First: the health benefits of prayer
Prayer, the worship of God (swt), is one of the five main pillars on which Islam is based. It is the most common ritual oriented towards achieving closeness to Allah (swt) and constitutes a major indicator of being a true Muslim.
He uses prayer as a means of seeking solace, forgiveness and peace through supplication for the help of God (swt). It serves as food for the soul. However, the benefits of prayer do not end with the spiritual realm but in fact it includes the physical realm as well, traditional prayers involve many bodily movements and postures, which have been scientifically proven to have medicinal and health benefits. Although Muslims generally perform their daily prayers out of religious duty, modern science has shed light on the physical advantages of offering prayers. Here are just a few of them:
Improves blood circulation
Different postures during prayer help in improving the overall blood flow in the body. People have a lot of issues when it comes to blood pressure where the blood flow is either too high or too low in a particular area of the body. In these cases, salah movements help regulate blood flow to all parts of the human body. During the bowing position, for example, blood flow is regulated in the upper body and during tashahhud, blood flow is regulated in the lower body.
improves digestion;
According to scientific studies, salah also aids in the digestion of food. For example, during the state of prostration, which is basically when the men sit with the feet curled under them and the women sit with the feet tucked under them, the posture allows and facilitates digestion. It improves liver function and relaxes the intestines, which in turn facilitates bowel movements in the body. Prayer can also help relieve cases of constipation and overeating.
Relieves back pain and joint pain
The position of the body during prostration and kneeling helps open and relieve joints. Regular use of joints keeps them healthy and functioning. Moreover, the kneeling position helps relieve pain in the lower back by relaxing the ligaments and muscles (similar to yoga). It also helps relieve pain in the spinal cord and hip joints. By relaxing the spine, back pain and diseases of the spine can also be avoided. Prayer generally relaxes the shoulder, elbow, knee, ankle and hip joints.
Cardiovascular health
In essence, prayer is also a form of exercise and increases a person's metabolism, which essentially improves overall cardiovascular health. Every salah you offer is like exercising on a daily basis which improves the general functioning of the body organs and regulates gland secretion and blood flow in the body.
body yoga
According to modern science, yoga is one of the healthiest forms of exercise out there
The movements during prayer are similar to the movements found in the field of yoga. Yoga, like Salah, rejuvenates the body's mechanisms in general. It not only aims to maintain the physical fitness of the person, but also improves the mental well-being of the person. Yoga therapy aims to bring harmony in a person's life by bringing together all aspects of his/her life including physical, social, spiritual, psychological etc. and creating a complete circle of harmony. This is exactly what prayer aims to do. Achieving complete harmony and peace within the individual. Prayer also acts as an alternative to stress and anxiety, which yoga also fights against
improves digestion;
According to scientific studies, salah also aids in the digestion of food. For example, during the state of prostration, which is basically when the men sit with the feet curled under them and the women sit with the feet tucked under them, the posture allows and facilitates digestion. It improves liver function and relaxes the intestines, which in turn facilitates bowel movements in the body. Prayer can also help relieve cases of constipation and overeating.
sanitation
One of the most prominent benefits of daily prayer is the general cleanliness and purity that the individual achieves. It keeps you in a constant state of purity. Before each prayer, a Muslim must perform ablution, which is the cleansing of the mouth, nose, face, ears, neck, hands, arms, and feet. Staying in a constant state of cleanliness leads to healthier skin and overall hygienic hygiene. It rids you of germs, allergens, and different types of infections and diseases caused by lack of hygiene.
This just goes to show the palette of multifaceted benefits offered by prayer that not only serves as nourishment for our souls but for our body as well.
The benefits of prayer on mental health
Najwa Awad is a psychologist and fellow at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research
Who is passionate about helping Muslims heal, grow and thrive after adversity. She has a private practice, Amana Family Counseling, in which she provides online and in-person counseling to children, adults and families. Najwa also enjoys holding workshops to destigmatize mental illness, address current mental health issues within the community, and promote mental health from an Islamic perspective.
Islam provides a general framework for life, and within its teachings one can find many recommendations that promote mental health. Although these tenants are by nature cults, the secondary benefits of maintaining one's wellness through these actions are supported by recent research. As a psychotherapist, I can attest to the importance of spirituality in mental health, and in this article I will discuss three important connections between Islamic practices and mental wellness. Connect and love the ultimate provider.
