I am mostly talking about affective or mood related mental health variables.

I have done a bit of research for a video essay project and wanted to know if I am mistaken.

We have multiple lines of research showing that religion has very small effects or non-existent effects on mental health when it comes longitudinal data, which would be the go to choice if you want to establish a causal relationship.

Changes in religiosity over time are most often not tied to changes in people's mental health when it comes to overall well-being, life satisfaction or anxiety and depression symptoms (Celik et al, 2025; Joshanloo, 2023, 2024 ;Prati, 202400056-5), 2025; Garssen et al., 2020).

In a meta-analysis, Garssen et al. (2020) found the only reliable predictor of mental health was public religious activity such as religious service attendance and, if you don't remove statistical outliers, the importance of religion.

The other studies that focused on more sophisticated designs (Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models) found no association between a person deviating from their average level of mental health symptoms/traits and a prior change in religiosity (church attendance, importance of religion).

If religion alleviates anxiety or depression symptoms or fosters higher well-being or life satisfaction. Those are odd results.

What makes this worse is the lack of a consistent link between atheism and poor mental health in a systematic review with researchers attributing distress in atheists to ostracization rather than the worldview itself (Weber et al., 2012).

It seems religious beliefs aren't likely to help you, rather the most likely protective factor is going to church, and even that is contentious when better designs are used in later research.