Faith as Medicine

Meaning and spirituality
What is the connection between health and happiness, between health and meaning?
-Trust, care, social support, empathy… can act as powerful “medicines”.
Energetic and healthy living: that is what everyone wants today. And yet we feel sicker than ever. Depressions and unexplained illnesses are popping up everywhere. Doctors are often powerless. Even more pills and medicalization are a dead end.
Does your emotional life affect your heart? Can prayer or meditation improve your health? What about the “miraculous” healings? What is healthy and unhealthy religion?
Scientific research today shows that emotions and mental attitude have direct effects on the organism. Trust and hope release substances in our brain that can work as a powerful medicine. ?
This rediscovery of the unity of body and mind has consequences for all health care. But also for the meaning of meaning and religion. Faith as medicine sketches a global, penetrating and fascinating picture of a world and a debate in full development.
JOS VRANCKX was a journalist at Gazet van Antwerpen from 1971 to 2008, specializing in health, science, well-being and religion. Winner of the first triennial Sarah press award for
psychosocial health (2006).