Religion And Mental Health Essay

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Religion plays a key role in mental health because it promotes human virtues such as honesty, forgiveness, compassion, gratefulness, and endurance, which may boost positive emotions and neutralize negative ones. Mental health-- viewed as an important part of person's emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing, and quality of life -- deals with all one's emotions and different individual skills and capacities, including all of a person's reactions to stress. Positive mental health provides a feeling of wellbeing and gives people strength to face all kinds of life challenges. From the mental health perspective, a body of study has shown that stresses and strains as well as uncertainties of life can be tolerated more easily by religious people (Behere, Das, Yadav & Behere, 2013). Hence, the positive …show more content…

Recent studies on religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have shown that R/S correlates significantly with mental health in college students (Compton, 2001) and other adult populations (James, & Wells, 2003).
Religion appears to be a psychological necessity for mankind despite stunning advances in technology and science. In the US general population, religious participation has always been prominent, with over 90% of Americans believing in God or a higher power, 90% praying (67–75% praying daily), 69% being members of a church, 60% considering religion to be very important in their lives and 82% acknowledging the need for spiritual growth (Miller & Thoresen, 2003; Moberg, 2006). Perhaps for these reasons, interest in the link between religious involvement and mental health has increased markedly by virtually any indicator. In academic circles, research examining the relationships between religion and the mental health of individuals and populations has become increasingly visible in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. Many studies that have observed a strong positive association

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