“Religious people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, such as visiting dentists and wearing seat belts, and are less likely to smoke, drink, take recreational drugs and engage in risky sex”, compared with non-religious people, according to an article in Scientific American by Michael Shermer.

Shermer, an atheist, cites a number of studies, including a meta-analysis of more than three dozen studies in 2000 by psychologist Michael E. McCullough showing a strong correlation between religiosity and lower mortality.

He says that non-religious people can obtain the same benefits by mimicking some of the behaviours of religious people.

“Religion,” Shermer writes, “provides a tight social network that reinforces positive behaviors and punishes negative habits and leads to greater self-regulation for goal achievement and self-control over negative temptations”.

Sherner continues: “Religions offer the ultimate delay of gratification strategy (eternal life), and the authors cite research showing that ‘religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers’.”

However, he suggested that the mechanisms of self-control and delay of self gratification “can be tapped by anyone, religious or not”. 

He said: “Alcoholics Anonymous urges members to surrender to a ‘higher power’ but that need not even be a deity—it can be anything that helps you stay focused on the greater goal of sobriety. Zen meditation, in which you count your breaths up to 10 and then do it over and over, the authors note, ‘builds mental discipline’. 

He cites one study which suggests that “Religious people tend to feel that someone important is watching them.” 

Sherner suggests: “For believers, that monitor may be God or other members of their religion; for nonbelievers, it can be family, friends and colleagues.”

In 2009, the Iona Institute published a paper highlighting research showing that people who belonged to a religion and participated in it tended to have better health outcomes than those who practiced no religion.

The paper, ‘The psycho-social benefits of religious practice’, written by Professor Patricia Casey, showed that religious practice tended to reduce depression and the risk of suicide, and helped people cope better with bereavement.

(Professor William Reville discusses the Scientific American article in his Irish Times column today.)