21/01/2026
Medical Benefits of Prayer
https://x.com/DrKatLindley/status/1707582456965042204?s=20
Today I read a post on FB written by someone I don't know about Bach. It really touched me, so I decided to explore the power of prayer. After you read this note you will understand why.
"Did you know? Johan Sebastian Bach lost his little daughter and then three sons and then his wife.
Then he remarried and then he and his second wife, Anna-Magdalena, lost four more daughters and three sons. Eleven beloved children...
Many researchers have wondered: how Bach managed to handle these losses? How did he not stop breathing, how did his heart not stop? And most importantly, how could he continue to write music? Kantati, cello suites, masses, concerts...
The most beautiful music the world has heard. Do you know how he did it?
At the end of the his music, he always wrote "Soli Deo gloria" (Glory to God alone) and in the beginning, "Lord help." Therefore, you can pray during Bach's music because the music itself is a prayer. You could, then, consider Bach's music a conversation between man and God. How do you deal with pain? Worship is the best solace."
Prayer is a considered a form of medicine, and it falls into the complimentary, alternative category. It has similar benefits to meditation. Praying increases release of dopamine. (As a side note, dopamine plays important roles in executive function, motor control, motivation, arousal, reinforcement, and reward through signaling cascades that are exerted via binding to dopaminergic receptors at the projections found in the substantia nigra, ventral segmental area, and arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus of the human brain.) Prayer can calm your nervous system, shutting down your fight or flight response. It can make you less reactive to negative emotions and less angry. Prayer elicits the relaxation response, which lowers blood pressure and other factors heightened by stress. It also releases control to something greater than oneself through secondary control, which can reduce the stress of needing to be in charge. Prayer is a go to habit for stress management because it can improve release of testosterone and related androgen hormones such as DHEA. When we intently and consistently pray, we increase the blood flow to our frontal lobes and to our anterior cingulate, which causes the activity in the emotional centers of our brain to decrease. That helps us develop the capacity to make responses that maintain and even sense of peace.
There is definitely skepticism out there about the healing power of prayer, but at the end of the day when your soul needs respite few words may make a difference.