In my clinical practice, I have found that those who have a healthy, loving connection to God can be tremendously resilient in times of stress. When others fail them or the pressure is too much on them, they have a firm belief that God has their supreme interest and will carry them through them. Let us examine some aspects of how a relationship with God differs from any other type of relationship a person can have: Satisfying their basic needs is love and communication. A healthy attachment is essential to growing and meeting one's full potential and building meaningful relationships with others.
Some people are blessed with an understanding of a healthy attachment to their loved one; But many individuals go through their lives feeling disconnected from others. In the absence of healthy attachments, humans tend to be at greater risk of isolation, low self-esteem, and unstable moods. permanent connection
Why is knowing and embodying positive characteristics important for mental health?
Understanding who you are or want to be can contribute to a strong sense of self; Psychotherapists like myself work with clients in session to increase self-esteem, life purpose, and healthy relationships. Falling back on essential health characteristics during times of stress can also be a guide in how to deal with interpersonal conflicts, difficult feelings, and moral doubts. Islam promotes mental health in a relationship with God - the Almighty -
life way
Mindfulness: Mindfulness is usually associated with Buddhism, but is actually a very important topic in Islam8. While mindfulness has recently emerged in clinical research as having benefits for mental health9, this is a practice that has been discussed (albeit slightly different from mainstream mindfulness). ) by Muslim scholars hundreds of years ago. Muslims follow the beliefs of Islam with conviction, but there are many mental health benefits to following an Islamic lifestyle. The following are some of the many acts of worship that have been proven in the scientific literature to be beneficial for mental health: Zakat: Zakat is one of the pillars of Islam.
The physical movements of prayer
Beneficial to the body and psychologically, there are mental health benefits to being in constant contact with a Greater Power throughout the day
6. It also showed the recitation of the Qur’an
Which can be part of prayer, some psychological benefits. There are many aspects of practicing Islam that promote good mental health, and this article only scratches the surface on how spirituality can increase resilience. In my psychotherapy practice, I have found that spirituality can be very effective in reducing risk factors as well as facilitating coping. While these Islamic principles are first and foremost acts of worship, secondary benefits for mental health are evident in the scientific literature.
The prayer and the healing
Medical and scientific perspective
Religious traditions around the world display beliefs in healing through prayer.
Examining the healing powers of prayer in a randomized, triple-blind trial. We describe randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of the different outcome categories. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human species as well as non-human species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to produce retrospective healing effects. For several reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is full of assumptions, challenges, and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that research has not led anywhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be limited by the scientific limitations that we define. Religious practices have been associated with healing for thousands of years. People pray for good health and relief from disease. Prayer may lead to health and healing through one or more of several mechanisms. We look briefly at these mechanisms. Healing Mechanisms Through Prayer Prayer is a special form of meditation and as such may impart all of the health benefits that have been associated with meditation.
To reduce stress and boost a positive mood
States different types of meditation have been shown to lead to psychological and biological changes already associated or potentially associated with improved health. Meditation has been found to produce a clinically significant decrease in resting as well as ambulatory blood pressure to reduce heart rate resulting in cardiac and respiratory synchronization to alter melatonin and serotonergic levels to suppress cortical glutamatergic neurotransmission to enhance the immune response
Enhanced self-esteem and reduced levels of reactive oxygen species as measured by ultrafast photon emission
To reduce anxiety and pain
To have a positive effect on the overall and spiritual quality of life in the late stage of the disease.
Interestingly, spiritual meditation is superior to secular meditation and relaxation in terms of reducing anxiety, improving positive mood, spiritual health, spiritual experiences, and pain tolerance.
Prayer may be underpinned by varying degrees of faith, and thus may be associated with all of the benefits that were associated with the placebo response.
Clinically significant treatment gains have been observed with placebo in several disorders, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, tardive dyskinesia, ischemic heart disease, heart failure, Parkinson's disease, and even cancer, among a host of other conditions.
