Spirit in Action
Dr. Harold Koenig - Spirituality and Health
Harold Koenig is vitally interested in studying the relationship be religious faith/practice and healing, both mentally and physical and has led more than 25 studies documenting an astonishing correlation between religious devotion and health. He is the founder of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center.
- Broadcast on:
- 30 Nov 2008
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- other
I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep I have no arms but yours with which to hold The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old I have no hands but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am up and up is everything I have no way to feed the hungry souls No clothes to give and make, give the ragged and the morn So be my heart, my hand, my tongue Through you I will be done Fingers, have I none to help undone The tangled knots and twisted chains that strangle fearful minds Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark Helpsmead Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives a fruitful service of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands being shared between our many neighbors on this planet Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life My guest today on Spirit in Action is Harold Koenig, Harold is vitally interested in studying the relationship between religious faith and practice and healing, both physical and mental and has led more than 25 studies documenting an astonishing correlation between religious devotion and good health He is the founder of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University Medical Center Harold started out as a registered nurse, became a medical doctor, then a psychiatrist and then a biostatistician He is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and an associate professor of medicine at Duke Harold, welcome to Spirit in Action, thank you It was really good to catch your talk here at UW Eau Claire just a week or two ago Have you been traveling around a lot since? You do a lot on the talking circuit don't you? Yes, I do and I've just got back from Vancouver, British Columbia, had a nice time out there and just really enjoy giving talks like the one I gave in Eau Claire For our listeners, could you say what the brunt of your message is? Well, the brunt of the message is about religious belief and practice and a person's health What I typically talk about is the role that religious faith plays in coping with illness and in dealing with stress and then look at the research that has looked at whether or not religious people actually cope better whether they have better mental health and then look at studies relating religious involvement and physical health and then show that many of these studies seem to connect a person's religious faith with their physical health as well So people who are more religiously involved seem to be healthier, they seem to be physically healthier, emotionally healthier, socially healthier and live a healthier lifestyle as well So that's kind of the brunt of the message that I typically will give You've used the word "religious" as opposed to "spiritual" and I think you're talking actually had spirituality in its name Is this a causation or is this a correlation? Well, it is about religion, it's not about spirituality Of course, depending on how you interpret the word spirituality, I tend to not like that word because it's so broad and diffuse and really meaningless in terms of research because in some respects everyone is spiritual in one way or another and that word has been abused because it's been used to describe things which have nothing to do with the transcendent, the sacred, God or even ultimate reality So therefore, I don't like the word "spiritual" I would rather say religion or faith or a person of deep faith or deep religious commitment That is typically the language that I will use when I'm describing the findings because that's what's being measured There is no research showing that diffuse word called spirituality is related to anything And is this only about Christian religion or is there other religious belief and religious practice that is included in your study? Well, it largely involves Christian religion simply because 90% of the studies have been done in Christian populations However, typically in my talks I will review research done in other religious groups that while much less common in terms of frequency it nevertheless does seem to show some parallel benefits with regard to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism All of these major world religions, people who are devout practices of those religions seem to have better health Now, whether it's the same as with the Christian religion we really don't know, there are no comparison studies to compare Christians in the United States with Buddhists in Japan or Buddhist in China or Korea or Tibet There are no comparison studies comparing Christians here in the US with Muslims in Iraq or Iran There are just no comparison studies so there's no way to say is one religion healthier than another Before we go too much further, I'd like to review your credentials because I guess there's maybe well-meaning people and there are charlatans out there who claim that they have the truth What are your credentials to study and to investigate this correlation, this connection between health and religion? That is a good question, I don't have any theological background So I'm really coming onto this topic from a scientist's view and from a medical clinician's view, I've been in practice for over 20 years I've done family medicine, done a lot of geriatric medicine I do now geriatric psychiatry So I'm really in the trenches with people struggling with chronic illness, chronic pain and trying to make sense of their life So that's something I deal with, I help families through the week Even though I don't see patients everyday, I'm dealing with issues related to