is encouraged in many different faith traditions, although they use different names for the process. A Christian monk wouldn't say he had attained Nirvana, nor would a Buddhist monk say he had communed with Jesus Christ, but they may well be referring to similar phenomena.

Read more from the original source:

Spirituality Is Linked To Better Mental Health