That could have to do with being in a supportive group. I'd like to see those regular churchgoers compared to non-churchgoers who attend regular social activities instead of just "those who did not attend services", which is a very wide range of people.
Sounds good, but if we are going to start mentioning health benefits, what
else may provide benefits?
For the study, the researchers asked 135 women between the ages of 61 to 91 to rate their levels of two different types of positive emotional functioning: hedonic well-being, such as joy or happiness resulting from pleasurable experiences; and eudaimonic well-being, which results from purposeful life engagement, continued personal growth, positive relationships with others, positive self-regard and the sense that one can master the surrounding environment.
"The hedonic is about happiness, feeling good, pleasure and gratification," explains Ryff. "The eudaimonic has a different philosophical tradition - it's not so much about feeling good, but about being actively engaged in life and making the most of your talents and capacities, regardless of how old you are."
When the researchers compared the participants' reported levels of both types of good emotional health to their physical charts, the results surprised them. They had expected that people who had higher levels of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being would be in better health. But, this connection was only evident in the women who reported high levels of eudaimonic well-being.
Good health goes beyond diet, exercise and stress
Note that eudaimonic well-being does not require churchgoing, or even Christianity. Consider this other article as well:
Since 1995, Dr. Ryff and her Wisconsin team have been studying some 7,000 individuals and examining factors that influence health and well-being from middle age through old age in a study called MIDUS, or the Mid-Life in the U.S. National Study of Americans, funded by the National Institute on Aging. Eudaimonic well-being "reduces the bite" of risk factors normally associated with disease like low education level, using biological measures, according to their recently published findings on a subset of study participants.
Participants with low education level and greater eudaimonic well-being had lower levels of interleukin-6, an inflammatory marker of disease associated with cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and Alzheimer's disease, than those with lower eudaimonic well-being, even after taking hedonic well-being into account. The work was published in the journal Health Psychology.
David Bennett, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and his colleagues showed that eudaimonic well-being conferred benefits related to Alzheimer's. Over a seven-year period, those reporting a lesser sense of purpose in life were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease compared with those reporting greater purpose in life, according to an analysis published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. The study involved 950 individuals with a mean age of about 80 at the start of the study.
In a separate analysis of the same group of subjects, researchers have found those with greater purpose in life were less likely to be impaired in carrying out living and mobility functions, like housekeeping, managing money and walking up or down stairs. And over a five-year period they were significantly less likely to dieby some 57% than those with low purpose in life.
The link persisted even after researchers took into account variables that could be related to well-being and happiness, such as depressive symptoms, neuroticism, medical conditions and income.
"I think people would like to be happy," says Dr. Bennett. "But, you know, life has challenges. A lot of it is how you confront those challenges."
University of Wisconsin Study Finds Eudaimonic Happiness Lessens the 'Bite' of Risk Factors for Disease - WSJ.com
Go eudaimonic well-being!
eudaimonia,
Mark
It's hard to write off an increased life expectancy of 14 years, however you slice it. Even if you could, how many of those eudaimonically happy people are people of faith? Now please note, I am not saying people who don't have faith are incapable of happiness. That's obviously not true. When I was secular, I was genuinely happy at times. The study seems to indicate though that people who have faith are generally happier, and have a lasting happiness. We can also look at the other side of the coin:
The American Journal of Psychiatry reported this in 2004:
Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. Unaffiliated subjects were younger, less often married, less often had children, and had less contact with family members. Furthermore, subjects with no religious affiliation perceived fewer reasons for living, particularly fewer moral objections to suicide. In terms of clinical characteristics, religiously unaffiliated subjects had more lifetime impulsivity, aggression, and past substance use disorder. No differences in the level of subjective and objective depression, hopelessness, or stressful life events were found.
Some other quotes:
"Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism."
http://www.christianforums.com/#cite_note-9
"In an article also published in this issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life and other health outcomes. The authors report a majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes."
"Teen Challenge claims of a 70% cure rate for the drug addicts graduating from their program attracted the attention of the U.S. Federal Government in 1973. Most secular drug rehabilitation programs only experienced a cure rate of 1-15% of their graduates. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, funded the first year of this study to evaluate the long term results of the Teen Challenge program"