these patients that I care for throughout the week So from a clinical standpoint, as a physician, as a psychiatrist, as a medical doctor, I come at it from that way I'm also a researcher, I've been doing research in this area for a long time I guess it really came about as a result of my clinical experiences taking care of patients Religion seemed to be such an important factor in them being able to cope with the difficult illnesses that they were facing That I thought that I needed to learn how to study this better So I eventually got a degree in biostatistics and have, to this point, led probably over 25 studies Looking examining at these connections So nowadays I'm doing a lot of training, I'm training other people to conduct this research And so my credentials mainly are as a clinician and as a scientist And where are you working? I'm at Duke University Medical Center, I've been there Throughout most of my clinical lifetime, the last 20 years or so I'm a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences here and an associate professor of medicine Like I said, I see patients, I write a lot, I leave research and I do a lot of training And is there discomfort for you or for the institution you work with That you're mixing these two things, science and religion because there's a fair amount of fear You know, we want to have separation of church and state Because we're afraid of someone pushing their religious ideas from a place of authority So how do you deal with that? Well, I have not really had that much trouble with the people here at Duke When I came here in 1985, '86, the whole field was different There was a lot more resistance and skepticism about religion and health than there is today What the people at Duke really were interested in They wanted to train up and have on their faculty Somebody who was a good scientist who could design studies well You know, it doesn't really matter what you're studying As long as you're a good scientist, everything is open to science to study It's just that in many respects there had been some bias among scientists About not studying this field, you think of scientists as being objective, etc, etc Fact is they're not, they all have their personal biases that influence their work For nearly 100 years, this area, religion has just not been studied very well And there wasn't a lot of funding available either to study it And I was able to do many of my first study without any funding Basically just taking my time, taking it away from, unfortunately, my family or vacation In order to write, in order to design studies, etc And ultimately, after I had done a lot of work and got it published in some pretty mainstream journals I was able to get some support, and so I took advantage of that support And have kind of studied religion along with another area Depression and the medically ill, which has been very helpful I've been able to get funding to study depression and the medically ill At a time when I could also measure things about religion And I could actually publish in both of these areas Why was it that this area was not studied? Well, you know, for a long time in human history Religion was dominating over science and over medicine And then around the 16th, 17th centuries with Descartes and other philosophers You find religion and medicine separating And religion and science separating in particular And you have the fields of psychology and sociology And these philosophy, these fields actually developing In many respects, antagonistic towards religion They were trying to free themselves from religion From the non-verifiable, subjective, religious kinds of beliefs That were based upon authority rather than reasoning And so they're just continued this tradition Within science, if you're a scientist, you have nothing to do with religion And in many respects, that was carried so far That people weren't even willing to study the impact that religion was having on people So that's kind of how this big divide developed And we still face it today in medicine and science In your talk when you were here in Eau Claire Harold You mentioned something about Sigmund Freud and part of the effect he had on studies And on beliefs and on professional practice Yes, Sigmund Freud did have an enormous influence In the early 20th century on the whole development of the field of mental health And he had some very strong negative feelings towards religion That were in some respect not entirely based on reasoning Which is, of course, what he was very proud about Was that what he was developing was a psychological theory based upon reasoning and rationality However, the problem is that he had many personal negative experiences with religion himself That found its way easily into his other writings And so because of that tremendous impact that Freud had on it And continues to have on the entire mental health field We have this sense among the profession that I'm a member of, the psychiatry profession That religion is something negative, something neurotic That has, of course, influence also the field of health care Because if the mental health specialists say that religion is something that is negative Then that goes over to other medical specialties Harold, why don't we have you get into the bulk of the kind of evidence? Unfortunately, we don't have the charts on the wall here Although there's probably some website we can go out to and see a lot of these studies Could you give us the bulk of the evidence when you say there's some kind of correlation? What do you mean does this mean that if you are a practitioner of a religion Does this mean you don't get nosebleeds or what is the correlation That you've seen in your various studies? Well, the first kinds of studies that I began to do was simply to document what I was observing as a family physician And that was that many patients were religious when they got sick And were relying on their faith to help them to cope, they were praying They were talking with God They were talking with members