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What Is Prayer ?

Prayer comes from the Latin precarius, "obtained by begging" and precari, "to entreat" - to ask earnestly, beseech, implore.Prayer means many different things to different people. At its most basic level, it is the manifestation of hope in human beings, our ability to say that we don't know everything, that there is something or someone larger and wiser than we are that can guide our lives.Mahatma Gandhi, father of modern India, described prayer as:

"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. There is no peace without the grace of God, and there is no grace of God without prayer. Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. Undoubtedly, prayer requires a living faith in God.Heartfelt prayer steadies one's nerves, humbles one and clearly shows one the next step."

"Prayer is", according to theologian Ann Ulanov and Prof. Barry Ulanov, "the most fundamental, primordial, and important language humans speak. Prayer starts without words and often ends without them. It knows its own evasions, its own infinite variety of dodges. It works some of the time in signs and symbols, lurches when it must, leaps when it can, has several kinds of logic at its disposal."

To L. Crawford,

"Prayer is a cleansing process, washing our thoughts, feelings, motives, and will, purifying the entire being including the heart, thus enabling us to see God, for without purity no one can see God. Prayer is the greatest spiritual asset in the world."

Prayer may be individual or communal, private or public. It may be offered in words, sigh, and gestures or in silence. Prayer may flow from the subconscious. It may even emerge in dreams, completely bypassing waking awareness.
Prayer is probably the world's most widely practiced visualization technique. Those who pray often begin with a relaxation ritual such as attending a house of worship or kneeling by the bed. Then they conjure a personal image of a God or some Higher Power and ask that the requests in their prayers be granted.
Many people feel profoundly calm after praying. Prayer is deeply relaxing, and those who do it regularly are, in effect, meditating. But science cannot explain some remarkable studies showing that to a degree that goes way beyond coincidence, prayer works.

The Scientific Side of Belief
Beliefs may be classified as: convictions that are extrinsic and those that are intrinsic.

Extrinsic belief may include such things as:

Bare membership in a particular church or synagogue,
Mechanical recitation of a liturgy, or
The intellectual affirmation of a particular set of convictions or statement of faith.

What distinguishes extrinsic belief is that it remains in the head and never makes it to the heart. Various studies have demonstrated that these outward practices and affirmations don't have the power in themselves to improve one's spiritual status, emotional well-being, physical health-or much of anything else.

Intrinsic belief is characterized by such qualities as:

Profound spiritual commitment,
A sense of having found the ultimate meaning of life,
A devotion to heartfelt prayer, and
A quest for a truly transformed life.

This kind of inner belief is the key to real spiritual power. Intrinsic belief has the capacity to spark major personal enrichment in every area of life -including dramatic improvements in physical health, emotional well-being, and fitness.

Benefits of Prayer

Kenneth Cooper, author of 'it's Better to Believe', says that having deep personal convictions and values can do wonders for almost every aspect of your physical and emotional well-being. He listed several specific enhancements to health that have been linked to firm, inner commitments to moral principles, social values, God, or even oneself.

Less Depression, Smoking, and Alcohol Abuse

In a study of more than five hundred African-American men conducted by Wayne State University in Detroit, significant correlation between the participants' religious involvement and their health. The researchers identified a number of indicators of true religious commitment, including overall religiosity and church attendance. They found these were linked to various beneficial health effects, such as less depression, little or no smoking, and infrequency of alcohol consumption.

Healthier Mothers and Babies

Maternity patients with a strong religious commitment, and their newborns, who were studied at the Department of Family Medicine, East Carolina University, had fewer medical complications than maternity patients without a religious affiliation.

Protection from Colon and Rectal Cancer

In an Australian study of patients with cancer of the colon or rectum, 715 cancer patients were compared with 727 "controls" without cancer.
The researchers found that the respondents who saw themselves as most religious were less likely to have cancer than those who were not as religious. In other words, self-perceived "religiousness" was a statistically significant protective factor against the disease!
Another interesting finding in this study was that self-reported or perceived religiousness was associated with median survival times of sixty-two months. In contrast, those patients who reported themselves as "non-religious" had a median survival time of only fifty-two months.

Improved Coping With Breast Cancer

A number of studies have associated a deep religious faith with an ability to cope more effectively with cancer, including breast cancer.
Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio published a study about the impact of deep faith on the condition of women with breast cancer. They found that with a group of Anglo-American patients, "intrinsic religiousness" was a strong predictor of spiritual well-being and hope- both of which are important factors for successfully coping with cancer.

A Healthier Emotional Balance

A study at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, ranked participating young men and women as high, medium, or low in the quality of their personal religious commitment. Those in the high religious category, regardless of their religious denomination, scored highest for self-esteem, emotional maturity, and non depression.

Lower Blood Pressure, Healthier Cardiovascular System and Reduced Stress

A commitment to maintain significant social ties, including marriage and religious community involvements -and a willingness to act on such commitments-can have tremendous beneficial effects on health.
A study on this issue, involving more than 1,100 healthy men and women aged seventy to seventy-nine, was reported by Yale epidemiologist Lisa Berkman at a January 1995 meeting of the American Medical Association. She confirmed that strong emotional support and social ties can help lower blood pressure and enhance survival after a heart attack.
Berkman also found that significant social ties, including close friendships and family relationships, improved the levels in the brain of the chemicals nor epinephrine and cortisol, which have been associated with excessive stress.

Stronger Marriage Ties

Religious compatibility between spouses at the time of marriage has a large influence on marital stability. A study, conducted by E. L. Lehrer and C. U Chiswick of the Economics Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, also found that spouses of different faiths generally break up more often than those with a common faith.

A commitment to a meaningful marriage-rather than just cohabiting with a partner or remaining single-has also been linked in scientific studies to some specific health benefits. Researchers from the University of Chicago found that divorced men had twice the rate of alcohol abuse as married men. Divorced women also had more problems with alcohol than their married counterparts. Other researchers reported that those who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates, are more likely to be sexually disloyal, and are generally less happy than married couples.