People who are more spiritual are better able to deal with the discomforts and limitations of chronic disease than their less-spiritual counterparts.
Recent studies have suggested that acutely ill people with strong religious faith or an optimistic personality may get better quicker or live longer than people who lack those traits. The aim of the Johns Hopkins study was to assess the relation between spirituality, disease severity and perceptions of well-being in patients with chronic disease.
To do so, the researchers examined data on 77 patients aged 30 or older who had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for a minimum of 2 years. Spirituality was defined as the capacity of an individual to stand outside of his/her immediate sense of time and place and to view life from a larger, more detached perspective.
While being spiritual did not lessen the effects of the arthritis, reduce pain or improve mobility, people who were more spiritual tended to be happier and feel better about their general health.
American Geriatrics Society's annual meeting Washington May 10, 2002
Johns Hopkins is the most highly respected research institution in the US, but they missed it here.
They only appreciated the superficial affects of spiritual behavior and found, not surprisingly, that those who were more spiritual tended to be happier and feel better.
What they missed is the fact that proper application of spiritual disciplines has more than enough capacity to improve chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
The most widely circulated medical journal in the world even documented this with their publication of the study that showed journaling to improve RA.
I have since learned that there are a few variations of journaling that will even further improve its effectiveness. The first is to write continuously. Your pen should be constantly moving on the paper, even if there are no words and it is just lines, eventually the words will come.
Secondly, and most importantly, you will need to burn the paper after you finish. If you don't your subconscious will not let you write what needs to be written for fear of someone finding the paper and reading it.
Alternatively you could type the document and just not save it to a file.
One should also journal on three separate occasions for each trauma event. Journaling this way is a powerful way to activate spiritual resources for healing.
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