Hugs > Church For Mental Health

[Sionnach Glic]

Feeling blue? Look to hugs before heaven

Erin Anderssen
From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009 7:14PM EST
Last updated on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009 7:52PM EST

Christmas spirit flagging? Go out and get a hug.

A new Canadian study has found that people who get hugs regularly are more likely to report better mental health. A warm embrace, in fact, had a more significant connection to an uplifting frame of mind than attending church regularly.

"For people who either benefit from affection or lack it, there are substantial differences," says Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal-based Association of Canadians Studies, who analyzed the data from the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey. "I recommend getting a hug."

Over all, Canadians appear to be a happy lot - with more than 60 per cent of the population reporting their mental health as excellent or very good. But in the national survey, Canadians who said they got hugs "all the time" were twice as likely as those who didn't to say their mental health was excellent. This makes sense, Mr. Jedwab says, because affection has a clear link to being part of a healthy, loving community. People with good mental health were also far more likely to say they had someone to turn to when they had problems.

At the same time, he says, it didn't matter whether people went to church every week or not at all - how they described their mental health didn't change.

The proportion of Canadians saying their mental health was excellent - or who said they felt "very satisfied" - and attend weekly worship was similar to the ones who never go. The pattern was the same among Canadians who saw themselves as very spiritual, and even held up among people who identified themselves as connected to a religion.

But don't rule out the health benefits of being spiritual, researchers say - especially in times of stress. In the past few years, a growing collection of studies have explored rates of mental illness among the religious, many of them finding that the incidence of depression and anxiety is lower among this segment of the population. A new, two-year Australian study that tracked people hospitalized with depression found that those who expressed core religious beliefs recovered faster - and that faith had a greater influence than either medication or community support.

"It's not just the social component, says Marilyn Baetz, an associate psychiatry professor at the University of Saskatchewan, who studies the role of religion in mental-health treatment. "People can use religion as a coping mechanism."

But the story is complicated, Dr. Baetz says. People lean less often on religion when times are good, a fact a survey may obscure. And a strong faith can also work against treatment, she says, if, for instance, the person decides "[leave] the situation in God's hands."

Either way, Mr. Jedwab says, religious leaders may be wise to take note of his findings: "To be on the safe side, clergy may wish to conclude their services by inviting [their] congregations to give someone a hug."

Interesting, though I'd hardly say it's a big surprise.

[Mikey]

The whole idea of a study like this is flawed. There are two types of people: religious and non-religious. The non-religious will always have a better response to hugs than worship, by definition. It's an inborn deficiency with the study.

[Sonic Glitch]

This may just be the most useless example of spending good money on more hippie, New Age, Feel Goode Bullsh*t.

My question more so is: Who the f*ck cares and why the f*ck did we need a study about it?!

[Captain Picard's Hair]

This may just be the most useless example of spending good money on more hippie, New Age, Feel Goode Bullsh*t.

My question more so is: Who the f*ck cares and why the f*ck did we need a study about it?!

Methinks you need a hug.

[Tsukiyumi]

[sunnyside]

Actually this study is incredibly flawed. It's a classic case of "trees swaying back and forth makes the wind". If you wanted to see how hugs affected happiness you'd take some people and somehow or other get them more or less hugs to see what happened.

However what this is finding is that the social outcast loner is less happy than a person that is liked by a bunch of people. Shocker there.

[Sonic Glitch]

This may just be the most useless example of spending good money on more hippie, New Age, Feel Goode Bullsh*t.

My question more so is: Who the f*ck cares and why the f*ck did we need a study about it?!

Methinks you need a hug.

Maybe I do...