Did you know expressing your spirituality can affect your mental health? There are so many ways to express your spirituality. Even if you’re not religious. Spirituality and personal growth involve building self-awareness, acceptance, and connecting with a greater purpose. It’s developing meaning and believing in something beyond yourself.

Some people with chronic pain find that religion and spirituality can help them cope with their condition. Religious or spiritual practices can be considered in pain management practices. It can assist with removing blame, living in the moment, being mindful, and more.

You can experience your spiritually many ways. For example, spending time in nature, being creative, making art, engaging in practices like meditation or prayer. Participating in a spiritual or faith community is a great way to do this.

Spirituality can positively affect mental health. Research shows there is often an inverse relationship between attending church services and depression for all age groups. This means that people who attended church more often were less likely to be depressed. However, this would only apply to people belonging to those religions.  

This finding may be due to many reasons. For example, community belonging, strong support systems, having purpose, ability to forgive, belief in a higher power, etc.

There are also amazing findings for non-religious spiritual people. For example, yoga and meditation were also associated with improved mental health and reduced anxiety.

How can spirituality improve mental health?

Researchers have explored the reason behind this association. They have found many mechanisms that may explain the benefits.

Some of the mechanisms include:

• Enhanced coping mechanisms
• Locus of control
• Social support and social networks
• Physiological mechanisms
• Architecture, nature, and environment

The research showed that people who are religious or spiritual often take a collaborative approach to coping. This means they work with a higher power when coping with stressful events. The greatest improvement in mental health was observed due to this coping style.

Additionally, other research suggested that spiritual beliefs helped people reframe events in their lives. They could reinterpret events that were out of their control to be more meaningful.

Religion or spirituality also granted people a support system. The support helped them via improved self-esteem, access to information, companionship, and practical help. This enabled them to better cope with stress and difficult life events.

Along with the social and mental benefits, researchers found that there were physiological mechanisms at play. Spirituality teaches several emotional states, like hope, contentment, love, and forgiveness. These states can affect neural pathways that connect to the endocrine (hormonal) and immune systems.

Lastly, spirituality is often connected with the natural and built environment. Existing in these environments can positively affect mental health. For example, sitting in beautiful churches, temples, or mosques, as well as nature can impact mood. Additionally, there is often art and music in these spaces. This also positively impacts mood and outlook.

In conclusion, these benefits are likely the result of mental, social, biological, and environmental factors. These can interact with individual factors (e.g., age, gender, culture, etc.) that affect a person’s mental health status.

Practice

Below, you will find the worksheet for this lesson: the Spirituality Worksheet. This worksheet will help you reflect on how you are spiritual in your daily life.

Reflect

Reflect on how you are spiritual in your life. Even if you aren’t explicitly religious, write how other aspects of your life can be seen as spiritual. Do you think your spirituality affects your mental health and how?

In the next lesson, you will learn about taking and enjoying your breaks.