Personal Well-being
In keeping with a general increase in interest in spirituality and complementary and alternative treatments, prayer has garnered attention among some behavioral scientists. Masters and Spielmans have conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of distant intercessory prayer, but detected no discernible effects.
Spirituality has played a central role in self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous: "...if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead...."
Philosophers across many traditions, from Stoicism to Buddhism, have suggested that a spiritual practice is essential for personal well being. Such practices do not necessarily include a belief in supernatural beings. Contemporary authors, too, suggest that spirituality develops inner peace and forms a foundation for happiness. Meditation and similar practices may help any practitioner cultivate his or her inner life and character.
Read more about this topic: Spirituality
Famous quotes containing the words personal, well-being:
“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn’t aware of his need to play—a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)