Can Mysterious Ways improve your health? All the science is pointing to yes.
We’re not quite ready to seek FDA approval, but if recent studies are any indication, the stories we share in our pages might just cure what ails you.
Last month’s New York Times Magazine reported on a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who sought to determine the link (if any) between different emotions and physical wellbeing.
More than 200 college freshmen were surveyed about their emotions, and then tested to determine their physical condition. As you might expect, “happy” students were generally more fit. But the healthiest of the healthy? They all reported recent experiences with a more distinctive emotion–awe.
“There seems to be something about awe,” the senior author of the study told the Times. “It seems to have a pronounced impact on markers related to inflammation.” No matter what provokes these feelings, he urges everyone to “seek it often” for better health.
A new book, The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving by Columbia University psychologist Lisa Miller, also draws a link between awe-inspiring experiences and wellness–specifically, that evidence suggests children who are encouraged to explore faith undergo better physical and mental development as they age.
According to Miller, “In the entire realm of human experience, there is no single factor that will protect your adolescent like a personal sense of spirituality.”
New York magazine’s the Science of Us blog reports:
The downside [to neglecting] your children’s spiritual development is huge–more catastrophic than failing to eat organic, or to prep properly for the SATs or to diligently attend soccer practice. Spiritual stunting can perhaps damage a child forever, creating a brittle sense of self and a lack of resiliency. Miller even cites some evidence that supporting the spiritual development in teens creates more supple pathways between the front part of the brain, which is command central, and the intuitive, perceptual parts, building a more integrated person.
Miller is Jewish, but says that even non-believers can help their kids. Children have an innate capacity for that “oh wow” feeling we get when something extraordinary moves us–all parents have to do is not poison it with their own cynicism and let it develop.
She recommends that parents play the role of “spiritual ambassador,” by exposing their children to experiences in which they can draw their own conclusions about the nature of God.
The job of this “spiritual ambassador” is a vital one to a child’s health. Miller’s book cites several eye-opening statistics: Children who have a positive connection to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers, and 80% less likely to have dangerous or unprotected sex.
None of this is surprising to us. We already know that awe can work wonders for anyone’s health. Marine biologist Eva Saulitis wasn’t any kind of believer when she was diagnosed with cancer… until an experience with killer whales led her down the road to remission.
Margaret Terry, was suffering a mental breakdown in the wake of a bitter divorce, until a thrift store discovery on Christmas Eve pointed her towards healing.
Debra Person was hopelessly addicted to drugs, when an inexplicable force–“divine gravity,” she calls it–propelled her away from her drug den and into rehab.
Hurt, lost, damaged souls who all came from wildly different places, with different belief systems–and yet all seem to have encountered the same presence, one that filled their souls with the awe and wonder they’d been thirsting for.
Hmm. Maybe Mysterious Ways should seek FDA approval after all.
How has awe and wonder improved your health? Has a glimpse of God healed you? Share your story with us.
