DO YOU BELIEVE IN A HIGHER POWER?

By DR CHANDRAKANT SHAH

The COVID-19 pandemic has created havoc in our lives. We have witnessed deaths amongst our friends and family members, its crippling effects on long haulers, loneliness, and dramatic changes in our regular routines and rituals.

No longer are weddings or funerals elaborate, no longer can we hop in our cars with a plan to visit the sick or dying elders and our loved ones. No longer are children going to school carefree, and no longer can we freely go to grocery stores, restaurants, cinemas, or shopping malls.

Some of us in the service industry lost jobs, whereas some lost our business.

Humans are resilient and do adjust; however, it has taken a toll on all of us. We developed coping mechanisms. We expanded our social service programs, developed public policy and technological innovations such as working from home, Zoom meetings and getting groceries delivered at home.

However, we did suffer, and our mental health took a tumble. While there is no simple solution to such a catastrophic event, at individual levels it would help us a great deal if we were more spiritual.

We generally associate being spiritual with being religious. Historically, established religions inculcated in us a faith in a supreme being (God). Certain rituals, certain dogmas such as my God is superior to all others and one’s salvation is through only my God, got cemented. We have witnessed wars and killings in the name of religion.

However, religion also promoted a ‘value system’ for how to be a good and civic-minded individual, in turn promoting community cohesion and caring and sharing for humanity as a whole.

Over the years, many people have questioned the dogmas preached by their religions and have stopped attending their temples, churches, mosques and synagogues. Others attend places of worship only on specific occasions such as for marriage, deaths or ceremonies related to naming or baptism of infants.

In 2019, Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme from the University of Waterloo, in her research report Religion, Non-belief, Spirituality and Social Behaviour among North American Millennials found the following trends:

1. Nearly half (44 per cent) of Canadian young adults in this survey selected one of the five “no religion” options provided (atheism, secular humanism, agnosticism, spiritual with no religion, or no particular preference); over a third (39 per cent) of the American young adults did so.

2. Just over half (56 per cent) of Canadian young adult respondents say they believe in God or a higher power, compared with just over two-thirds (68 per cent) in the US.

3. Canada continues to be the more secular of the two countries, even among Millennials, on indicators of religious (un)affiliation, belief in God or a higher power, salience of belief, prayer, religious service attendance, reading scripture, making offerings to ancestors, online religious and spiritual activity, and religious and spiritual activity with friends.

4. Nevertheless, Canadian young adults do take part in some self-defined spiritual activities with a similar or even higher frequency than their US counterparts, including mind-fullness and meditation, yoga as well as outdoor nature activities.

5. Some spirituality indicators such as the belief in a mysterious and connected natural world and the universe as well as positive associations with the word “spirituality”, are also found among proportionally more young adults in Canada than in the US.

Working with the Indigenous Peoples, I became increasingly aware of the importance of spirituality in being healthy and well or what we call holistic health.

Their concept of health is depicted in the medicine wheel, indicating that to be healthy, one must have harmony in the four aspects of health: physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual.

The Western concept of health deals with the Cartesian approach to health: meaning individuals generally have the derangement only in their physical or mental health without any consideration of spiritual well-being.

For example, consider if one has a heart problem or depression. There is a study indicating that when faced with severe illness or terminal illness, 75 per cent of patients want their physicians to pray with them.

Let me cite another example. A few years back, I saw, for the first time, a woman patient accompanied by a nurse. She sat in the chair, looking down, with no eye contact; she had a few ongoing health problems, for which she needed monitoring every three months.

I was previously briefed about her by the accompanying nurse, stating that she feared men and would not communicate with me.

In my opening remarks to her, I mentioned to her that I was not a man or a woman, I was a healer.

She looked through the corner of eyes towards me. Over the next two or three visits, she started looking straight towards me and answering a few questions.

After about the fifth visit, she came alone. During this period, we had connected her with the traditional healer and other needed healthcare professionals.

While she was not cured, her spirit was healed, and she became not only assertive but participated in the community activities, becoming a leader herself.

These facts led me to explore the idea of spirituality and how it impacts health.

There are various definitions of spirituality, but in essence, all of them lead to being connected with the higher being – be it god or creator or someone in whom you believe or have faith.

The second dimension of spirituality is being connected to the ecosystem: primarily with other human beings, followed by having connection with all other living beings (vegetations, insects, animals, birds, fish, etc.) and the physical environment (air, water, earth).

We developed the theories exploring how this connectedness helps to improve health. We found three mechanisms through which spirituality impacts health: stress reduction, social connectedness and connection with one’s ecosystem or environment.

In our day-to-day lives, we face much stress. Situations we have no or little control over leads to stress becoming chronic.

Chronic stress, through various mechanisms in our brain and endocrine system, impacts various body systems causing a high risk of heart diseases and high blood pressure, sleeplessness, depressed mood or anxiety, unhealthy behaviours such as overeating, smoking and alcohol use, increased frequency and severity of upper respiratory infections, decreased response to vaccines and shortened the protective caps at the end of chromosomes, which are associated with ageing and early deaths.

Having faith in whomsoever one believes provides a framework that tells us that certain situations are beyond our control and the higher powers will hopefully take over and make them right. We call this hope.

Hence, some of us pray, do yoga, meditation, fast, smudge and perform various rituals to bring good karmas. All these activities reduce stress, bringing what we call inner happiness or peace.

The second mechanism by which spirituality works is through social connectedness – meaning caring and sharing for our fellow human beings.

Research shows that individuals who have many social connections live on an average six years longer than those who have very few; recover from illness faster, have fewer mental health issues and those with mental illness have fewer and shorter hospitalizations.

Those providing volunteer service or donating money for a good cause reaps more benefits for their actions than the receivers.

These acts of kindness, empathy and compassion provide them purpose and meaning to life leading inner peace and lesser stress.

The third mechanism by which spirituality works is through connecting with one’s ecosystem by preserving it. Some do so by being vegetarian or vegan, others by protesting logging in our rainforests, others by recycling and reducing their carbon footprints.

To me, the work of Greta Thunberg and the Green Movement are prime examples of spiritual people whose love for humanity transcends far beyond usual acts.

Many of us are aware of the adverse effects of degradation of our environment, we know that this leads to an increased number of diseases and deaths. Research has also shown those who are nature-loving are healthier.

So, what are some of the attributes/qualities of spiritual persons? These are: caring and sharing not only for other humans but also for the total ecosystem, altruism, positive thinking, egoless, inner peace, unconditional love, optimism, compassion, humility, simplicity, reciprocity, and justice. Each one of us has the potential to be spiritual but we need to cultivate these attributes by self-reflection and practising them in our daily activities.

By doing so, we will make mother earth and all its inhabitants healthy and well.

BODY AND SOUL

DO YOU BELIEVE IN A HIGHER POWER?