of their faith community Their minister was visiting them in the hospital This meant so much to these patients, they were reading the Bible They were being inspired by stories of other people going through difficult times Job or David within the Psalms And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? That problem that I had, I just couldn't see the song I tried and I tried, but I kept getting deep and blown So I turned it over to Jesus And I stopped worried about it, turned it over to the law And what did I see? Jesus, it's good And what did I see? I kept eating, I kept worrying about it, Jesus And what did I see? That thing that we're not moving, that we're praying in the upper room That burning that I bore, that you're wondering how much more So I turned it over to Jesus And I stopped worried about it, turned it over to the law And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? That I had, I just couldn't see the brain too I prayed and I prayed And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? And what did I see? I kept eating, I kept getting deep and blown So I turned it over to Jesus And what did I see? ♪ Put all your money spent ♪ ♪ Little bit to buy some food ♪ ♪ Let me need a pair of shoes ♪ ♪ Say you got a light and you'll do ♪ ♪ And you got a cast bill too ♪ ♪ How the fuck does it connect ♪ ♪ Waitin' on your next paychecks ♪ ♪ Tell you what you're all to do ♪ ♪ Tell you what you're all to do ♪ ♪ Tell you what you're all to do ♪ ♪ Tell you what you're all to do ♪ ♪ He can work in out ♪ ♪ He can work in out ♪ ♪ He can work in out ♪ ♪ He can work in out ♪ ♪ Every time I had a son ♪ ♪ I was the only one ♪ ♪ That I took out to the house ♪ ♪ Boy, I didn't read any time ♪ ♪ Every time I said it worked ♪ ♪ Boy, from heaven he heard ♪ ♪ Every time I ever heard ♪ ♪ Every time I ever heard ♪ ♪ Every time I ever heard ♪ ♪ That you'll see around ♪ ♪ Didn't it, didn't you work in out ♪ ♪ Didn't it, didn't you work in out ♪ ♪ Didn't it, didn't you work in out ♪ ♪ Job was six so long ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ Job was six so long ♪ ♪ Last time from his throne ♪ ♪ Why can't the children ♪ ♪ Everything you have to stone ♪ ♪ Why can't running to him ♪ ♪ Devil all in her eyes ♪ ♪ Job was six so long ♪ ♪ Her show kind died ♪ ♪ Job looked at the woman ♪ ♪ Looked up to the sky ♪ ♪ I'm a new saloonist ♪ ♪ Don't sound like my wife ♪ ♪ I don't have no doubt ♪ ♪ I don't have no doubt ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ I gave it only too long ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ I know he will ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ Come on, work it out ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ I believe he can ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ While you're trying to pick it out ♪ ♪ He's already worked it out ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ I know he will ♪ ♪ He can work it out ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ ♪ Oh, come on, put your hands together ♪ ♪ I read it in God's word ♪ ♪ That he can do it seemingly and abundantly ♪ ♪ A bummer that you can ask of me ♪ ♪ And whatever you said it in the deal tonight ♪ ♪ God's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ Oh, yes he will ♪ ♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ I know he will ♪ ♪ He's gonna work it out ♪ ♪ He'll do it for you ♪ ♪ Yes he will ♪ ♪ He'll do it ♪ (audience cheering) - Wow, that is some real energy. That was, Jesus can work it out. The Kurt Carr singers there. And you're listening to a spirit in action interview with Harold Kennig. He is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center. And his particular area of study is health and religion. And he's documented some amazing connections and relationships between the two of them. - I was interested. I actually took the time to ask people how they were coping. Part of it had to do with the fact I was in a physician that I had the time to do that. And so I took the time and just heard stories after stories. But I thought, you know, these are anecdotes. And scientists don't rely on anecdotes. They focus more on systematically acquired data. And so I thought, well, why not just systematically ask patients how they cope? And so the first series of studies was to document that a large proportion of patients rely on their religious faith to make sense of their illness, to give their lives meaning, purpose, hope. So that was the first finding. The next series of studies that we did was we wanted to see whether or not those people who were relying on their faith, whether they actually were coping better. Not just reporting that religion was a source of strength and comfort, but were they actually doing any better than people who were relying on other things? For example, family members, maybe a hobby, maybe reading, maybe music or art or whatever, but not religion. So began doing a series of studies comparing people who were religiously active, who prayed, went to church, read the Bible, for whom religion was an important source of their life that helped them make decisions in life. So study those and compare those people to others who were not as involved in religion and found that they had greater well-being. The people involved in the religion. They had more meaning, more purpose. They had less depression, less depression. They were less anxious. They were much less likely to use drugs or alcohol. So from a mental health perspective, they seemed in study after study, not only in the studies that we were doing, but other researchers, completely disconnected with our group, other scientists in other areas of the country, in other specialties, in other countries, were reporting similar findings. And then we went on and thought, well, if religious involvement helps to reduce stress, if it helps people to cope, then maybe, maybe it will influence their physical health as well. Because at the same time, there was a tremendous amount of research coming out suggesting