Five Spiritual Practices that Increase Well-Being

For thousands of years, religious and spiritual communities around the world have organized themselves around specific practices they find meaningful. In recent years, psychological scientists have been in conversation with such communities, trying to learn about these practices, sometimes refine them, and test the effects of related interventions on well-being. For those who consider themselves somehow spiritual – about 86% of American adults in one recent nationally representative survey – these activities may hold special significance. Although whether or not a practice really is “spiritual” depends on the person and what they hold sacred, these activities may be central parts of a lifestyle that prioritizes and integrates spirituality and well-being.

Below are five forms of spiritual practice that psychological research suggests increase well-being.

1. Meditation

Meditation practices refer to a broad collection of activities that seek to focus the mind. Really almost anything can be a support for attention during a meditation practice. For example, we can focus on our breathing, a meaningful word of our choice, a raisin, the movement of light on the floor as it comes through a window, the sound of a bird, sensations of emotional or physical pain, a text that holds spiritual significance, the kindness of a loved one, or the presence of the divine, just to name a few.

In recent years, a variety of apps have become available to help people engage in these kinds of activities. My favorite is the free “Healthy Minds Innovations” app from the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

2. Awe

Dacher Keltner defines awe as the feeling we get when we’re in the presence of a vast mystery that transcends our understanding of the world. For instance, we might feel awe in the presence of something huge, powerful, timeless, or intricate. Other people can leave us awestruck as well because of their astounding virtue, knowledge, or skill.

Priscilla Du Preez | Unsplash

Taking an intentional awe walk is one way we can seek awe. This might involve taking at least 15 minutes to stroll through a natural area, maybe one that brings us through a wooded area or field of flowers, or near a lake or river. Alternatively, we can take a walk under the night sky, at dawn or dusk, or while a thunderstorm is taking shape in the distance. As we take our walk, part of the practice entails taking our time to really try to take in what we notice as vast, for example by allowing ourselves to by swept away by a view or amazed by the detail of a flower.

3. Forgiveness

Forgiveness refers to a process of letting go of negative emotions and the urges to seek revenge or avoid another because of the pain they caused us. Importantly, forgiveness need not involve telling a person we forgive them, condoning or forgetting a hurtful action, or restoring a relationship.

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The Emotional Life of Jesus

When I imagine Jesus – similar to when I imagine the Buddha – what initially comes to mind is someone who was pretty emotionally flat or emotionally neutral. If there’s an emotion I associate with Jesus, it’s one of serenity. Maybe this is because, when I consider Jesus, my mind’s eye turns to paintings and statues I’ve seen throughout my lifetime, such as the one my mom hung in our living room when I was a boy. In these, Jesus seemed to be beyond human emotion.

Heinrich Hofmann’s 1894 Painting | Wikimedia Commons

I’ve long been fascinated by emotion. Part of what inspired my calling to Psychology as an undergraduate were experiences at the University of Wisconsin helping to do research in influential emotion labs exploring embarrassment (with Dacher Keltner) and interest (with Judy Harackiewicz). In graduate school, at the University of Minnesota, I conducted research investigating correlates of emotional well-being, including anxiety, depression, hostility, and happiness (with Pat Frazier). I’m generally curious about how individuals feel, and I watch for non-verbal indications of how people react to life. It seems to me that someone’s emotional life reveals something deeply important about who they are.

I’ve also long been a follower of Jesus. Surely, a lot of this has to do with being raised in a Christian family in an often times Christian-dominant culture. But, there’s also something about the stories of Jesus that intrigue me. There’s something about who Jesus was that seems different, countercultural, and stunning.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to seriously explore the intersection of these two parts of myself. That is, I’ve started to wonder about the actual – not the imagined – emotional life of Jesus. In contrast to the sense I’ve received in some parts of Christianity to which I’ve been exposed, as I read it now, Jesus was a person of deep, passionate emotional intensity.

To explore Jesus’s emotional life, I did a focused study of the Gospel of Mark. This Gospel generally is considered by Bible scholars to be the earliest Gospel – written about 40 years after Jesus’s death. As the progressive Bible scholar, Marcus Borg argued, this account of Jesus’s life likely includes elements of both metaphor and remembered history, but the emotions attributed to Jesus, as discussed below, seem most likely to be traceable to the historical Jesus. As one reads this Gospel, there’s also an evident sense of immediacy to it, which lends itself to an investigation of Jesus’s emotional life.

