Health and emotional wellbeing

I suspect that this is linked to the way that religious people tend to show up in studies as healthier and longer lived.

people who are happy, lively, calm or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to become ill when they are exposed to a cold virus than those who report few of these emotions. In that study, Cohen found that when they do come down with a cold, happy people report fewer symptoms than would be expected from objective measures of their illness.

One thing in a more general way that religious practice seems to do is help people to be

happy, lively, calm or [to] exhibit other positive emotions

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