Going to Church regularly may help you live longer, according to recently published research.
Lead researcher from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Daniel Hall, said that those who attend church services at least once per week live on average an extra two to three years.
The study, appearing in the March-April issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, looked at death-rate statistics and compared them to church attendance. Regular exercise, by comparison, was found to account for an extra three to five years of average life expectancy.
Dr. Hall, also an Episcopal priest, suggested in an interview with LiveScience.com that perhaps religion helps to alleviate stress. “Being in a religious community helps you make meaning out of your life,” he said. “There is something about being knit into the type of community that religious communities embody that has a way of mediating a positive health effect,” he added.
(This article courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