that people's emotions, their thoughts that they were having could influence their physical bodies. And not in some kind of telepathic method, but just in terms of if somebody thinks in a positive way, if they look more optimistically on the world around them, if they have better relationships, if they have a more hopeful outlook, a more peaceful outlook, studies are showing in an entirely different area that those people have better physical health. Their immune systems seem to work better. They have stronger cardiovascular systems. They heal more quickly. I mean, just in terms of just even their wounds from a surgical operation or from an accident will heal more quickly if they are experiencing less stress, if they are coping better. So we thought, well, if religious people cope better, then they ought to have better physical health as well. So then we began looking at physical health and religious practices. We would measure their blood pressure. We would draw blood and assess their immune functioning. We would document their lengths of life and try to correlate their religious practices at an earlier time with how long they were living, how healthy they were. And we were able to show that religious people tended to live longer, have better immune functioning, have lower blood pressure, less cardiovascular disease, were healthier, lived healthier lifestyles. We were able to show that in large systematic studies that were ultimately published in peer review journals that other scientists looked at the research and said, this is good research, we want to publish it. And so that's kind of the evidence that my research group has been accumulating. But again, as I said earlier, it's not just research coming out of our group. There are other research groups who are reporting many similar findings. And in fact, the research done by others in this area is vastly greater, probably 10 times or 20 times, more volumus than any of the research that we have done. So that's what's exciting. What's exciting is that other scientists are reporting similar findings. - How big are these correlations? Is it that your blood clots 5% better or that your length of life is another five minutes? How big is this correlation generally? - Well, it depends on the study. If you look at, let's say for example, longevity. People who are part of a faith community, who go to church regularly. Those people experience about a 25% reduction in mortality during a follow-up period. For example, anywhere between six years and 30 years. Those people who are attending religious services are about 25% more likely that still be alive down the road when you study them later. In some of the national samples, it seems to indicate whites will live an average seven years longer if they attend religious services on a weekly or greater than weekly basis compared to those who are not attending religious services. Among African Americans, it actually extends out to 14 years. African Americans who attend religious services more than once a week live to an average age of 80 compared to African Americans who don't attend religious services who live to an average age of 66. That's based upon samples of over 20,000 randomly selected people in the United States followed for almost a decade. So that gives you a little sense of the impact that this has. And we really probably are underestimating some of the impact because we haven't followed people from their very youth and looked at people who have a strong religious training as young adults as adolescents and as teenagers. Now, what impact that had on their lifestyles over their lifetime or their coping or their relationships or even their ability to earn a living? And we think that religion influences all of those factors and we're just really studying people a lot of times in their later years and trying to catch this effect when in fact, if we could study them from the beginning, from their younger years, these effects could be vastly greater. [MUSIC PLAYING] There are songs that never ask you anything. There are strings that beat against the wood. There are songs that ease the singer's heart to sing. And that's good. But there are words that change the way you look at things. There are sounds that silence I'll talk on. And there are songs that circle in your mind and seek your heart and find it and seize it like a hawk. There's a pain here that slowly slips away. There's a love here that's leading us from darkness in today. There are stars here that fade against the light. They fall, but it's all right. There is a healing in this night. There are trials that trick you into loneliness. There are tears that burn until they fall. There are knees that tear you when you turn away when they call. There are hearts that hold you when you've done your best. For the love will leave within their life. And there are friends to hear if you should cry, to pray if you should die. And there are songs that sing us all. There's a pain here that slowly slips away. There's a love here that's leading us from darkness in today. There are stars here that fade against the light. They fall, but it's all right. There is a healing in this night. There have been tears that hold you when you turn away when you turn away when you turn away. There have been times when working for my sanity. In my mind, I've seen the only one. There have been days when no one seemed to understand what I'd done. But there are tears to hear me in my softest voice. There are hands to hold and point the way. And there are men and women on this path to laugh if I should laugh or find me if I stray. There's a pain here that slowly slips away. There's a love here that's leading us from darkness in today. There are stars here that fade against the light. They fall, but it's all right. There is a healing in this night. That beautiful song is by Bob Pranky. It's called "Healing in this Night." We're talking about healing and religion and spirituality with our guest Harold Kennig. The studies he's led at Duke