Religion plays a variable role in people’s lives, to serve as a component of your sense of identify To give you a framework for your daily schedule. With the election of Pope Leo XIV, everyone in the world is attentive to this last example of the way in which the organized religion can be important, that people believe in this particular religion or not.
The advantages and disadvantages of religious involvement
You can probably generate your own list of reasons why religion could be beneficial or harmful to mental health, or perhaps being somewhere between the two.
People with constant religious beliefs do not only identify themselves with a spiritual Being, but also a tendency to socialize with others who share these beliefs. By going to the site of your religious involvement, you have an automatic group of friends, or at least companions, which you see regularly. They can provide emotional support and often, more than that, practical help if you encounter problems. Does this type of integrated support group help provide lasting stimulation to well-being?
Put the value of religion to the test
In a new study on the possible advantages of religion for mental health, Gabriele Prati from the University of Bologna (2025) focused on the social aspects of the parentage of organized religion. Summing “enormous literature” demonstrating the positive effects of religion, she suggests that more than meeting friends and people sharing the same ideas, religious participation helps to promote the maintenance of a healthier lifestyle. You are less likely to drink, smoke and use alcohol And recreational drugs if you are part of a religious community, it maintains.
Distribute the advantages of religion to these health maintenance behaviors, practiced nevertheless that there is, despite this enormous literature, not enough studies carried out over periods long enough to help separate the cause and the effect. Healthy people could attend religious services more often, as is a religious participation promotes better health.
Prati has been able to overcome this limitation thanks to its use of a large set of longitudinal data known as the comprehension company – British Momening Panel Survey (BHPS), produced by the University of Essex. Covering 18 waves of tests between 1991 and 2009, the BHPS included 10 sets of measures in which the participants indicated their frequency of frequentation of religious services with a simple scale of evaluation of a question.
Through the 10 test intervals, the percentage of participants who declared that they had attended the services on average from around 11 to 16%, with half to two thirds which never set foot in a worship. Participants were on average 44 years old at the first time of the tests, 38% declaring that they had no religious affiliation.
The others were mainly Christian, representing the Church of England (Anglican; 36%), Roman Catholicism (9%) and presbyterism (Church of Scotland; 4%). The sample also included the methodist (3%) and others not specifically identified. The measures of the results included a scale of 12 elements evaluating mental health based on a global health questionnaire and a question of life satisfaction with a single element.
Using modeling techniques that have followed relationships over time within individuals in joint relationships between religious attendance and measures of mental health results, the Italian researcher has reached a surprising conclusion. Unlike the previous literature suggesting that mental health would benefit from religious attendance, the effects were simply not there.
According to his words: “The results of this study questioned the role of the attendance of religious services in improving mental health and theoretical hypotheses concerning the specialty of religion in the field of mental health” (p. 164).
What explains this surprising discovery?
To understand this unexpected result, Prati cited four possible explanations.
The first is that it is not because you go to religious services that you will have positive interactions there. The simple fact of being in a place with other people would not guarantee that you will be able to feel better.
Second, previous studies had not addressed the problem in the way as complete as its own longitudinal work of 18 years. Getting rid of or reducing the effect of possible contamination variables was only possible with the extensive data set that it had at its disposal.
Third, Prati notes that his sample was based on the United Kingdom and, as a secular country, people who attend religious services may not receive the same type of advantages as they would do in more religious cultures.
Finally, although there have been many evaluations over time, they were still too sporadic, potentially, to detect the direct links of the mental health of the Church. It is possible that the boost you get by switching to a religious service dissipates over time, in particular considering that such a small minority of the sample has really assisted services regularly.
There are also other considerations, not necessarily captured with the relatively superficial mental health measure used in this study. In addition, there may be potential drawbacks to religious involvement – for example, if the guilt Not respecting your standards makes you feel like a failure. If you deceive The healthy lifestyle recommended by your religion, is that a bad person?
In addition, you can also be thrown into an internal conflict if someone or a group representing your religious affiliation does something that you find morally reprehensible. How to reconcile this inner conflict can arouse a range of negative emotions and lead you to question the piece of your identity associated with this religion. Conflicts can also occur if your religion (or its absence) does not take care of the religion of your relational partner or his family.
Another problem is that religions vary enormously in their philosophyteaching and practices. The British study mainly included members of the Christian religion, and even, mainly Anglican. Could the advantage of religious participation depend not only on your membership in its teachings, but on its set of spiritual beliefs?
Religiosity, mental health and you
Obviously, there is much more research in this area to explore in more detail the possible advantages of religious participation. The Prati study provides an excellent example of the type of long -term research necessary to be able to separate the cause of the effect, if they exist, in this area.
From a practical point of view, the results also suggest that if you are looking for deeper advantages for your soul, the frequentation of the church on a weekly basis (or less) may not be the panacea you want. You don’t need to put yourself in a physical space to feel the advantages of engaging with your own goal or your sense of morality.
However, if you are someone who makes religious attendance part of your weekly life (or more), the results of the practition could be useful to best think about the use of your advantage. Let us recall what it concluded on the potential for negative and positive social interactions. Try to find ways to maximize the pleasant aspects of relationships with your worshipers. Likewise, remembering that the UK-based survey did not include the measures of behavior favoring health, consider the means that you also build them in your lifestyle, whether by religion or otherwise.
To summarizeThe management of your mental health reflects a complex set of components, many of which interact with each other. Yours can flourish the more you benefit from everything that brings you inner peace, as well as a healthy lifestyle.