“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
Brené Brown
The power of belief
Where do you place your faith for a better tomorrow? Or for better health?
Technology? Medicine? Your doctor? Wealth? The vaccine for the current pandemic? Your Higher Power or God?
Everybody believes in something.
Doctors have known for a long time that beliefs can have either positive benefits on health from treatments—the “placebo effect.” Or harmful effects—the “nocebo effect.” Many people know placebos as “sugar pills” that have no inherent qualities to heal a disease. Yet, if people believe the sugar pills to be a medicine, on average, people will report up to 40% benefit from them.
The nocebo effect is exactly the opposite. People report side effects or illness from inert medicines, or from surgeries, or any other interventions.
Why do placebos work
“The placebo effect is more than positive thinking—believing a treatment or procedure will work. It’s about creating a stronger connection between the brain and body and how they work together,” says Professor Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, whose research focuses on the placebo effect.
Beliefs affect the mind-body connection through “feel good” neurotransmitters, pain systems, the hormone system, and the immune system.
One of the first physicians to seriously research the placebo effect and the power of belief, was cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson, now in his 80’s. In his 1996 book, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief, he tells the story where he served as a merchant seaman during his college summer holidays and when his fellow seamen had awful hangovers, he gave them vitamins which he discovered led to rapid improvement in their symptoms. This led him to a career-long interest in mind-body medicine and ways to bolster scientific medicine’s effectiveness by leveraging the positive effects of belief.
He prefers the term “remembered wellness” over placebo effect, as the word “placebo” conjures negative connotations in many minds. He says there are three components of remembered wellness:
- Belief and expectancy on the part of the patient
- Belief and expectancy on the part of the caregiver
- Belief and expectancies generated by a relationship between the patient and the caregiver.
These three work powerfully to create an expectancy that helps restore health.
Dr. Benson is also well known for researching and developing what he called the “relaxation response,” to elicit a bodily calm to counter the “fight or flight” panic or anxiety feeling. We will revisit this skill under Rest in our red Physical Circle.
What about belief in God?
Are there proven health benefits to a belief in God or a Higher Power? What about practising the rituals that most people of faith adhere to—like prayer, scripture reading, or gathering for religious services?
In fact, there is a great deal of research evidence from research that faith in God and spiritual practises are actually good for your health.
In The Healing Power of Faith, physician and researcher, Dr. Harold G. Koenig, summarized some of the proven health benefits in people of faith:
- Lower blood pressure
- Less hospitalizations
- Less depression
- Stronger immune systems
- Longer life expectancy
“The risk of dying from all causes is up to 35% lower for people who attend religious services once or more a week than for those who attend less frequently.”
Dr. Harold G. Koenig
Dr. Koenig and his research team have now published the Second Edition of a massive 1100 page tome, Handbook of Religion and Health, where they have summarized (and listed) over 2000 research studies on religion, spirituality and health. Here is a summary graph illustrating the number of studies (the bar above “P”) that show a positive health benefit of belief:
Of course, we can all think of examples where religious leaders and beliefs have led people to mass suicides, or war, or bigotry, or hatred.
But the data shows, and Dr. George E. Vaillant, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in his paper Positive Emotions, Spirituality and the Practice of Psychiatry, agrees that the positive emotions of faith (awe, attachment love, trust, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy and hope) outweigh the negatives and should be emphasized more in the practise of medicine and psychiatry.
Miraculous healings
Medically unexpected remissions from apparent terminal cancers or other life threatening illnesses are called “miracles” by the faithful. Physicians call them “spontaneous remissions.” Many published papers have been written about medically documented remissions from such advanced conditions as pancreatic cancer, brain cancer, and end stage systemic lupus.
Recently, Dr. Jeffrey Rediger, published his book Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing, where he tells his story of travelling around the world to study medically unexplained remissions. He found many common factors in these remarkable recoveries, including letting go of stress, slowing down, dramatic changes in diets, discovering one’s true identity, and typically, a strong faith.
We need hope in medicine … it’s already there … it’s in the stories of those who overcame incurable disease … it’s there in the doctors and nurses and surgeons who are practicing a medicine of hope.”
Dr. Jeffrey Rediger, Cured, pg 365
How do beliefs and faith contribute to wellness?
We know more than ever how the mind and body are not only interconnected, but actually inseparable. Beliefs affect emotions, and emotions in turn affect our immune system, our hormone system, and our pain systems.
When unresolved painful emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt and shame predominate, we previously saw that mental and physical illnesses are more likely from the perpetual “fight or flight” state.
Here is how spiritual practises and habits as taught by Jesus and His followers over 2000 years ago, can help offset the painful emotions with their opposite more positive ones, tipping our Emotional Balance from chronic DISTRESS to increased JOY:
- Through forgiveness and reconciliation, ANGER may be replaced by DELIGHT (to see the other);
- FEAR may be replaced by TRUST in a God who promises to never leave you;
- SADNESS from losses and grief can be healed and replaced by HAPPINESS;
- Through repentance and being sorry for wrongdoing, GUILT may be replaced by restored INNOCENCE;
- And the feeling of being inadequate and flawed (SHAME), may be replaced by healthy ESTEEM and identity as a child of God.
When the painful emotions predominate on the left, we are likely to feel distressed and down, anxious, and maybe depressed. Or physical pain. On the right, we find ways to top up our “Joy Bucket.”
These concepts are not just based on the writing of ancient sages, but are now one after another being confirmed by neuroscientists and neurotheologians, using the modern brain scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI). Dr. Andrew Newburg in Why God Won’t Go Away, highlights this work and concludes that humans are indeed “wired” as spiritual beings.
Spiritual self-awareness
Whether you acknowledge the human spirit or not, and whether you deem yourself to be a spiritual adherent of a particular faith or not, you can begin right now to benefit from life-giving beliefs and practises.
In each iteration (cycle) around our Circles of Renewal and Growth, we will visit the Spiritual Circle for habits proven by medical science to promote health and wellness.
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
Compassionately,
