Religion and Health: Religious Service Extends Your Life
Attending religious service once a week, regardless of your faith, can help lower your risk of death by 20% compared to people who don’t attend services.
Researchers have found this fact after studying the health of 92,395 post-menopausal women for seven years.
The researchers looked at women 50 to 79 at 40 locations around the United States.
The lead author of the study, Eliezer Schnall of Yeshiva University, said that the findings showed a lower rate of death from all causes.
The reason is not clear, although earlier studies have suggested that people who are part of strong social networks tend to be healthier.
“There is something here that we don’t quite understand. It is always possible that some unknown or unmeasured factors confounded these results,” Schnall added.
The study appears in the journal Psychology & Health.