What the studies found when faith practices were put to the test

Faith as the starting point

P-Minus starts from the model of the soul that the monotheistic faiths share, and uses CBT and ACT as tools inside it. That raises a fair question. What happens when researchers test faith practices one at a time? This page puts six sets of studies side by side. None of them is about porn. They cover therapy, stress, couples, smoking and a prayer said aloud, so we read each one for what it measured and no further.

Therapy that works with the client's faith

The widest test is a 2018 review by Captari, Hook, Hoyt and colleagues. It pooled 97 studies and 7,181 clients in therapy that drew on the client's religion¹. Of the 102 samples, 28 were Christian, 18 Muslim and 51 drew on spirituality in general¹.

Against no therapy at all, the effect was 0.74 for spiritual well-being and 0.74 for symptoms, close to large on both¹. Against a different therapy it was 0.43 and 0.33¹. The fairest test sets a therapy against the same therapy with the faith taken out. There the gap for spiritual well-being was 0.34 and significant. The gap for symptoms was 0.13 and not significant¹.

So clients got as much relief from their symptoms, and more for the part of them a secular version leaves alone¹. Muslim and Christian versions did about equally well¹. Two cautions apply. Many trials were run by the people who designed the therapy, which can tilt results, and half the samples used general spirituality rather than one faith¹.

The fairest trials share a design we think matters. They took a standard secular therapy and added faith content to it. That tests faith as an addition, not as the starting point¹. P-Minus is built the other way round, so these trials test something near it, not the thing itself.

How you turn to God matters

If faith helps in therapy, does it matter how a person leans on it under strain? Ano and Vasconcelles pooled 49 studies of 13,512 people facing one stressful situation, published from 1988 to 2003². Positive religious coping includes seeking spiritual support and seeing the hardship in a benevolent religious light². It went with better outcomes such as growth and self-esteem, a correlation of 0.33 across 29 results². It also went with a little less distress, 0.12².

The other side looked different. Negative religious coping, such as seeing the hardship as God's punishment or feeling discontent with God, went with more distress, 0.22². It had no significant link with better outcomes, a correlation of 0.02². A 2023 review by Cheng and Ying of 25,438 people early in the COVID pandemic found the same link again, 0.29 between negative religious coping and anxiety and depression³. Positive coping showed no significant link with symptoms there³.

These are correlations from one point in time. Distress may shape how people see God as much as the other way round, and both coping and wellbeing were self-reported². In the 2023 review, only 2% of studies followed people over time³. Of the 8,115 people whose faith the 2005 review recorded, 85% were Protestant or Catholic, and Muslims sat among the 13% grouped as other². Still, the split points one way. Turning to God for support went with doing better. Seeing God as punishing went with doing worse, in two reviews from two different decades²³.

Prayer, in a randomised trial

Correlations cannot say what prayer does. A trial can. Fincham, Lambert and Beach randomly gave 83 students at a US public university one daily activity for four weeks⁴. All were in a relationship and all already prayed at least a little. They logged the activity online twice a week⁴.

Students who prayed for their partner every day ended on an infidelity score of 2.44, adjusted for their score at the start⁴. Those who thought positive thoughts about their partner scored 3.9, and those given a neutral task 3.91⁴. The gaps had effect sizes of 0.80 and 0.87⁴. Prayer that was not about the partner landed at 3.19, not significantly different from any other group⁴.

The control group is what makes this interesting. Positive thoughts about the partner did no better than a neutral task. Prayer for the partner did. But these were students, mostly women, and only people who already prayed, and infidelity here is a 9 item self-report scale, not a count of affairs⁴. The journal corrected one heading in the results table in 2010, and we used the corrected version⁵.

What recited prayer does to the breath

Some prayer is said aloud, in a fixed rhythm. In 2001 Bernardi, Sleight, Bandinelli and others measured 23 healthy adults while they recited the Ave Maria in Latin⁶. Two people recited in turn, one taking the priest's part and one the response, with no instruction on timing. Each full cycle took almost exactly 10 seconds, one slow breath⁶.

Breathing fell from 14.1 breaths a minute at rest to 5.6 during the rosary⁶. A yoga mantra gave 5.7, and a set pace gave 6⁶. Free talk slowed breathing too, to 7.6, but it was irregular⁶. Breathing rate varied by 37.4% during talk, 8.3% during the rosary and 5.4% at the set pace⁶.

The body's reflex that steadies blood pressure grew more sensitive during the rosary, 11.5 against 9.5 during free talk, in ms per mm Hg⁶. Against normal breathing that gain was not significant⁶. Only 23 people took part, the authors say they came on the effect by chance, and the study measured breathing and blood pressure rhythms, not urges or mood⁶. We found no sound, open study of breathing during dhikr, Quran recitation or salah. The rosary result is the closest thing we have.

Gratitude, and a smaller effect the second time

Praise and thanks to God sit close together, so gratitude belongs here. Wang, Rees, Dorison, Kawachi and Lerner had US adult smokers online watch a short film clip and write about a time someone helped them, or watch and write about something neutral. Then they offered them a place on a real quit-smoking program⁷. In the first run of 169 people, 40% of the gratitude group signed up, against 24% of the neutral group⁷.

The team repeated it with 450 people, registered in advance with the same design⁷. The gap shrank to 28% against 22%, not significant on its own⁷. Across both runs it was 31% against 23%⁷. In another study from the same paper, of 546 smokers, those who wrote about gratitude reported less craving to smoke than those who wrote about something neutral⁷.

Signing up is not quitting, as the authors point out, and the same team ran both runs on smokers recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk⁷. An effect that shrinks on the second run is a warning sign. A 2014 finding that gratitude makes people more patient with money did not hold up when Lempert and colleagues retested it in their own lab, though their tests used a different, within-person design⁸. We read the smoking result as a small push and nothing more.

