Americans
have found a no-cost painkiller they say is as effective as
prescription drugs: prayer. More than half of those who responded
to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Stanford University Medical Center
poll released Monday say they use prayer to control pain.
Of those, 90% say it worked well, and 51% say "very well."
Among a dozen therapies, including bed rest, massage and herbal
remedies, only prescription drugs were as successful as prayer
in easing pain: 89% report that such drugs work well and 51%
say "very well."
This comes as no surprise to preachers and doctors who say
they have seen the way personal faith can influence a patient's
reaction to all kinds of pain, psychological or physical.
"Prayer enables you to take your mind and place it in a new
perspective," says family doctor Harold Betton, who also is
pastor of New Light Baptist Church in Little Rock. By focusing
on prayer, he says, believers reduce stress and gain control
over pain.
He says he's not suggesting anyone should expect miracles,
"but you need to utilize what people have: their faith. Let
your faith and prayer intercede, and your perception of pain
decreases."
Why that might work is open to debate. Columbia University
psychologist Richard Sloan says it has more to do with the
power of distraction than the power of prayer.
"If you try to distract yourself by focusing on something
else — prayer or something else — I do think it works," he
says. "I don't think it's anything special about prayer. It's
any kind of mental activity that serves to distract you from
the pain-producing circumstances."
Hundreds of papers have been published on the possible link
between faith and health, but scientifically, "it's very hard
to measure," says John Tarpley, professor of surgery at Vanderbilt
University.
Pain, in particular, is subjective and can be influenced by
a variety of factors that are difficult to assess by scientific
standards.
"What we have to worry about is the difference between showing
association and causation," says Tarpley, who teaches a class
on spirituality and medicine at Vanderbilt.
For some deeply religious people, pain can be redemptive,
but faith also can carry an extra burden.
"In African-American belief, (often) pain is part of what
we are expected to endure," says Glenda Hodges, director of
a course in spirituality and medicine at Howard University's
College of Medicine.
The feeling is that "if Jesus endured it, I should be able
to handle it," she says. "So if I'm not able to handle the
pain, there must be something wrong with the spiritual connection
I have with God."
But "it doesn't work that way," says Harold Koenig, professor
of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University.
Faith and medicine "work beautifully together. Just praying
alone doesn't work as well as if you're (also) taking your
morphine."
Koenig and colleagues reported last month in the Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease that among sickle cell patients,
those who go to church at least once a week had the lowest
pain scores.
"People who are more involved with religious organizations
seem to be able to cope with stress," Koenig says.
Contributing: Good Morning America airs a segment Thursday
on pain and the power of prayer.
