Religious Faith: How You Experience It Decides How It Affects You

Religion was previously believed to
be solely healing, but new research
shows religious influence on the
brain is more complex

What comes to mind when you think about the effects of religious faith on the brain? Resilience-building? Harmful? Or does it depend? Many early researchers found that religious beliefs and practices help people manage stress and protect against mental illness, and many people might passively agree. Nonetheless, recent research has shed light into how much religious faith exists within a context--the personality and character of a person, his or her self image, his or her personal relationship with the religion, the religious influences that act upon him or her, and the degree of oppressiveness of the religion, to name a few aspects of this context--and we are gradually understanding that by no means is religion innately stress-relieving or illness-deterring, but varies in effect between people and groups.

In a recent article published in the New York Times' IHT Global Opinion, writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks to the degree to which he was influenced by anti-Jewish sentiments growing up in a Muslim family and country. "I constantly heard my mother, other relatives and neighbors wish for the death of Jews, who were considered our darkest enemy," Ali writes. Ali explains that even religious tutors and preachers at mosques would reserve time for prayer for the destruction of the Jewish people. As such an endorsement of negative sentiments by religious authorities probably insinuated that Allah resented Jews, the people who subscribed to the belief that Islam is anti-Semitic have likely experienced more stress than others in the Middle East or in the world who have experienced Islam as an embracing religion.

San Francisco Gate writer David Ian Miller comments on these evident discrepancies in emotional responses to religion between those who see their god as loving and peaceful and those who see him as more intimidating. "If you focus on a God that's angry and vengeful," he writes, "that activates the anger centers of your brain, the strong emotional centers, which creates stress and anxiety."

Many other people and groups of people also experience stress as a result of religion. For example, a person can have issues incorporating certain dramatic events they've experienced into their religion, or may feel disconnected from his or her family's traditional religious beliefs and wish to start anew. Yet others may feel they are persecuted or resented by their religion or their god--homosexuals who subscribe to Christianity, as a well-known example--and this inspires feelings of exclusion and a lack of love that could make a person emotionally unstable. More oppressive religions or denominations might inspire more stress among those who feel innately persecuted than religions or denominations that are more moderate or liberal in their views. More conservative religions may also inspire stronger negative sentiments in people who feel that they are being chastised by their god or those that feel they've failed their god in some way. In terms of location, those who feel they are a religious minority where they live likely experience more anxiety as a result of their religion.

MRI scans showing hippocampal shrinkage (yellow=hippocampus)

There are, however, undeniable health risks of such increased stress in individuals experiencing emotional conflict as a result of their religion. David Ian Miller encapsulates this well in describing that as a direct result of heightened religion-related stress, "your body releases hormones that can actually damage the way your brain functions which fosters more negative emotions and negative behaviors outwardly." The authors of a study conducted at Duke University over a 11 year period incidentally found that people 58 and older that experienced more stress also experienced more shrinkage of their hippocampal regions (a process that naturally occurs with age). They also found that people in certain religious groups seemed to experience more stress, and thus more hippocampal shrinkage, than those belonging to other religious groups. "[The researchers] found significantly greater hippocampal atrophy among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation," Scientific American writer Andrew Newberg writes, "compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again."

This study seems to offer biological evidence that supports the argument that those who subscribe to more historically conservative religious groups--born-again Protestants and Catholics, in this case--and those who have no religious faith experience more stress than those who are subscribe to a religion with more "moderate" views. Thus, an argument supporting this conclusion might hold that experiencing a more positive personal relationship with religion allows a person to experience less stress and perhaps less susceptibility to emotional or physical illness that could result from higher stress levels.