By Makini Brice | Aug 21, 2012 01:35 PM EDT

Researchers found that religiousness correlated with improved health, particularly mental health.

Believing in God is good for your health. Well, kind of. Researchers found that religiousness correlated with improved health, particularly mental health.

Brick Johnstone from Missouri University and his colleagues at MU, Samuel Merritt University in Pennsylvania, and Via Cristi Hospital in Kansas studied the results of three studies. The researchers attempted to discover a correlation between a participant’s self-reported mental and physical health, personality traits and their spirituality. They found that there was indeed a correlation between mental health and spirituality. The type of religion in which that the participant believed did not seem to matter.

The surveys interviewed 160 people. Of that group, 40 respondents were Buddhist, 41 were Catholic, 22 were Jewish, 26 were Muslim, and 31 were Protestant. Across all faiths, those who considered themselves more spiritual had better mental health. Specifically, those who were more religious were less likely to be neurotic (a negative personality trait, as defined by the researchers) and were more extroverted (a positive personality trait).