IBCSR’s Spirituality and Health Causation Project aims to move beyond the hundreds of correlational studies identifying the health effects of religious and spiritual practices to identify the causal, biochemical mechanisms that mediate spirituality-health connections. IBCSR’s partners in this project are Dr. Katherine Verdolini Abbott and Dr. Nicole Li at the University of Pittsburgh. The Spirituality and Health Causation Project is funded in part by an NIH subcontract through the University of Pittsburgh and by Boston University.
Key personnel: Wesley J. Wildman (PI), Katherine Verdolini Abbott, Nicole Li, Joel Daniels.
Richard P. Sloan’s book Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine begins with a description of patients who are asked to pray with their doctor as he prepares to perform surgery on them. With this and other examples…
Guilt: it’s no fun. Knowing that we’ve harmed or let down someone we care about leads us to feel blue, self-conscious, and eager to make amends. However, many psychologists have suggested that the emotion of guilt is actually a highly…
Most people go to church to get spiritually fed. The church provides a safe environment where its members can experience the wonders of religious life. Of course, while spiritual nourishment and religious experience are certainly important, they are not necessarily…
For some, religion is a way to achieve salvation – ensuring that, for example, one’s soul will be taken care of in the afterlife. But for many others, religion and spirituality are also about life in the here and now.…
Why do we humans have things like rites, rituals, prayers, and beliefs? Many might answer that they help us to find meaning and purpose in life, feel connected with something greater, or ward off fear of death. But spirituality also…
People have speculated over the value of meditating for thousands of years. Meditating seems to improve people’s mood, increase their self-awareness, and help them relax. Of course, mere hearsay will not convince neurologists—only empirical investigation will. To that end, a…
In recent years, much ado has been made about mindfulness meditation. Researchers and psychologists have found strong, persistent connections between meditation and enhanced executive cognitive functions – that is, high-level brain processes, like attention switching, planning, and impulse control, that…
It’s one of the most basic human experiences. The world and I are different things – the world is out there, and I’m looking out at all the action. But this division might not be so strict for everyone. Researchers…
Long-term meditators know that meditation can change people’s experience of the world, usually for the better. Highly experienced practitioners of meditation often report greater feelings of equanimity, patience, and compassion for others – even at times when they’re not meditating,…
Religion, said Marx, is the “opiate of the masses.” This well-known phrase has come to represent the pacifying impact of religion, especially popular religion, used for the social control (or exploitation) of the majority by the elite. The assurance of heaven…
Buddhist scholar, B. Alan Wallace’s Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (Columbia University Press, 2007) is an attractive read for anyone interested in neuroscience, consciousness, psychology, Buddhism, or religious studies. Educated in the West and having studied under H.H.…