Does prayer
help us resist temptation? Talking to God boosts self-control and emotional
stability, claims study
People turn to prayer 'as a coping response
to the high demands in life' and are rewarded with an increased ability to
resist temptation
Previous findings have shown that when
people try to control their emotions, the risk of aggressive outbursts and
binge drinking rises
By Robin
Yapp, 29 November 2013
Praying
helps people stay in control of their emotions and behaviour, according to a
new study.
People turn
to prayer 'as a coping response to the high demands in life' and are rewarded
with increased strength and ability to resist temptation, researchers said.
Previous
findings have shown that when people try hard to control their emotions and
thoughts, the risk of aggressive outbursts and binge drinking or eating rises.
BELIEVING
IN GOD COULD HELP TREAT DEPRESSION TOO...
Belief in
God may improve treatment for those suffering with depression, a study
published earlier year found.
Faith in a
higher being was found to significantly improve treatment for people suffering
with a psychiatric illness, according to research carried out by McLean
Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.
Researchers
followed 159 patients over the course of a year at the Behavioral Health
Partial Hospital program to investigate the relationship between a patient's
level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment
outcomes.
Each participant
was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for
treatment outcome on a five-point scale.
Researchers
found that patients with 'no' or only 'slight' belief in God were twice as
likely not to respond to treatment than patients with higher levels of belief.
And more
than 30 per cent of patients claiming no specific religious affiliation still
saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in God was rated as
moderately or very high.
But the
latest study, by German psychologists at Saarland University and the University
of Mannheim, found that praying helps people maintain self-control.
'A brief
period of personal prayer buffered the self-control depletion effect', wrote
the team, whose findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology online.
'These
results are consistent with and contribute to a growing body of work attesting
to the beneficial effects of praying on self-control.'
Praying has
already been linked in the past to reduced levels of infidelity and alcohol
consumption.
The German
authors recruited 79 people, of whom 41 were Christian, 14 atheists, 10
agnostic and 14 belonged to other religions.
Participants
were each left alone for five minutes and asked to either pray or think freely
about one thing as intensely as possible.
Next they
all watched a funny film clips with half told to react normally and half
required to try to suppress their emotions and control their facial reactions.
Finally,
they took part in Stroop tests, where words describing colours appear in
different coloured inks, such as the word blue written in red ink.
drink
Previous
findings have shown that when people try hard to control their emotions and
thoughts, the risk of aggressive outbursts and binge drinking or eating rises
Participants
must respond to the ink colour, not the written word, which requires self-control
as our instinct is to read the word in front of us.
Those who
thought freely in the first part of the test and then tried to suppress their
emotions during the film clips were found to struggle with the Stroop task.
But this
was not the case for participants who prayed at the start of the study -
showing they still had high levels of self-control at the end.
The authors
also found those who first prayed had tried just as hard to suppress emotions
during the film clips 'but did not become depleted'.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515637/Does-prayer-help-resist-temptation-Talking-God-boosts-self-control-emotional-stability-claims-study.html#ixzz2p6v6DuE7