“A new study suggests that joining a religious group could do more for someone’s ‘sustained happiness’ than other forms of social participation, such as volunteering, playing sports or taking a class,” The Washington Post reported.
“A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology by researchers at the London School of Economics [LSE] and Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that the secret to sustained happiness lies in participation in religion.”
Said Mauricio Avendano, an epidemiologist at LSE and an author of the study, in a statement, “The church appears to play a very important social role in keeping depression at bay and also as a coping mechanism during periods of illness in later life.”