Secrets of Longevity: Religious Services Make You Live Longer

New research shows that attending religious services… beyond bringing comfort and lending strength to many, may be a secret to longevity and actually prolong life.

The unusual finding is based on data supplied as part of the NIH funded Women’s Health Initiative and is published in Psychology and Health.

Science, much to our surprise (and delight) has delivered up absolute proof that older women who attend religious services on a regular basis cut their risk of death by 20%. Earlier studies had put the number at 25%.

Religious services are known to provide a social network with established rituals and routines that seem to be important to well being, but even when this was factored in, the older women were still less likely to die. This certainly exceeded the expectations of the researchers when they began the project.

“Interestingly, the protection against mortality provided by religion cannot be entirely explained by expected factors that include enhanced social support of friends or family, lifestyle choice, and reduced smoking and alcohol consumption,” lead author and clinical assistant professor of psychology, Eliezer Schnall is quoted in a news release.

“There is something here that we don’t quite understand. It is always possible that some unknown or unmeasured factors confounded these results.”

Researchers from Yeshiva University and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, made no distinction as to the type of service, they were only concerned with the regularity of attendance and if services brought comfort.

The team evaluated the religious practices of 92,395 postmenopausal (ages 50 to 79) women participating in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), who gave information about their religious practices along with details about behavior and health conditions.

The female participants, volunteers collected from a variety of nationwide sources, answered three questions on religion at registration for the WHI study. These were:

1. Religious affiliation (yes or no)
2. How often services were attended (never, less than once per week, once per week, or more than once per week)
3. If religion provided strength and comfort (none, a little, a great deal)

Subjects were followed for about 7.7 years, and adjustments were made for risk factors like age and health history.

And yet, it didn’t seem to matter, women who went to religious services at least once a week had a 20% mortality risk reduction compared to those who didn’t attend services of any kind.

The service attendees did not, however, show any reduction in death that was specifically related to cardiovascular disease.

The press release for the work makes a point to note that the study didn’t try to measure spirituality in any way. Instead, it looked at self reported religious practices of this group of women, no matter what that faith might be.

So, while science can’t explain it fully, and the experts plan more studies, it would seem that whatever your beliefs, having a strong social network and engaging in wholesome “routines” can only be a good thing. You’ll live a richer, and now perhaps longer, life.