Spirituality and religion prevents depression

A new study proves that people who are especially predisposed depression can combat the disease by regular meditation or other spiritual or religious practice. These activities help to prevent depression which is caused by the thickening of the brain cortex. The study leader is Lisa Miller, professor and director of Clinical Psychology and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. The results of this study are published in JAMA Psychiatry. There were 103 adults involved in the study with both high and low risks to depression. The final results prove that people who found religion important had lower risks to depression. “The new study links this extremely large protective benefit of spirituality or religion to previous studies which identified large expanses of cortical thinning in specific regions of the brain in adult offspring of families at high risk for major depression”, Miller said.