Many Americans say they attend church because it helps them stay grounded and gives them spiritual guidance. A new study suggests that regular attendance may also help increase their lifespan. Researchers looked at data on nearly 75,000 middle-age female nurses in the United States as part of the Nurses’ Health Study. The participants answered questions about whether they attended religious services regularly every four years between 1992 and 2012, and about other aspects of their lives over the years.
The researchers found that women who went to church more than once a week had a 33% lower risk of dying during the study period compared with those who said they never went. Less-frequent attendance was also associated with a lower risk of death, as women who attended once a week or less than weekly had 26% and 13% lower risk of death, respectively. READ MORE
It may be that going to church is more applicable to women in terms of health benefits, because the church is largely feminized. I read (I think it was a comment) about a woman’s husband who wouldn’t go to church because the music was too feminized, and about men at large, claiming the whole church experience is basically a woman’s affair (and for children). This may be due to the fact, that there is in effect, no church militant (masculine component), to the regular functioning of the church.