Researchers found that people who join religious organizations have better mental health than those who don’t. In fact, a four-year study by the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands monitored 9,000 people aged over 50 across Europe found that a session at church was more beneficial than taking part in sport or charity work.

The British and Dutch study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology looked at how different levels of social activity influenced people’s moods and found that joining a religious organization was the most effective way to combat depression.

LSE Health Expert Dr. Mauricio Avendano said that sustained happiness came from joining a church – any church, from a synagogue to a mosque. “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,” he said. “It is not clear to us how much this is about religion per se, or whether it may be about the sense of belonging and not being socially isolated.”