So go ahead, laugh. Cue up your favorite flick and let the giggles begin. Or hook up with a humorous friend and tell stories about funny life events. When you do this, your body will respond in beneficial ways. And best of all, your outlook will improve.
- Religion and Spirituality
According to Live Science, religion may soothe anxiety. However, the referenced study regarding this approach transcends to an actual belief in God as opposed to general spirituality. (This doesn’t mean that spirituality isn’t just as effective. This is just true of what Live Science reports in this particular instance.)
In the study, brain waves of subjects were measured. Scientists were looking for a “distress response while participants made mistakes on a test.” The findings were fascinating. Subjects who had engaged in religious thoughts responded in a calmer way to mistakes than those who hadn’t prepared religiously. In fact, when people engaged in religious thinking, the brain actually had a different response. Subjects were more resilient and less anxious.
“Eighty-five percent of the world has some sort of religious beliefs,” Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto-Scarborough, who co-wrote the study, tells Live Science. “I think it behooves us as psychologists to study why people have these beliefs; exploring what functions, if any, they may serve…Thinking about religion makes you calm under fire. It makes you less distressed when you’ve made an error.”
That said, atheists showed a different response. But researchers say this isn’t a reason for concern. “We think this can occur with any meaning system that provides structure and helps people understand their world,” Inzlicht adds.
According to Live Science, the study was published in Psychological Science, which is a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.