PhoebeMD: Medicine + Poetry

How Church Attendance Can Improve Senior Health

By Jason Lewis | Guest Contributor

Seniors face a lot of challenges that bring on stress, depression, and anxiety. Worry about illness or finances and grief over lost loved ones can have a negative impact on both physical and mental health. Loneliness and isolation can even drive older people to risky behaviors that put them in danger. And some seniors are dealing with issues from their past, such as substance abuse, that put them at risk for many additional problems.

Physical Benefits of Church Attendance

There is one option that doesn’t cost a thing and can benefit seniors in many ways: going to church. It is even good for your physical health. Research shows that regular weekly church attendance can:

• Lower the risk of heart attack, 
• Boost the immune system,
• Improve blood pressure 
• May even add 2-3 years to life. This news came from a 20-year study done at Harvard that included data on more than 75,000 U.S. churchgoers between the ages of 46 and 71.

Improved physical health is just one of many ways that attending church can help seniors. 

Continue reading “How Church Attendance Can Improve Senior Health”