The Role Spirituality Plays in Health and Well-Being

By Richard Cowling

A recent article in the New York Times (Smith, 2020, April 7) spoke to the havoc wreaked on the mental and emotional health of people around the world by the COVID-19 pandemic. The author raised the question: “Is there anything people can do to cope with the emotional fallout of this confusing and challenging time?” A recent special issue of the Journal of Holistic Nursing (JHN) on Spirituality offers insights into the role the spirituality plays in the health and well-being of individuals, families, communities, and populations.

The world today is faced with adversity in the form of a disease that has an uncertain trajectory and can lead to fatal consequences. The fatality of the disease is accentuated by the need for care in isolation with people potentially dying alone but not for the care of nurses and other health care professionals. One of the core ideals of holistic nursing is to bring a kind of care and responsiveness to people that transcends their disease and draws attention to their wholeness as a source of healing and recovery. Holistic nurses as well as many other health care disciplines have recognized the role of spirituality in this quest. As noted by Mary Elaine Southard (2020), the guest editor of this special issue, spirituality is the missing link in holistic health care perhaps guiding “us through adversity, uncertainty, hardship, disruption, transformation, recovery, new beginnings, and other significant challenges”, citing Scott (2011) for inspiration.

One of the critical lessons of COVID-19 has been how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted certain segments of our population. Ransome (2020) recently made the case for the significant role that spirituality and religion play as social determinants driving public health practice. Similarly, the case has been made through compelling research and case studies that spirituality among African American and Hispanic women is associated with a variety of positive health outcomes (Musgrave, Easley Allen, & Allen, 2002). As reported on the Good News Network (2015, February 17), researchers at the University of California Berkeley linked positive emotions associated with nature, art, and spirituality to markers of good health concomitant with a boost in one’s immune defenses. This is only a small taste of the spectrum of research that supports the role of spirituality in health care outcomes and improvement in the quality of life in the face of adversity.

In 2019, two events were sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). One of the important contributions of these events was to emphasize that integrating spiritual openness is not rivalrous to scientific endeavor, but may in fact add to or enhance it (2019, February 21). The special issue of the Journal of Holistic Nursing provides reports on a wide spectrum of endeavors based in research, practice, education, conceptual and theoretical thinking, and aesthetics to facilitate the bridge between science and spirituality. For generations, nurses have known from their close engagement with people, families, communities, and populations and participation in person-centered and whole care that, for many, spirituality is a critical, if not central, aspect of healing, recovery, and enhanced well-being. The body of work that is presented in the special issue of JHN contributes to deepening and enriching the appreciation of spirituality as a dimension of health worthy of our attention.

Read the special issue

References

Making connections between science and spirituality. (2019, February 21). Stanford University. Retrieved July 11, 2020 from https://earth.stanford.edu/news/making-connections-between-science-and-spirituality#gs.9zmrg9.

Musgrave, C.F, Allen, C.E., & Allen, G.J. (2002). Spirituality and health for women of color. American Journal of Public Health, 92(4), 557-560.

Nature, art and spirituality may boost the body’s defenses. (2015, February 7). Good News Network. Retrieved July 11, 2020 from https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/nature-art-and-spirituality-may-boost-bodys-defenses/.

Ransome, Y. (2020). Religion, spirituality, and health: New considerations for epidemiology. American Journal of Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaa022

Scott, S. (2011). Fierce leadership: A bold alternative to the worst “best” practices of business today. New York: Crown Pub.

Smith, E.E. (2020, April 7). On coronavirus lockdown? Look for meaning, not happiness. The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2wjAVdy

Southard, M.E. (2020). Spirituality: The missing link for holistic health care. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 18(1), 4-7.

About the Author

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W. Richard Cowling, III, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, ANEF

Richard Cowling is currently Editor of the Journal of Holistic Nursing and an executive leadership consultant in nursing education. He recently served as Dean of the College of Nursing at Argosy University. For six years he was the Vice President of Academic Affairs for Chamberlain College of Nursing where he helped shepherd the implementation of the Chamberlain Care Student Success Model. He is known for his academic leadership including overseeing a six-year major federal grant for promoting improved health care outcomes for diverse populations and creating a diverse faculty workforce. Dr. Cowling’s most outstanding contributions have been in developing and applying a unitary appreciative nursing model to research and practice for women’s survivorship of childhood abuse and depression. He has published and presented extensively through a variety of national and international venues. Dr. Cowling is certified as an advanced practice holistic nurse and was named the 2008 Holistic Nurse of the Year by the American Holistic Nurses Association. He is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and in the National League for Nursing Academy of Nursing Education.