How religion affects our identity and health

How religion affects our identities and health

            

               Whether you know it or not our beliefs affect everything about us. Our beliefs can affect our personal and social identities. Every religion has a specific set of 'rules'  that each must follow by and act with themselves and towards each other. Not all religious individuals are the same, Some go deeper into their religion by doing worships and/or rituals. Others will choose to go to a religious community or culture rather than doing rituals and worships. If you're apart of a religious family they will have a huge impact on your identity. Since religion is important in some families, from the moment you are a child they're feeding your brain with knowledge about religion to hopefully persuade your behavior when you get older. Friends can also encourage the identity behind a person other than their family. Friends with or without religious beliefs can influence others into believing a similar view. Beliefs can influence social and personal identity as the values and  religious beliefs make up our identity. These influences may have a positive or negative impact on our identity depending on how traumatic the experience was. For example if a religious belief in a family is to always be faithful and loyal to your companion and you see that your parents broke up from unfaithfulness this could lead to the child disowning that belief and that may have a negative affect on their identity causing them to change their values. our sense of right or wrong, can or can’t, creates your boundaries and limits that you live by. Many studies have shown relation to religious practice and how they have a positive affect on our health. Religion is used as a coping mechanism to help people get through their tough times. Times that someone has used religious practices to cope with life altering circumstances have been for example during terminal illnesses, cancer, diseases (immune and non immune) are some examples of using religious practice during a life altering event. For some people faith in their religion may affect their ability to cope with the negative events in their life, while if you're not religious you'll likely have a hard time coping with negative events in your life.