Latter-day Saint Life

Study finds link between temple attendance and better mental health for teens

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Filipino young men and young women visit the Manila temple with their leaders.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

To better understand questions related to how religion impacts mental health—particularly for Latter-day Saint teens and young adults—Justin Dyer, a professor at BYU, set up a yearslong study.

Dyer teaches religious education at Brigham Young University as well as graduate statistics. He currently researches how religion, family, and mental health influence each other.

Dyer used data from a survey which followed over 1,000 Latter-day Saints and youth and young adults of other religions between the ages of 12 to 20 in Arizona and Utah starting in 2016.

He found that temple attendance was correlated with better mental health, including lower levels of depression and anxiety.

Temple attendance at age 16 was related to reduced depression at age 18. Youth with character traits such as honesty and humility increased their temple attendance between ages 14 and 16, according to Dyer’s research.

Dyer said other researchers, like Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard, have estimated that nearly 40 percent of the increase in the suicide rate could be attributed to the decrease in church attendance.

“We’ve decreased substantially in religiosity in society, while at the same time, mental health problems, suicide rates have greatly increased,” Dyer told the Church News podcast.

Dyer also said that the temple’s purpose can be beneficial for one’s mental health.

Read the rest of this article at Church News.


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