But it wasn’t until recently that I had the opportunity to talk to Sara and attend one of her famous sound baths myself. We lay on our backs in savasana pose, a facilitator guiding us to bring our attention to the sounds produced in the room, for an experience that was soothing, communal, and strangely spiritual. Soon, I could meet friends for a session in the suburbs without having to hunt one down in the city. As the years went by, the idea evolved from a quirky conversation starter-“What’s a sound bath? Will I get wet?” (No.)-to an accessible and important mindfulness tool. Helped along by Sara’s pioneering work, sound baths were popping up everywhere, from museum galleries and corporate boardrooms to hospitals and church basements. If we hadn’t run the story then, we would have eventually. I assigned her the piece, especially because she had access to one of the world’s leading practitioners: a New York-based sound therapist named Sara Auster. The concept was new to me, but the writer’s description-a kind of group meditation session slash auditory concert, led by a practitioner using crystal bowls, tuning forks, gongs, and other strange instruments to create deep, reverberating sounds that “wash” over participants, instilling deep focus and inner peace-had an undeniable hook. Four years ago, I was editing a travel and lifestyle magazine when a savvy wellness writer pitched us a story on sound baths. Sound baths made their way into the cultural consciousness with the gradual, cresting tide of, well, a sound wave. And increasingly, sound is also therapy-witness the rise of sound baths, a healing practice that offers meditation, rest, and simple permission to quiet the mind. Some sounds are encoded with deep meaning and memory: a parent’s lullaby, the crackle of a campfire, the new nightly tradition of cheers and claps for front-line workers around the world. Even more subdued noises, like chewing or off-key humming, can be enough to put us on edge.īut the power of sound works the other way too. It’s impossible to ignore the wail of an ambulance or a needy baby, or the racket of a leaf blower on a fall morning. The takeaway: if you want to reduce your stress and live longer, go to church.ĭisclaimer: is not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted at by contributing institutions or for the use of any information throughout ’s system.There is no doubt that sound can stress us out. This research echoes a previous 20-year Harvard University study that also found churchgoing reduced mortality in women (included data on 75,000 women between the ages of 46 and 71). It could be a church, it could be a temple, it could be a mosque… It’s not about a particular faith, it’s about any faith,” he said.īruce believes it’s a combination of factors that help reduce stress and mortality, such as social support, a sense of community and compassion, and holiness, which he explains as “being a part of something that’s greater than oneself.” He found that the results remained the same in “any place where groups gathered together to worship. These findings suggest a potential independent effect of church attendance on mortality.”Įven though Bruce is a Baptist minister, his research wasn’t tied to any particular faith. AL, a measure of stress, only partially explained differences in mortality between church and non-church attendees. “We found a significant association between church attendance and mortality among middle-aged adults after full adjustments. And as church attendance increased, so did the benefits of better health. The research found churchgoers (the religious) had lower stress overall. The results showed that those who didn’t attend church at all were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who attended a worship service in the last year. Based on the data, the research team devised a statistical model to predict risk of mortality. The study collected data on over 5,000 people, tracking their church attendance along with variables, such as socioeconomic status and health insurance coverage. The study by Marino Bruce, a Vanderbilt University professor and the associate director of the school’s Center For Research On Men’s Health, published in the journal PLOS (Public Library Of Science), has found that people who attend worship services may reduce their mortality risk by 55 percent – especially those between the ages of 40 – 65. Want To Reduce Stress And Live longer? Go To Church, new study findsĪ new study has found that religiosity has been associated with positive health outcomes, such as reduced stress and longevity.
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