Hope, Love and Healthiness

In the months following Sept. 11, researchers descended on New York City to see how residents were coping. Not surprisingly, people were showing signs of stress. They were smoking more, drinking more and abusing more substances. But one group was faring relatively well—people of faith. According to a survey that appeared in Family Circle magazine (January 2002), religious people were more likely to believe that good triumphs over evil, everything happens for a reason, and love conquers all. In a word, they had hope.

For a good part of the 20th century, health researchers ignored emotions and beliefs as being too subjective for scientists to study. The problem was that patients kept doing things that defied scientific explanation—such as surviving against all odds. These events forced scientists to re-examine their understanding of the human mind and body. They discovered that what we think, feel and believe influences how healthy we are—and can even make the difference between life and death. Two of these factors—hope and love—are essential to Christian faith. Here are some simple insights about hope and love and how you can share their health-enhancing effects with others.

Hope

Hopeful people are optimistic and more likely to see a difficult situation as a challenge rather than a threat. Take a simple example, such as trying to lose weight. If you lack hope, losing a few pounds may seem insignificant and not worth the effort. In contrast, a hopeful person views that same loss as a step in the right direction and is more likely to persevere. In the end, hopeful people tend to be successful with losing weight or making similar life changes because they are more persistent and optimistic about small victories.

And there’s more. University of Utah researchers found that people who were hopeless, depressed or anxious were more likely to have heart attacks than hopeful people. Among patients who had already had a heart attack, those who were depressed and hopeless were at higher risk for having another one—and dying from it.

Love

Love is also good for your health. Health researchers from Ohio State University have found that people in stable, positive marriages had the lowest rates of depression. Happy marriages can even influence how long you live. Married men had a 250 percent lower mortality rate than unmarried men the same age, and married women had a 50 percent lower mortality rate.

The life-and-death power of love has also been demonstrated in the care of premature babies. Prior to the 1980s, in Colombia and South Africa, about 70 percent of preemies died. Doctors had little high-tech equipment to save these babies’ lives; what they had were mothers. Skin-to-skin contact between mothers and their babies increased infant survival by an astonishing 500 percent.

Our need for others doesn’t end in infancy. Even as adults, being isolated and unconnected impairs health and increases the risk of dying at an early age. Living without relationships is as harmful to health as high cholesterol or smoking.

Family Health

Fortunately, you can share hope and love every day, starting with your family, and though our culture regularly models hopelessness, you can counter that, too. The Bible is clear that hope comes from God, and because we belong to God, we are not people without hope (Romans 5:5; 8:24; 15:13; Ephesians 1:18). As you live by faith, you tangibly demonstrate that you are looking beyond present circumstances, knowing things will ultimately work out for greater good. This models hope to those around you and may help them do the same.

You can also express love every day by what you do and say. The lifesaving effects of love do not surprise God. Perhaps this is what

He had in mind when He commanded us to love one another.

We need each other, in our families and in the body of Christ. God himself declared, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). By loving others as yourself, you enhance their health—and your own.

Kathleen Kendall-Tackett is a health psychologist and research associate professor of psychology at the Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire