ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BOSTON
SOURCE: RACHEL ZOLL ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE IDEA that repeating a prayer can help cure physical ailments is gaining support among medical experts.
When religious leaders say that prayer and meditation can help cure physical ailments, they are preaching to the choir among some medical researchers.
Repeating a prayer can lower the heart rate, breathing rate and brain wave activity and sometimes even help someone avoid surgery, according to medical experts who are sharing their techniques at a conference this week.
They say the idea is gaining support among cost-conscious health organizations.
``The supposed gulf between science and spirituality in healing does not always exist,'' said Dr. Herbert Benson, a Harvard Medical School professor and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Boston's Deaconess Hospital.
``Scientific studies demonstrate that, by repeating prayers, words or sounds and passively disregarding other thoughts, many people are able to trigger a specific set of physiological changes,'' Benson said.
Benson says studies show this ``relaxation response'' decreased visits to health maintenance organizations by 36 percent. And nearly 40 percent of couples who believed they were infertile conceived within six months of practicing the technique, he says.
Benson says he receives five or six calls per week from HMOs looking to incorporate the method in their treatment programs.
Others at the conference discussed what impact spiritual practice has on pain, and the costs and benefits of the technique to health organizations.
Benson started researching what he calls the ``mind-body response'' about 25 years ago when people practicing transcendental meditation asked him to research the physiological effect of their technique.
He compiled scientific evidence for the health benefits of TM, then began studying how a change in thinking could heal those suffering from stress-related diseases. His work is detailed in his best-selling 1975 book, ``The Relaxation Response.''
Benson said he found the mind could work ``like a drug,'' especially among people who had strong faith in God or a higher power
Among the words patients chose to repeat were an oft-used TM mantra or chant, ``Ohmmmmmmmm.'' But more often, Benson found they chanted ``Hail Mary,'' a prayer to the Virgin Mary used in the Roman Catholic Church, and ``Sh'ma Yisrael,'' a key phrase from one of the most important prayers in the Jewish religion.
``We have our own HMO's - healing ministry outreach,'' said Samuel Solivan, professor of Christian theology at Andover Newton Theological Seminary.
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