Is Prayer Good for Your Health?

For some, prayer is part of daily life. Others turn to prayer to help them cope during hard times.

According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 81 percent of Americans report believing in God, and Pew Research Center data shows that prayer is an “at least daily” practice for 55 percent of adults.

And for good reason: There’s evidence that this spiritual practice lowers stress, improves mood, and leads to better heart health.

Prayer and spirituality are difficult to define, particularly for the purposes of research. Prayer (as people tend to describe their experience with it) is in large part not something that is visible or easily measured or quantified.

Prayer is different in different faiths — and even within the same faith, there are various types of prayer (such as contemplative, petitionary, liturgical, confessional, and praise, among others), says Jeff Levin, PhD, MPH, a professor of epidemiology and population health, professor of medical humanities, and the director of the program on religion and population health at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. “Identifying ‘the’ definition of prayer, if there is such a thing, is complicated if not impossible.”

For academic study, researchers have defined prayer as a form of communication that takes place between the self and the sacred, per the Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Similarly, researchers at Old Dominion University have called it “spiritual communication with God.”

Another approach to study prayer in research: “Simply ask folks whether they pray, how often they pray, what they pray for, and other questions about their ongoing prayer life,” Dr. Levin says. Sometimes self-reported data in clinical research is considered a limitation. But because the specifics associated with prayer can differ so widely, this approach allows research to capture all the forms that prayer can take, but still measure things like frequency and purpose — and then connect those measures to various outcomes.

For instance, in a study published in 2023 in the Journal of Religion and Health, researchers divided prayer into four categories (prayer efficacy, devotional prayer, prayers for support, and prayer expectancy) to assess how each impacted individuals’ experience of anxiety. Subjects’ self-reported feelings of anxiety (or lack thereof) helped researchers connect people’s prayer style to the state of their mental health.

So, in what ways is prayer associated with better health?

Crystal Park, PhD, a professor of psychological sciences and a researcher at the Spirituality, Meaning, and Health Lab at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, prefaces this discussion noting that there are limits to how it's possible to empirically study prayer and its effects on health.

How do you isolate the effect of prayer alone on health? People who pray often and are active with their faith communities might be making generally healthier decisions, such as taking fewer risks or avoiding smoking and drinking. So if people who pray more have healthier outcomes, is prayer causing that, or the other behaviors? Researchers can control for some of that with data analysis, but not all of it.

It's also possible that people are praying too erratically — in crises only, for example — for researchers to know just what effects it can have on well-being, Dr. Park says.

With those caveats in mind, the research that has been done clearly points to a correlation between prayer and well-being. Here are several ways in which a regular spiritual practice may improve or protect your emotional health (and even strengthen physical health).

• Offer a bigger sense of purpose A connection to a greater power or truth can give you a sense of purpose and meaning beyond the day-to-day, Park says. A sense of purpose has itself been linked to improved mental and physical health.
• Provide social support Through practicing your spirituality, you may become involved with a community of like-minded people. Social support can reduce feelings of loneliness and bolster resilience, according to the American Psychological Association.
• Elevate mood Research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in November 2018 has found a link between regular prayer and a greater positive affect, better emotional processing and emotional expression, and a greater sense of mission and forgiveness in those who practice it, compared with people who reported never praying. Plus, activities related to spirituality or community involvement, such as singing or volunteering, may also have positive effects on emotional health. One study found that participation in a choir offered a support system and reduced anxiety and depression among cancer survivors and their caregivers. And, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, volunteering to help others reduces stress and increases overall life satisfaction.
• Help you cope with difficulties Spirituality or religion can provide a framework for dealing with unexpected or negative events. For example, regular church attendance and prayer appear to lessen symptoms of depression in people who are dealing with the death of a loved one, according to research published in Depression Research and Treatment.
• Enhance gratitude Many forms of prayer are gratitude practices, which also have proven health benefits. A study published in November 2017 in the Journal of Positive Psychology revealed that people who framed a gratitude practice as personal prayer had decreased negative feelings and even experienced improved health.
• Promote mindfulness Prayer that involves present-moment awareness — such as a more meditative, less talk-based style — could yield a unique sense of peace. Meditative practices ground us in the here and now, keeping our thoughts from straying into a distressing future or ruminating on a troubling past. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 found that a daily 10-minute “centering prayer”–style meditation significantly reduced stress in college students.
• Promote physical healing and heart health There is growing evidence of the benefits of prayer on cardiovascular health and people with known heart issues (more on the specific data below). Plus, Levin says many people experience physical healing as a result of intercessory prayer. Though there’s no guarantee that prayer will lead to recovery from physical illness, this is often the case.