With respect to the context of prayer and healing, the placebo response is affected by personality traits and behaviors such as optimism, response anticipation, motivational fit (i.e., the degree to which the behavioral ritual of treatment aligns with the subject's motivational system) and the degree of engagement in ritual
Prayer may be associated with improvements that result from spontaneous remission, regression to mediocrity, unspecified psychosocial support, the Hawthorne effect and the Rosenthal effect.
Spontaneous remission is known to occur in conditions ranging from medical disorders (such as colds and pharyngitis) to psychological conditions (such as depression and mania).
Regression to the mean describes improvement that occurs as a result of random fluctuation in disease severity; In clinical trials, because patients are usually pre-selected for severe disease severity, such fluctuations occur in only one direction (ie, toward improvement).
Non-specific emotional support provides psychological benefits through interpersonal contact, such as during diagnostic and assessment exercises. Non-specific support can reduce anxiety, depression, pain, and similar combinations.
Spontaneous remission and conversion to the mean may occur coincidentally with prayer. Non-specific psychosocial support related to prayer may appear in places of collective prayer. Improvements in all of these contexts are real improvements.
The Hawthorne effect refers to the change that occurs as a result of the act of observing or measuring, while the Rosenthal effect refers to the change caused by the observer or the expectation of the evaluator. In relation to the former, the comfortable setting of the study environment or the patient's conscious or unconscious desire to please may result in him reporting fewer symptoms than are actually present. With respect to the latter, the rater's tendency to expect attenuation of symptoms over time may lead to a less significant association with reported symptoms
Prayer may have benefits due to divine intervention
Although considering such a possibility may seem scientifically outlandish, there is no denying that people, all over the planet, pray for health and relief from symptoms in times of illness. Healing through prayer, healing through religious rituals, healing in places of pilgrimage, and healing through related forms of intervention are deeply rooted traditions in many religions.
Let divine intervention act as a healing mechanism through prayer
Improve results associated with prayer
Cha et al. studied 219 consecutive infertile women, ages 26 to 46, treated with embryo transfer in a laboratory in Seoul, South Korea. These women were randomized into the remote prayer and control groups. Prayers were held by prayer groups in the USA, Canada and Australia. Patients and their providers were not informed of the intervention. The investigators, and even the statisticians, did not know the group assignments until all the data had been collected. Thus, the study was randomized, triple-blind, controlled and prospective in design.
Cha et al. found that women who prayed for had an almost twice higher pregnancy rate than those for whom they did not pray (50 vs 26%; P < 0.005). Moreover, women who were prayed for showed a higher rate of implantation than those who were not prayed for (16.3 vs. 8%; P < 0.001).
Retrospective benefits with prayer
These patients were randomized into prayer groups (n = 1691) and control group (n = 1702) in July 2000.
A list of first names of patients in the prayer group was given to a person (details not specified) who said a short prayer (again details not specified) for the well-being and full recovery of the entire group. This prayer was said about 4-10 years or more after the index was accepted. There was no sham intervention.
Thus, this study sought to determine whether prayer had a retrospective healing effect
Patients in the prayer and control groups were similar in significant sociodemographic and clinical variables. While the mortality rate did not differ significantly between the prayer group and the control groups (28.1 vs 30.2%, respectively), the length of hospital stay and the duration of fever were significantly shorter in the prayer group than in the control group (P = 0.01 and 0.04, respectively). .
Some points about this study are worth noting. The differences between the groups were very small, although it greatly favored the patients to whom prayers were offered. The two groups' averages differed by a small margin.
Thus, the significance of the results is highly dependent on the outliers that distorted the sample. Thereafter, no attempt was made to compare with unusual biases, such as day of admission and discharge. It is possible, for example, that patients admitted at the end of the week may be screened and treated more slowly, and patients admitted at the end of the week may be kept until the beginning of the following week.
Importantly, given the number of patients in each group, there was certainly a lot of overlap in first names.
Did Lipovici consider the possibility that prayer, then, could benefit patients in both groups to the point of overlap? Finally, and in a lighter vein, would the results have changed had the author, in the best of ethical research spirits, introduced the experimental intervention (prayer) to the control group at the conclusion of the study?
Most seriously, because the data was retrospective, the study could have been repeated many times, with a new randomizer each time. Were the results, then, to remain the same? These and other issues were raised in the periodical correspondence published on the article.
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