Ramadan as a moment to quit

The last practice is a whole month. Monshi, Alqahtani, Alangari and colleagues ran an anonymous online survey of 742 tobacco users in Saudi Arabia, from July 2021 to May 2022⁹. 92% were men, and they used cigarettes, waterpipes or e-cigarettes⁹. 46.9% had considered quitting during Ramadan, 335 of the 715 who answered⁹. Only 14.7% had at Eid and 10.2% on their birthday⁹.

Those who had thought about quitting in Ramadan had 8.2 times the odds of a past quit attempt⁹. They were also the only group more likely to have called the national quitline⁹. A birthday is a date. Ramadan is a month of daily fasting and prayer, and the numbers suggest people feel the difference.

The harder question is what happens after Eid. Studies that followed smokers past the month give a mixed picture. In Malaysia, two of the three men who stopped during Ramadan 2015 in a faith-based program started again¹⁰. In the comparison group, 4 men stopped during the month and 5 were not smoking a month later¹⁰. Among Somali men in the US, 17 of 50 said they had quit the Ramadan before, and all 50 were smoking when the study began¹¹. The authors note that the figure may be inflated by poor recall and by wanting to give the expected answer¹¹. The Saudi survey itself measured thinking about quitting, not quitting, in a convenience sample of mostly young men asked once. Its questions were written by the authors and tried on 20 people first⁹. The month opens the door. Keeping it open takes the work of every day after it.

How they found it

• The therapy review pooled trials of therapy that drew on the client's religion. The fairest test set a therapy against the same therapy with the faith content taken out.
• The coping review pooled studies that asked people how they drew on their faith in one stressful situation. Positive coping covered 10 strategies, such as seeking spiritual support and seeing the hardship in a benevolent religious light. Negative coping covered 7, such as seeing it as God's punishment or feeling discontent with God.
• In the prayer trial, 83 students in a relationship who already prayed were randomly given one daily activity for four weeks. Infidelity was measured before and after on a 9 item self-report scale.
• In the rosary study, the conditions ran in random order, except the set pace of 6 breaths a minute, which always came last.
• In the gratitude study, smokers watched a short clip and wrote about a time someone helped them, or did the same with neutral material, and were then offered a place on a real online quit program. The repeat was registered in advance.
• 742 tobacco users aged 18 and over answered an anonymous online survey about quitting on different occasions, shared by word of mouth.

What it cannot tell you

• The fairest therapy trials added faith content to a standard secular therapy. They test faith as an addition, not as the starting point. Many were run by the people who designed the therapy.
• The coping findings are correlations from one point in time, both measures self-reported, and 85% of participants whose faith was recorded were Protestant or Catholic.
• The prayer trial used students, mostly women, and only people who already prayed. Infidelity was a self-report scale, not a count of affairs.
• The rosary study had only 23 people and measured breathing and blood pressure rhythms, not urges or mood. We found no sound, open study of breathing during dhikr, Quran recitation or salah.
• Signing up for a quit program is not quitting, and the gratitude effect shrank when the same team repeated it.
• The Ramadan survey measured thinking about quitting, not quitting, in a convenience sample of mostly young men asked once.

In P-Minus

P-Minus is built the other way round from the therapy trials. It starts from the model of the soul the monotheistic faiths share, and uses CBT and ACT as tools inside it. You choose the daily prayers you will keep, and they go on each day's list. A lapse opens a repentance flow built on mercy, never punishment. You renew your intention and carry on. On the help button you can pace your breath on two short phrases of praise to God, five seconds in and five out. That is six breaths a minute. Each day closes with 33 counted words of praise to God.

Sources

1. Captari LE, Hook JN, Hoyt W, et al. Integrating clients' religion and spirituality within psychotherapy: a comprehensive meta-analysis. J Clin Psychol. 2018;74(11):1938-51.
2. Ano GG, Vasconcelles EB. Religious coping and psychological adjustment to stress: a meta-analysis. J Clin Psychol. 2005;61(4):461-80.
3. Cheng C, Ying W. A meta-analytic review of the associations between dimensions of religious coping and psychological symptoms during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Front Psychiatry. 2023;14:1097598.
4. Fincham FD, Lambert NM, Beach SRH. Faith and unfaithfulness: can praying for your partner reduce infidelity? J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010;99(4):649-59.
5. Correction to Fincham, Lambert and Beach (2010). J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010;99(4):594.
6. Bernardi L, Sleight P, Bandinelli G, et al. Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic cardiovascular rhythms: comparative study. BMJ. 2001;323(7327):1446-9.
7. Wang K, Rees VW, Dorison CA, Kawachi I, Lerner JS. The role of positive emotion in harmful health behavior: implications for theory and public health campaigns. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024;121(28):e2320750121.
8. Lempert KM, Parthasarathi T, Linhares S, Ruh N, Kable JW. Positive autobiographical memory recall does not influence temporal discounting: an internal meta-analysis of experimental studies. J Econ Psychol. 2024;103:102730.
9. Monshi SS, Alqahtani MM, Alangari AS, Sinky TH, Al-Zalabani AH, Alanazi AM. The association between cultural and social occasions and smoking cessation: the case of Saudi Arabia. Tob Induc Dis. 2023;21:153.
10. Ismail S, Abdul Rahman H, Abidin EZ, et al. The effect of faith-based smoking cessation intervention during Ramadan among Malay smokers. Qatar Med J. 2016;2016(2):16.
11. Pratt R, Ojo-Fati O, DuBois D, et al. Testing the feasibility and acceptability of a religiously-tailored text messaging intervention to reduce smoking among Somali Muslim men during Ramadan. Nicotine Tob Res. 2021;23(8):1283-90.

Sources checked October 2026.