To better understand context, as I read through Mark, I noted passages that described where Jesus chose to spend his time. He seemed to spend a lot of his days by the water (1:16; 2:13; 3:7; 4:1; 5:1), in the mountains (3:13; 6:46), in Synagogue (1:21; 3:1; 6:2) and, maybe not surprising for someone who didn’t seem to have a home of his own, in other people’s homes (1:29; 2:15; 3:20; 14:3). He seemed to frequently withdraw into nature to get away from the demands of the crowds, and to pray (e.g., 1:35; 6:46). This begins to give an indirect glimpse into Jesus’s emotional life.

In looking for more direct descriptions, what most surprised me in studying the Gospel of Mark was how often Jesus seemed to experience great irritation, sometimes to the point of almost seeming impatient. Jesus was said to speak “sternly” (1:25). On several occasions, he was described as being “indignant” (1:41; 10:14). At one point, Jesus looked at his skeptics “in anger… deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts” (3:5). When he finds people selling in the temple courts, he drives them out, overturning tables in anger (11:15-17).

Why Religious Fundamentalism Can Inspire Hatred (and what to do about it)

Intermixed with much of the worst of human history is a religious motivation. This can be seen in the involvement of a religious motivation in the genocide committed against American Indians and the Holocaust. More recently, this can be seen in the motivation behind tragedies such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the January 6 attack on the United States Capital. Other examples include the involvement of religion in motivating prejudice and violence directed toward members of the LGBTQ population and various cases of religious persecution.  

Hooded Members of the Ku Klux Klan Displaying Christian Imagery, 1935.

As Blaise Pascal once reflected: “human beings never do evil so completely and so joyously as when they do it from a religious motivation.”

How can great world religions – which generally teach love, compassion, and justice – become powerful instruments of prejudice and violence?

Although acts of religiously-inspired hatred are complex and caused by many variables, one common factor concerns religious fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalism involves a rigid kind of certainty in the possession of the “one truth” and the “one way” to live. It typically relies on a literal interpretation of a sacred text and an absolute reliance on that text. Other sources of knowing what’s true or other ways of determining what’s valuable are rejected – such as when science or a different group offers an alternative perspective – in favor of what’s unquestioningly accepted within the group.

With this all comes a strong urge for fundamentalists to form a sense of who are “insiders” and who are “outsiders.” Explicitly or implicitly, it’s easy for all of us to believe members of our groups are superior, while others are inferior. One way for religious fundamentalists to address this is to develop an evangelical zeal to bring outsiders to the inside through attempts to convert them. However, when individuals reject their arguments or invitations, fundamentalists can develop even stronger attitudes against them, to the point where outsiders can become seen as less than their human equals, sometimes even leading to consciously or unconsciously dehumanizing them. At this point, prejudice and violence toward members of the outgroup become more likely.

Because fundamentalist groups also tend to draw like-minded people to their communities, individuals in these groups often decrease or completely lose contact with those different from themselves. As a result, the kinds of reality checks most people tend to naturally have happen to them when they interact with people different from them become less likely, creating the conditions for stronger stereotypes and prejudices to develop.    

The Most Lonely and Isolated

Which of the following groups do you believe, in the last 7 days, have felt most lonely or isolated?

-Those aged 18-29
-Those aged 30-49
-Those aged 50-64
-Those aged 65+

If you guessed the 18-29 year-olds, you’d be correct.

In a recent nationally representative survey, 69% of 18-29 year-olds reported being lonely or isolated in the last 7 days (59% of 30-49 year-olds reported this, as did 45% of 50-64 year-olds and 39% of those ages 65+).

Of course, this isn’t a competition, and we who call ourselves Christians – and we who call ourselves compassionate humans – seek to care for those in need no matter the age or background. Still, I bet not many would guess that young people are those most struggling with feelings of loneliness or social isolation during this pandemic.

In another nationally representative survey, 66% of 18-25 year-olds said they had no one to talk to about these feelings. And, 80% felt better when a trusted adult outside their household reached out to them.

Do you know a young person – outside your household – you might connect with? Maybe a child, grandchild, niece, nephew, member of your community, or someone you barely know but feel like might be struggling?

A call, text, Facetime, or care package dropped off at their front door might mean more than you realize.