It is observed that people who use their spirituality to cope with life and its vicissitudes enjoy not only better physical health, but superior mental health as well.

Spirituality is off late being alluded to as "the forgotten dimension of mental health care." In the past decade, researchers across a range of disciplines have started to explore and acknowledge the positive contribution spirituality can make to mental health. A study conducted at Harvard showed that dipping into one's spiritual core can offer benefits as varied as boosting of self esteem, reducing cravings for alcohol and smoking in addition to helping people combat depression, anxiety disorders and emotional malaise.

The inextricable connection between mental wellbeing and spirituality was a secret that Buddha had discovered eons ago. But, modern psychiatry was shaped into being by intellectuals who regarded spirituality as a relic from the dark ages. Moreover the domination of the Cartesian split between the spirit and the body in modern medicine prevented it from acknowledging the role spirituality can play in healing mental afflictions like depression and anxiety. Luckily, in the past few years, medical science is assuming a holistic approach to treatment, and spirituality is being hailed as an important dimension of cognitive, emotional, behavioural, interpersonal and psychological facets of a human being.

Mr B R Pai, Founder member of Vijaya Foundation of Spirituality explains "The real power behind intellect, mind, body and the senses in human beings is the consciousness or the spirit. Unless this is in order nothing can be in order. Spirituality is therefore greatly responsible for an individual's mental and physical well being."
  Acharya  Sajeeva, disciple of Paramahamsa Nityananda Swamy, Bidadi concurs. "Spirituality is the fountainhead of well being. When emotions cause moods to swing to extremes, a person experiences dejection or desultory elation that ultimately leads to pain. Spirituality teaches people to recognise the source of these emotions and also equips them with tools to handle them. True happiness can be experienced only when emotional intelligence is enhanced with the help of spirituality," he opines.

Like most luxuries in life, material affluence also comes with a price. Once the glitz of material wealth begins to dim, the void within begins to rear its' vexing head. Studies indicate that mental ailments especially depression is the leading mental affliction in affluent societies, and as such the incidence of depression is rapidly increasing in urban India too.

Depression is characterised by hopelessness, loss of meaning and purpose in life, low self esteem, guilt, feeling of worthlessness and aversion to company. During such episodes, a person begins to question everything that had hitherto given meaning, purpose and security to life. Existential questions like ‘why am I here?’ ‘What is the purpose of my life?’ torment the person. In such a grim situation, religion and spirituality offer solace and provide the person with a meaning and purpose in life. One of the crucial functions of spirituality is its ability to restore hope, purpose and meaning in the lives of those who are depressed.

Depression and healing

Swinton, a British researcher, conducted an investigation to understand the correlation between depression and spirituality. One of the central themes that arose from the study was the importance of having meaning and purpose in life. One of the significant features of depression is the transient or stable loss of these facets from a person's life. The loss and recovery of these elements, according to Swinton, form the crux of both depression and spirituality. Another study lead by Hodges describes the four dimension of spirituality - meaning of life, intrinsic values, belief in transcendence and spiritual community and argues that each of these dimensions have an inverse linear relationship with depression.

Research has revealed that patients recovering from major sickness, showed lower levels of anxiety on being in touch with their spiritual side. Qualitative research showed that certain spiritual practices like meditation and yoga resulted in reduction of anxiety level and  improvement in wellbeing.