Most US adults believe in God or a universal deity, yet spirituality and the relationship with the Divine are not routinely addressed in clinical care. The majority of US adults report that they have relied on healing prayers for themselves or have offered healing prayers for others. As the United States and the world face adversity and spiritual distress, it is important to reflect on how we can better incorporate the fields of medicine, religion, and spirituality. As a physician who faced hardship over the past few years, it is my clinging to my belief in God, my spirituality, and the practice of prayers that have sustained me through these dark times. I have also used healing prayers when I was faced with health adversities (and I have had many of them).
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An increasing number of physicians are recognizing that spirituality is a core patient need and has a significant beneficial effect on health. Nonetheless, some in the physician community believe that spirituality conflicts with modern medical science.
Spirituality encompasses several domains of connectedness, including a personal domain involving the relationship with oneself, a communal domain involving the relationship with others, and a transcendental domain reflecting the relationship with the Divine. Healthy spirituality is always grounded in reality and awareness, with an emphasis on hopeful openness and loving connectedness. Prayer is often defined as communication with a higher power, God, or the Divine. Prayer occupies a unique and compelling space in spirituality, as it is a practice that transcends cultures and religious traditions. Prayer has always been considered a form of personal spiritual expression, with growing clinical evidence for its potential therapeutic benefit to health. Prayer can serve as a coping mechanism to offer humans comfort, hope, and a sense of connection during distressing times. Prayers can act as an outlet for expressing emotions, seeking guidance, and fostering resilience.
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We know that spirituality is expressed through our beliefs, the values we practice, the traditions we follow, and how we conduct ourselves in our clinical practice. The International Consensus Conference on Improving the Spiritual Dimension of Whole Person Care defined spirituality in 2013 as “a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence and experience relationships to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred.”
As practicing physicians seek to alleviate the suffering of our patients, we incur the duty to accompany them on their illness journey, caring for their soul as well as their body. The field of medicine has always been intertwined with spirituality and shrouded in religious values. Many US healthcare institutions were founded by religious organizations, as the role of healers was recognized in priests and shamans. For many centuries, the profession of medicine embodied the care of both the flesh and the spirit. Patients often viewed their treating physicians as secular priests and shamans who helped them navigate the tumultuous spiritual domains of their medical illness.
Can tending to one’s spirituality help? Do prayers for oneself work? Do prayers for others work?
As a physician who faced hardship over the past few years, it is my clinging to my belief in God, my spirituality, and the practice of prayers that have sustained me through these dark times.
A Cochrane review on spirituality and prayer found that evidence regarding the health benefits of praying for oneself is supported by significant findings. There is a link between praying for oneself and healing, with improved health outcomes. The beneficial effect of prayer on metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and brain activity is significant enough to indicate that praying for oneself leads to improved health outcomes.
However, results from another Cochrane review on randomized trials of intercessory prayer (offering prayers for someone else) concluded that the evidence was promising enough to justify further research, but not sufficient to support that praying for others improves outcomes. This is quite interesting because it suggests that petitioning God for others may seem pointless based on the scientific evidence. However, our thoughts and prayers can signal to others that they are not alone and may provide them with comfort.
There is a link between praying for oneself and healing, with improved health outcomes.
It is questionable whether future research and clinical trials will conclusively answer the question of whether “prayer heals.” There is definitive evidence that individuals with a close connection to the Divine (God) are the very people most likely to pray for healing, either for themselves or others, alone or in groups. These individuals are also the ones who may experience the most significant health benefits from such practices (Placebo Effect). In most studies, the most consistent predictor of whether a prayer was going to help or not was a loving relationship with the Divine (God).
It is therefore important to foster a new generation of physicians who harbor a better understanding of the interaction between healing, health, spirituality, and the Divine.
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For physicians themselves (this includes medical students and residents), the emphasis has never been more acute, as physician burnout is increasing, and attention to the issue of spirituality can help improve the understanding of the inner life and focus of the physician. Better training on the aspects of spirituality in medicine can also facilitate a better understanding of the meaning, purpose, and call to serve. Tending to spirituality in the physician community can foster authenticity and a compassionate presence to self. Requiring an understanding of spirituality as an integral part of medical education can help achieve the World Health Organization’s long-standing definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
There is an urgent need to train current and future physicians to explore the spiritual history of their patients and understand the role of spiritual distress related to medical illness, diagnosis, and treatment. It is imperative to incorporate a biopsychosocial-spiritual assessment into treatment plans. This can go a long way in endearing the compassionate presence of physicians to a person suffering and emphasize that spirituality can certainly be utilized as a positive health outcome measure in reducing mortality and morbidity from disease. As for myself, I attempt to submit my prayers regularly to the Divine and always ask my patients to pray for me (albeit not evidence-based).