University Medical Center have indicated a strong correlation between religious active participation and physical and mental health. And again, the question has to be asked, is this cause or effect? Is this that people get involved with religion because they are of a healthier mindset, healthier lifestyle type people, therefore they get involved with religion? Or does the good health and the good stuff come from being involved with religion? Well, Mark, you know, there's probably a little of both going on, but there is a lot to argue that religion is actually causing better health. If you look at who is religious in the population, you know, Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, of the poor, and he felt that religion was being used to control the poor and those who were less educated and those who were less fit physically and emotionally. He thought, "Well, religion is a way to control these people," and in fact, when you look at people in society who are religious, they tend to be people who have less education, who a lot of times may be poor, not in the best circumstances. And in many respects, these are not the successful people, the active, healthy, successful people that are religious, because people like that tend not to need religion, because they've got other sources of coping, they have their money, they have their education, they have the success in their life, and so where everything is going great for you, when you're young and healthy and successful, I mean, who needs religion? There's plenty of things to spend our times doing besides going to church or praying or reading this old ancient text. I mean, there's lots of others, there's movies and golfing and sports and lots of things. So the argument that it's the people who are the healthy, the wealthier, the ones who are going to church or praying, that's just not what you see. From a purely scientific standpoint, there aren't a lot of clinical trials, randomized clinical trials that show that randomize people who are not religious, to either become religious or stay not religious. There aren't studies looking at, you know, randomizing people to either get religion or not and then looking at their health outcomes, and in many respects, that's probably not even ethical to do a research study like that, but again, there is just a lot of research that's accumulated that seems to be consistent, not only is religious and not only do people tell you that they're doing better because of their faith. Not only do you find that they're correlated, that better health and religion seem to be correlated, not in all studies, but in many studies, and then when you follow people over time, it seems as though the religious people are healthier, they live longer, and then finally, there have been a very, very few number of randomized clinical trials that have looked at a religious intervention, for example, in mental disorders, whether they be depression or anxiety or these kinds of things, and it does appear that religious interventions among religious patients do seem to result in faster recovery from these emotional problems. So, just a lot of evidence seems to be building up that would suggest that indeed, this is a causal relationship. Religious people do have better health. I heard questions from the audience when you were here that seem to be aimed at saying, "Well, isn't it good enough if you're spiritual, so could you spell out for us what you mean by religious as far as your studies go?" And the kind of requests you hear from people that essentially want them to be included because they're spiritual. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the studies, what is exactly being studied? That is the question. You can say anything you want. Everybody's got their opinion on what is good for your health, you know, but what is actually being measured in these studies that I've been talking about? What has been measured is the following. How often do you attend religious services? If you attend weekly or more, you're healthier. You know, you can be as spiritual as you want, but if you're not attending religious services, if you're not part of a faith community, you're in the group that's living shorter, that's having a worse or immune functioning. So while being spiritual may be beneficial more than having no beliefs at all, it doesn't seem to be as beneficial as being religious. You see, the problem with those who want to be spiritual but not religious is that they want to have the good things of religion but not have any of the responsibilities or the costs of religion. You can demand things of you. It says you have to live in a certain way. You can't just do whatever the heck you want to do. You have to treat people in a certain way. You're not supposed to cheat. You're supposed to be devout to your spouse. You're not supposed to excessively drink or smoke. You're to live a good life, care about other people when you really want to be selfish. These are the costs of religion and many people would say, "Well, I want to feel good about myself but I don't want all this religion so I'm going to be spiritual." Well, unfortunately, the stuff that people are not dropping from religion is probably the stuff that affects their health. That's the problem, is what we don't like about religion is probably what's having the beneficial effects. Now, I'm not talking about a lot of the negative stuff that religion can sometimes be associated with. You see, because people who are power hungry or want to manipulate people know the power that religion has over people, they use religion to achieve other goals, whether it be power, prestige, wealth, whatever. They use other people in the name of religion to achieve this. