A new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine is confirming the power of prayer, concluding that just 5 minutes of intercessory prayer improves physical and emotional health.
The researchers chose to study in-person prayers, known as proximal intercessory prayer (PIP), rather than distant intercessory prayers (DIP) which are prayed by someone who is not in the same room as the patient. They found both immediate and long-lasting benefits from PIP.
The scientific study discovered that, as a complementary aid to medications, healthcare professionals can use PIP to relieve physical pain and treat anxiety in their patients.
Pain participants reported immediate symptom relief, which persisted at 2 weeks but trailed off after 6 weeks. Anxiety participants also reported immediate and lasting relief.
Patients in the control group who were given soft music to treat their pain and anxiety did not experience the same healing relief as those who received prayer.
While the effects in this case were found to be independent of the religious beliefs of the participants, researchers point to other studies that have found positive effects associated with prayers being administered in-person in a Christian context, “petitioning God in the name of Jesus by power of the Holy Spirit, commanding healing by Jesus’s authority, while an intercessor gently lays hands on the recipient for approximately 5 minutes.”
Beyond this latest study, prayer is seen to be the most common complementary medicine considering 43% of Americans desire in-person intercessory prayer.
The researchers also cite other reports which have found in-person prayers resulted in numerous medically unexplained recoveries from conditions such as:
- gastroparesis,
- malabsorption,
- muscular atrophy,
- seizures,
- immuno deficiency, and
- juvenile macular degeneration.
After experiencing the positive effects of prayer, participants expressed significant interest in PIP as a routine part of their medical visits.
When asked whether they would like to have this kind of prayer available to them in their future medical visits, and whether they think medical offices, in general, should offer this kind of prayer to patients who desire it, 97% of participants agreed, strongly agreed, or were neutral with most of them agreeing or strongly agreeing.
And none of the PIP-recipients mentioned adverse events.
The study concludes, “The results suggest significant benefits to patients from a 5-minute PIP intervention that could be implemented in primary care offices, providing relief for pain or anxiety or both while addressing unmet patient need and desire for spiritual care.”
This study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine corroborates previous studies that CBN News has reported on.
“The amassed research indicates that prayer is modestly but positively correlated with a range of mental health outcomes,” according to an article published in December 2019 in Psychology Today. “These findings are demonstrated in two recent U.S. studies examining the relationship between prayer and mental health, both with large samples and scientific rigor.”
MORE: Doctors and Chaplains Agree: Praying Patients Heal Better
