Praying helps people stay in control of their emotions and behaviour, according to a new study.
People turn to prayer ‘as a coping response to the high demands in life’ and are rewarded with increased strength and ability to resist temptation, researchers said.
Previous findings have shown that when people try hard to control their emotions and thoughts, the risk of aggressive outbursts and binge drinking or eating rises.
But the latest study, by German psychologists at Saarland University and the University of Mannheim, found that praying helps people maintain self-control.
‘A brief period of personal prayer buffered the self-control depletion effect’, wrote the team, whose findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology online.