There is indeed research that’s looked extensively at the mental and emotional health effects of prayer, revealing a variety of positive outcomes.

For Anxiety and Depression

Offering up worshipful thanks, for example, may calm anxiety. The 2023 study in the Journal of Religious Health associated devotional prayer (the kind that praises God) and prayer expectancy (or belief that God answers prayer) to lower anxiety. But, prayers that asked God for forgiveness and support were correlated with higher anxiety. (A questionnaire assessed which type of prayer people practiced, while anxiety was measured using a self-reported scale rating feelings of worry, tension, and restlessness.)

The uplifting nature of prayer and religious experience may also help alleviate symptoms of depression, according to a review in Postgraduate Medicine that looked at 41 clinical studies. Per that work, frequent private prayer was linked with significant benefits for depression, optimism, coping, and other mental health conditions like anxiety.

People with major depressive disorder or chronic medical illness who report high levels of religiosity, which includes daily religious experiences (like prayer), generally become more optimistic than their peers, according to a study published in Depression and Anxiety.

For Connectedness

In addition to connecting with a higher power, prayer can create feelings of connectedness between the person praying and fellow believers. A review of 78 studies by Park and other researchers published in Cancer found that patients who reported a strong religious or spiritual life also maintained richer social connections.

For Heart Health

Multiple studies have tackled prayer’s impact on physical health, and heart health in particular. A report published in Health Psychology found that when researchers followed 191 people with congestive heart failure for five years, those who reported feeling spiritual peace — and who also made some healthy lifestyle changes — were significantly likely to live longer than their peers.

A study in the September 2022 Journal of the American Heart Association revealed that people who engaged in more religious activities or had spiritual perspectives were more likely to have better measures of overall heart health. Those who frequently practiced private prayer were 12 percent more likely to have ideal or intermediate diet scores and were 24 percent less likely to smoke.

It’s worth noting here that though research has linked prayer to these health benefits, the reason for the connection is still not clear.

For Lowering Stress

Spending quiet time communicating with the divine may lower stress by inducing the relaxation response. “That peace, that sense of meaning and connection that happens with prayer, is what is positive," Park says. "Those kinds of things have physiological effects on the body, such as calming your cardiovascular system and reducing your stress."

This nervous system “reboot” can have cascading benefits, both mental and physical. Prayer’s induction of the relaxation response has been linked to lower heart rates, blood pressure, and oxygen consumption, as well as reduced symptoms of arthritis, insomnia, depression, infertility, cancer, anxiety, and aging, according to the American Psychological Association.

According to Levin, the act of voicing the desires of our hearts to God (whether silently or out loud) is also therapeutic. “[Many] religions encourage vernacular prayer, or the kind of prayer where an individual pours his or her heart out to God. In my opinion, this is very healing all by itself,” he says. A personal connection with the divine can mimic the comforting experience of talking to a friend or loved one, he explains.

Finally, Levin says not to discount the power of numbers. Lots of people saying something is true doesn’t make it true. But the numbers of people who have turned to prayer (now and historically) — for healing, for coping through hardship, and more — shouldn’t be overlooked.

In a study he conducted in 2016, published in the Journal of Religious Health, Levin used a four-question scale to assess people’s relationship with a loving God. The higher they scored, the more likely they were to pray for (and receive) physical healing. Prayer for oneself, prayer for others, asking for prayer, laying on of hands, and participation in a prayer group were all ways of achieving healing.

According to Levin, both research and anecdotal evidence point to powerful possibilities of prayer for a greater sense of well-being. Incorporating prayer into your emotional health tool kit certainly can’t hurt — and it just might help.