Expectations contribute to reduced pain levels during prayer in highly religious participants

Abstract

Although the use of prayer as a religious coping strategy is widespread and often claimed to have positive effects on physical disorders including pain, it has never been tested in a controlled experimental setting whether prayer has a pain relieving effect. Religious beliefs and practices are complex phenomena and the use of prayer may be mediated by general psychological factors known to be related to the pain experience, such as expectations, desire for pain relief, and anxiety. Twenty religious and twenty non-religious healthy volunteers were exposed to painful electrical stimulation during internal prayer to God, a secular contrast condition, and a pain-only control condition. Subjects rated expected pain intensity levels, desire for pain relief, and anxiety before each trial and pain intensity and pain unpleasantness immediately after on mechanical visual analogue scales. Autonomic and cardiovascular measures provided continuous non-invasive objective means for assessing the potential analgesic effects of prayer. Prayer reduced pain intensity by 34 % and pain unpleasantness by 38 % for religious participants, but not for non-religious participants. For religious participants, expectancy and desire predicted 56-64 % of the variance in pain intensity scores, but for non-religious participants, only expectancy was significantly predictive of pain intensity (65-73 %). Conversely, prayer-induced reduction in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness were not followed by autonomic and cardiovascular changes.

Reduced Pain Sensation and Reduced BOLD Signal in Parietofrontal Networks during Religious Prayer

“…Participants were instructed that in the Religious Prayer condition, they should construct and repeat a personal prayer to God to assist in coping with the painful stimulation, and that in the Secular Prayer condition they should do the same, except this time direct the prayer to “Mr. Hansen.” As in Jegindø et al (2013b), the Secular Prayer condition was used to control for the possible distractive effects of prayer, and participants were asked to construct a prayer as they would otherwise do as if directed to God, only replacing “God” with “Mr. Hansen.” A detailed description and discussion of the tasks is given elsewhere (Jegindø et al, 2013b).…”

“…Hansen.” As in Jegindø et al (2013b), the Secular Prayer condition was used to control for the possible distractive effects of prayer, and participants were asked to construct a prayer as they would otherwise do as if directed to God, only replacing “God” with “Mr. Hansen.” A detailed description and discussion of the tasks is given elsewhere (Jegindø et al, 2013b). …”

“…In a previous study, we have shown that under certain circumstances devout Protestants are able to reduce pain sensation through internal prayer (Jegindø et al, 2013b), an effect that was found to be tightly linked to expectancy. Expectations have also been identified as a key mechanism underlying other types of top-down modulation of pain such as placebo analgesia (Benedetti et al, 2005, 2011b; Benedetti, 2009; Meissner et al, 2011).…”

Religious Belief, Evolution of

“…A recent study has shown that prayer does not relieve pain physiologically. Religious participants, however, self-report a subjective reduction in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness (Jegindø et al, 2013a). A follow-up test using fMRI technology repeated the results despite the fact that some of the religious participants were administered naloxone, an opioid-blockage medicine (Jegindø et al, in review).…”

Effect of Different Meditation Types on Migraine Headache Medication Use

“…11,12,16 When used for pain management, these spiritual tools can assist with meaning making which in turn can also be helpful in reducing the pain experience 17 . However, little is known about how different meditation types affect pain tolerance in vivo and analgesic medication consumption for migraine headaches.…”