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A recent study published in the Archive for the Psychology of Religion suggests that feeling a deep, spiritual connection to a specific physical location can act as a protective shield for a person’s mental health. This bond with a meaningful physical space tends to reduce the psychological harm caused by feelings of insignificance or questioning whether one’s life matters. The research provides evidence that our physical environments can serve as vital resources for maintaining emotional stability during highly stressful times.
The goal of the research was to examine how people manage intense emotional distress after losing access to their normal daily structures. Widespread isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic forced many individuals to confront deep feelings of insignificance. In psychology, the belief that a person is important to others and makes a difference is known as mattering.
When people experience mattering struggles, they feel invisible to those around them, which tends to increase loneliness and anxiety. At the same time, the pandemic fundamentally changed how people interacted with their physical environments. As communal spaces closed, people spent much more time in their own homes or out in nature.
Scientists noticed a research gap regarding the spiritual dimension of place attachment, which is the emotional connection humans feel toward specific locations. They wanted to explore spiritual ties to place, referring to the unique bonds people form with environments they consider sacred. A sacred space does not have to be a traditional religious building, as it can be a quiet spot in a park or a dedicated corner of a living room.
The researchers designed the present study to see if this spiritual connection to a physical space could buffer the negative mental health effects of mattering struggles. They wanted to know if a meaningful location could offer psychological support during a major crisis.
“I have always been fascinated by the intersection of our physical environment and our inner spiritual lives. Historically, environmental psychology focused on ‘place attachment’ (emotional bonds to home or neighborhood) while the psychology of religion focused on ;spiritual attachment; (bonds to the Divine), but the two rarely spoke to each other,” said study author Victor Counted, an associate professor and director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Regent University.
“I wanted to explore the “sacred-spatial bond”; a sort of idea that spirituality unfolds within the milieu of the social and physical environment and anchored in specific physical settings. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique, albeit challenging, context to see how these ties act as lifelines when our usual social and physical structures are disrupted. This is what I explored in the book Place and Post-pandemic Flourishing, and many other studies on ‘Spiritual Ties to Place‘ — how people sense or connect to the sacred in a significant place.”
For their new study, the researchers used data from the National Religion and Spirituality Survey 2022. The sample included exactly 3,640 adults living in the United States. This group was selected to be nationally representative based on age, gender, race, and education levels. Data collection took place between November 9 and December 7, 2022. Participants completed the survey either through a secure web portal or via a telephone interview.
The researchers measured three main variables by asking participants to reflect on their experiences since the pandemic began in March 2020. First, participants rated their perceived increase in spiritual ties to a place on a five-point scale, indicating whether they had become more spiritually connected to sacred locations. Second, participants reported their mattering struggles on a four-point scale by answering how often they questioned whether their life really mattered.
Finally, the survey asked participants to rate their perceived change in mental well-being on a simple scale. This scale indicated whether their mental health had worsened, remained the same, or improved. The researchers also accounted for a wide range of background factors to ensure accuracy, including age, gender, household income, political orientation, and religious affiliation.
The data provides evidence that mattering struggles were consistently associated with a perceived decline in mental well-being. People who questioned their own significance were much more likely to report worsening mental health. At the same time, the data suggests that individuals who experienced an increase in their spiritual connection to a physical place tended to report improved mental well-being.
“I was particularly struck by the variety of places where people find these connections,” Counted told PsyPost. “In our related latent class analysis, we found that people not only form spiritual ties to massive cathedrals or nature; they find them in ‘unfrequented’ places (e.g., memorial grounds or burial sites) and private home sanctuaries (e.g., private altar).”
About 29 percent of the adults surveyed reported that their spiritual connection to a sacred place had strengthened during the pandemic. The scientists found a notable interaction between these differing experiences. Specifically, a strong spiritual connection to a place appeared to moderate the harmful effects of mattering struggles.
For people who felt a deep spiritual bond with a specific setting, the negative impact of feeling insignificant was notably weaker. The physical location seemed to act as an emotional anchor for the participants. This anchoring effect suggests that finding a sense of the sacred in a specific place provides individuals with an alternate source of stability and purpose.
“Another surprise was the strength of the ‘buffering’ effect,” Counted said. “For example, spiritual ties to place did not just correlate with mental well-being; it specifically weakened the link between feeling like you don’t matter and the decline of mental health. This, as you can imagine, suggests that place-based spirituality is a robust mechanism for resilience.”
The researchers noted a few specific demographic patterns in the data. For instance, female participants were slightly more likely to report an increased spiritual connection to a place than male participants. This detail aligns with previous research suggesting that women might engage with spiritual resources more frequently during times of extreme stress.
“The most important takeaway from our recent paper on spiritually significant places as adaptive psycho-spatial resources is that your physical surroundings are a vital psychological resource,” Counted explained. “Our study found that for people struggling with feelings of insignificance or ‘not mattering,’ a strong spiritual connection to a significant place acts as a ‘protective shield’ for their mental health. Whether it is a place of worship, a quiet spot in nature, or even a dedicated corner of your home, these ‘sacred’ spaces provide a sense of stability and meaning that can buffer the negative effects of life’s stressors.”
While the study offers a helpful perspective on human resilience, there are a few limitations to consider. The research relies on cross-sectional data, meaning all the information was gathered at a single point in time. Because of this design, researchers cannot definitively prove cause and effect. It is possible that feeling mentally well makes a person more likely to seek out spiritual places, rather than the place itself causing the improved mood.
“It is important to note that our 2026 study was cross-sectional, meaning it provides a snapshot in time,” Counted said. “While we found a strong association, we cannot definitively say that an increase in spiritual ties to place caused the improvement in mental well-being. Additionally, our data was gathered in the unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the intensity of these feelings might be higher than in more “normal” times.”
A potential misinterpretation of this work is the assumption that it only applies to highly religious individuals. The scientists note that sensing the sacred in a physical location is a broad psychological experience that transcends organized religion. It involves bodily regulation and emotional connection, whether one is sitting in a traditional cathedral or walking through a dense forest.
“My long-term goal is to move from ‘mapping’ these ties to ‘mobilizing’ them,” Counted said. “I want to see this research inform urban planning and clinical therapy, essentially ‘prescribing’ place-based spiritual practices to help people regulate distress. There are some work in ecotherapy but I am think of better models that cut across the different place profiles.”
“We are also looking into longitudinal studies to understand how these spiritual bonds with places evolve over a person’s lifetime and across different cultures beyond the Western context. There has been limitations to expanding this research due to lack of funding, but we are working bits by bits with the little resources with have to make it happen.”
“Our research emphasizes that spiritual ties to place are an embodied experience,” the researcher continued. “It transcend what one believes and involves how we sense the sacred in a significant place of attachment. This is one of the first attempts to psychologically study the unique links between religion and place. When people are in a place they consider sacred, they describe a process of ‘sensing the sacred’ that involves bodily regulation, emotional connection, and a renewed sense of action. This work reminds us that in order to flourish, we need to be rooted in the world around us.
The study, “Spiritually significant places as adaptive psycho-spatial resources: Mattering struggles, spiritual ties to place, and mental well-being in US adults,” was authored by Victor Counted, Benjamin R Meagher, and Richard G Cowden.
