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Prayer effective as a painkiller!
Does prayer really work or is it just a distraction?
"Prayer enables you to take your mind and place it in a new perspective," says family doctor Harold Betton, who also is pastor of New Light Baptist Church in Little Rock. By focusing on prayer, he says, believers reduce stress and gain control over pain.
However,
Columbia University psychologist Richard Sloan says it has more to do with the power of distraction than the power of prayer.
"If you try to distract yourself by focusing on something else — prayer or something else — I do think it works," he says. "I don't think it's anything special about prayer. It's any kind of mental activity that serves to distract you from the pain-producing circumstances."
What do you think? Is prayer as effective as a pain killer?