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the religious person whose faith is the object of their ultimate concern who are genuinely focused on their worship, on their relationship with God. That is what's directing, guiding their lives. That's what's making them do things that they don't want to do. They don't particularly want to take time out to help their neighbor. They may not want to not cheat on their income tax or whatever. Many religious people are drawn to all sorts of things that their religious beliefs prevent them from doing, and that seems to be good for people's health. But if you're just spiritual and that doesn't mean anything, then that's exactly what it is. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. It doesn't mean anything for your health. That was the police and their song Spirits in the Material World, and we're listening to a fascinating account of what scientific research has told us about the relationship between health and religious participation. Our guest on Spirit in Action is Harold Kennick, and he is of Duke University Medical Center, where they've conducted more than 25 studies relating mental and physical health and religious participation. I imagine that there are some negative correlations with respect to being involved in religion for instance, I was thinking that if you were living at the time of the Crusades and you were very religiously motivated, you go off and get yourself killed or make this tract that could expose you to a lot of disease and other problems, or maybe if you're Islamic and on the extreme edge there, maybe you'd be blowing yourself up, that's got to shorten your life span a little bit. My question is, isn't there a lot of negative that seems to come in also with religion, it's obviously your studies are saying overall that's not what you're seeing in your studies, maybe those people never make it to the geriatric phase? Well, I guess a good point, you know we do hear this constantly, just open up your newspaper and you'll find at least 20 stories every day on, potentially the negative effects that religion has, but I guess that anything that's powerful for good can also be used powerfully for evil. I mean anything. You can think of anything. If you do something excessively, it's not going to be good for you, whether it's going out to a wonderful restaurant and having a wonderful lobster, and that's great, I mean I love to do that, but if I did that all the time, or if I just excessively eight and eight, that would be bad for me, so something good can be bad for you, and that's true for anything, think of anything, even love in some respects, although love is one of those things that if it's done for selfless reasons, it's hard to do too much loving, you know, but just about anything can be used for evil, and particularly when again, it's in the extreme, and there isn't a balancing of love of God with love of neighbor, that's I think, at least from the Christian perspective, when Jesus was asked, what are the two most important commandments of everything, and He said that love your God with your whole heart, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, the commandment to love your neighbor was almost as strong as loving God, but it was certainly second, loving God was the first thing that Jesus said, and the second commandment is like it, love your neighbor as yourself, and then when he was asked to, who is my neighbor, who the heck is my neighbor, he gave an illustration of somewhat a Samaritan that wasn't even part of the Jewish space, somebody of a different religion, that is your neighbor, the person who basically anybody, anybody is your neighbor, your neighbor is anybody in the world, that's your neighbor, loving God and loving your neighbor, and loving your neighbor as yourself was what Christians were instructed to do, and you know, if you look at all of the other major world religions, that tends to be the same message when you look at really some of the central messages that these religious faiths are encouraging, certainly Buddhism focuses on compassion, Judaism, you know, that's where Jesus got his sit formation about, you know, love God, love your neighbor, you got it from the Old Testament, that was in Deuteronomy, you know, that he's quoting Moses, so it's in Judaism, it's in Buddhism, it's in Islam, in Islam it says in the quad that one good deed to help others makes up for ten bad deeds, one good deed helping others makes up for ten bad deeds, so all of the major world religions encourage love of God and love of neighbor, or one's understanding of God, that's not so much true in Buddhism which sees the world a little differently, but they have their notion of God also, so in any case, when religion gets often to the extreme, it can be very, very evil, didn't you do a study or didn't you share with us a study, I think I saw it up there on the screen, that correlated your doing caregiving activities with your health, did I recall that correctly? Yes, yes, there is a study, in fact there are multiple studies that those who volunteer particularly in religious settings to help those who need help, they seem to be healthier, they seem to have better psychological health, and they also seem to have better physical health, and the one study I think that you're referring to Mark is the one looking at people who are members of churches who are providing help to others, they were living significantly longer than people in religious communities who are not doing that, that's an important point, and you know what's fascinating, they just came out this past month, it was actually the October 17th issue of the proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, they did a fascinating study, they took 20 people, they gave them decisions to make regarding earning and spending money, so these people were given the option of accumulating for real about $150 or so, they also had various decisions that they had to make in order to acquire this money, some of it involved saving, some of it involved actually spending the money in terms of donating money for good causes, so they were asked these questions, then they were put, while they were answering these questions and either accumulating or spending or donating money, they were put in MRI scans, in