Why does religion increase life expectancy?
It’s pretty well documented that religious people live longer. While some of them are a bit dated, there’s articles here, here and here that I found with two minutes of searching.
While this is obviously good news to me since religion has always played a role in my life, the interesting part comes when you consider why this is the case. I’ve been mulling this over some lately, and here’s a few conclusions I’ve reached:
1. Limits your choices
Self imposed limiting of choices (which I would also lump religion in with as we choose to follow it) greatly reduces your stress levels. To many choices clutter the mind.
AJ Jacobs, self-proflaimed agnostic and author of The Year of Living Biblically, talks about this in his interview with Tim Ferriss:
It was fascinating. I’d always loved freedom of choice. It’s why I went to a loosey-goosey liberal arts college with no core requirements. But this experiment was all about freedom FROM choice. Or at least a minimal-choice lifestyle.
By imposing a set of rules for how you live your life, you reduce the number of choices you have to make, which not only reduces your stress but frees your mind to focus on more important things.
2. Encourages you to calm down and be nice
The “greatest commandment” is all about love and anger is frowned upon by most major religions. If you follow the tenants of being content with what you have, not thinking too highly of yourself, considering other people at least as important of you, etc, it will reduce damaging contempt and anger and increase healthy love and kindness.
3. Allows you to unload responsibility
This goes along with what I wrote about separating effort and earning.
The belief that there is a greater power that is, in some way, in control of things is a very calming belief. When you begin to live your life under this system it frees you to feel less like Atlas.
I see this in my 3 year old son. When he knows that mom and dad are in control of things, it frees him to relax and enjoy his surroundings. When the feeling of security disappears, everything immediately changes. He becomes frantic and scared and wildly seeks the comfort of knowing that we are, once again, in control.
What does this mean to a non-religious person? Maybe you should do some study of a religion’s basic tenants and start implementing them. It will add a few more years to your lifespan and help you enjoy them a bit more along the way.