other words magnetic resonance imaging scans, they had scans of their brains and they were able to show the activity of the brain, when people are making decisions of whether receiving money or giving money for good causes, they were able to show, and this is what's remarkable, they were able to show that the very areas of the brain that mark humans as being different from any other animal, any other ape, chimpanzees, monkeys or any other animal, the prefrontal anterior cortex, it's the most recently evolved part of the brain, it's that part of the brain that is uniquely activated when people give money to good causes, that part of the brain that makes us uniquely human, that is activated, that is not activated during other times of either spending money or other kinds of decisions related to acquiring or receiving money, it's only when we give money that that part of the brain, that is uniquely human, becomes activated. Wow, you know Harold, I know you're going to have to be going in just a few minutes but I did want to ask you, because I think it's extremely important, what I try and do here as I speak with my guests here on Spirit in Action, is I try and find out what we can do to make the world better and what motivates us, what supports us. So I want to ask you that question, what's the well from which you draw your water and which supports you in doing this work, because I think you're out there to mend the world in another way by bringing to light this kind of information. Well, what is it that keeps me going? I guess it's at one level and perhaps the level that has been always there at some degree is my personal faith. It was not always there, I departed from the church for many, many years and it was not until my later years actually, where I developed some health problems that I've come back to it, but it might have been there all the time, because I was raised in a devout family. I always believed that God had something planned for my life. I guess that's what keeps me going today too, that faith in God, that God loves me and God loves other people and he wants all of us to have a joyous life, a joyous, meaningful life. Now that doesn't mean that we're not going to go through suffering and pain and agony at times, but he loves us, just wants us to live the fullest possible life that we can while we're alive and also help others to live full life. So I guess that's what's driving me and has continued to help me keep going. Now as a scientist of course, I have to be careful that that belief does not interfere with the research that I do. And I try my best not to do it, not to have it influence the research. I try to do good research that design studies that takes my own personal beliefs out of the picture. I try to follow the scientific method and the scientific protocol, but I think the thing that does drive me is my religious faith. And out of all of this study, I'm wondering if there's a conclusion that people could manage to draw, and that is to say, you want to live longer, go get religious, and that simpler would that not be the kind of solution or conclusion that one should draw? Well, I don't think you can be religious in order to be healthier, because it doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Religion has to come first, not your health. So I guess it's about being open, not being closed-minded towards religion. Many of us have been hurt by religion, many of us, you know, you see all the evil in the world, and you just, you know, you start to wonder, but stay open. Don't be closed. We're all on a spiritual path of some kind, how you spiritual this time, in my response. But we're all there on that path somewhere, even the atheist, and in fact, the non-believer, if they are sincerely open and seeking, some connection or some understanding of the sacred, if they're open and seeking. In my opinion, that person is more deeply religious than the religious person who has all the answers, who's not seeking, not growing, not open. So my suggestion would be to keep seeking, keep an open mind, look for it in your life, look for God's presence in your life. Don't close off your mind, keep an open mind, and I think that will help you to be really healthy. I want to thank you for that advice, for that guidance, and the fact that you're willing to take the risk, when you got involved in this, the climate was not favorable for a person who's looking at religion in the secular world. So I want to thank you for having a bravery to step forward there, and I want to thank you for taking this time now. I realize you've got a conference call coming up just a couple of minutes. I'll let you go on to that, but thanks again for all of the work you're doing and the way that you're carrying spirit forward in compatibility with science. Thank you, Mark, for your encouraging words. See me, feel me, touch me, feel me, see me, feel me, touch me. Feel me, see me, feel me, touch me, feel me, see me, feel me, touch me. Feel me, see me, feel me, touch me, feel me, touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me. I climb the mountain, I get excitement at your feet, right behind you. I see the millions on you. I see the glory from you, I get opinions from you. I get the story, this thing to you, I get the music, that you, I get the music. That was see me, feel me, it's from the Rock Opera Tommy by the group called The Who. You've been listening to a spirit in action interview with Harold Kennig of Duke University Medical Center where he's professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate professor of medicine talking about the relationship between religious faith and practice and physical and mental health. You can hear this program again via my website northernspiritradio.org and on that site you'll find useful links and information about the program including the music included. The theme music for spirit in action is I have no hands but yours by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit in action. Let's make it. the world.