10 types of relationships people have with God

A person's relationship with God can define his or her daily outlook on life.

A recent study by the Sociology of Religion found that praying and speaking with God can actually relieve people of stress. Researchers and psychologists have also found those who believe in God tend to worry less overall and be more tolerant of unexpected scenarios.There was also a study earlier this year that surveyed how often people attend church, and whether or not they completely tell the truth about how many times they attend.

But what does an intimate relationship with God really look like? The way people relate to and engage with their faith differs greatly across the population.

Here’s a look at 10 relationships people may have with God:

The daily believer

Some worship their God, deity or spirit everyday. Belief Net reported that 68.1 percent of Christians and 91.6 percent of Muslims pray more than once every day. This is the heavy believer. One example of this may be actor Mark Wahlberg, who told The Blaze that he heads to church everyday.

The weekly worshipper

Some Americans don't practice their religion everyday, but weekly doesn’t seem to be a problem. Four in 10 Americans told Gallup in 2013 that they attended a church within a week, which is not unlike years prior — when the percentage of weekly churchgoers hovered between 30 and 40 percent.

The monthly churchgoer

Americans are also heading to church on a monthly basis (about 11 percent of people,according to a 2010 Gallup poll) — and some of them think that church is actually losing its impact on society. But a Gallup poll found that 25 percent of monthly churchgoers believe religion is increasing in influence.

The millennial … sort of

Millenials aren’t really about church attendance. A study by Biola University found that one in 10 millennials find church attendance important. Still, you’re bound to find some in the pews.

The Pew Research Center reported that 18 percent of millennials attend a religious service every week — which is lower than the 28 percent of baby boomers who went to services when they were similar ages as the millennials (18 to 29).

The CEO (Christmas and Easter only)

There was a time when many people would head to the pews just for Christmas or Easter, but that seems to be a changing trend. An estimated 4.5 million people go to church on Christmas, according to The Telegraph, but that isn’t that inspiring of a number given that 4.8 million people will shop online on Christmas day. Americans seem to be undecided about going to church on Easter, too, since one in five Americans can’t decide whether they should head to church for the spring holiday.

Check out the rest of the list in the slideshow above and to the left.

How to pray for yourself

Sincere prayer is perhaps the most personal, private act a person can make. Each religious tradition has its own customs, practices, rites and doctrines surrounding prayer.

• Sincere prayer is perhaps the most personal, private act a person can make. Each religious tradition has its own customs, practices, rites and doctrines surrounding prayer. If you believe — or at least hope — in a God that hears prayers and may answer them, it shouldn’t be hard to believe that the form of your prayer is not nearly so important to God as the act of praying.
  Here are some ideas to help you pray:

  Find a private place

  Your sincere and honest prayer is not for public consumption. The prayer you might perform in public is not the prayer you might offer alone where no one can watch or hear. Depending on your living arrangements, this may be a place in your home. It may be on a park bench in Central Park. Find a place where you can be as alone as possible.

  Pray aloud

  If you believe, as many do, in an all-powerful, all-knowing God, then your thoughts are known. The point of saying them out loud is not so they are heard, but simply that they are fully and clearly formed. Speak your prayer. If you cannot find a place that is truly private, you may wish to pray silently. If so, form your thoughts as clearly as if you were speaking them.

  Address deity

  While it may go without saying, but much as you would start any conversation — and that’s what prayer is — you want the being to whom you are speaking to be absolutely clear about who is being addressed. If you have a specific faith tradition, use the name you know for God. If not, simply calling upon God is an honest attempt to connect with the divine.

  Offer thanks

  Recognizing that your desire to pray may be triggered by a desire to ask for help — and there is nothing wrong with that — starting out with an expression of thanks seems (to this mortal, at least) to be good form. (Remember that form is secondary.) You may find that the simple act of identifying things for which you are grateful will lift your spirit and help you communicate with deity.

  Ask for help

  Anyone who believes in a personal God who is aware of individuals on Earth should be prepared to believe that such a being would also be willing to intervene — at times — on behalf of those who ask for help. This is likely the reason you want to communicate with God in the first place. If you want wisdom, ask for it. If you want a blessing of health for an infirm loved one, ask for it. If you need food, shelter or just someone to love and care for you, ask for it.

  Close

  Some faith traditions prescribe a pattern for closing a prayer. If you come from such a tradition, feel free to use the prescribed pattern.
  However you choose to pray, consider making time to ponder your prayer before and after you pray. Give God a chance to answer your prayer, to speak to your heart.

Metal in heart non-hazardous to health, study shows

A trousers button, a coin or a watch can be dangerous for people with a nickel allergy. Approximately 1 in 10 Germans is allergic to the metal. "This raises the question of the safety of medical implants containing nickel," explains Professor Dr. Markus Rettenmayr of the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Nickel-titanium alloys are increasingly used as material for cardiovascular implants in minimal invasive surgery. Once implanted, nickel-titanium alloys can release small amounts of nickel due to corrosion phenomena, the holder of the Chair of Metallic Materials explains. Our concern was that this could -- in particular over a long period of time -- lead to a nickel contamination in the patient's body that possibly results in health problems.

But these concerns are essentially unfounded: The team of Jena scientists led by Professor Rettenmayr and his colleague Dr. Andreas Undisz report in the current issue of the scientific journal 'Acta Biomaterialia' that the release of nickel from wires made of titanium plate importer  is very low, also over longer periods of time. The scientists could back up their statement in the first long-term study ever, which examined such nickel release in detail: The testing period for metal release, as requested for governmental approval of a medical implant, is only a few days. In contrast the Jena research team monitored the release of nickel over a time period of eight months.

Examination objects were fine wires from a superelastic nickel-titanium alloy that are, for example, applied in the form of occluders (these are medical implants used for the correction of a defective cardiac septum). Such occluders often consist of two tiny wire-mesh "umbrellas," approximately the size of a 1 Euro coin. The superelastic implant can be mechanically drawn titanium suppliers into the shape of a thin thread, which then can be placed in a cardiac catheter. "By that means the occluders can be put into place via minimal invasive surgery," Dr. Undisz says. Ideally the implant will stay in the patient's body for years or decades.

Dr. Undisz and the doctoral candidate Katharina Freiberg wanted to find out what happens during this period of time with the nickel-titanium wire. They exposed samples of the wires, which underwent different mechanical and thermal pre-treatment, to highly purified water. They then examined the release of nickel according to pre-defined time intervals. "This wasn't trivial at all," Undisz says,titanium sheet importers  "because the concentration of the released metal is often at the limit of detection." However, in co-operation with scientists from the Institute for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine of the Jena University Hospital the materials scientists successfully developed a reliable test routine to measure the process of the nickel release.

"Mostly in the first days and weeks, depending on the pre-treatment of the material, considerable amounts of nickel may get released," titanium bars supplier  Undisz summarizes the results. According to the materials scientist this is due to the mechanical strain of the implant during the surgery. "The deformation damages the thin layer of oxide covering the material. As a consequence the initial nickel release increases." In the long run, however, the nickel release decreases to amounts of a few nanograms per day and is hence far below the amount of nickel that we absorb anyway through our food on a daily basis.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Improving the performance of titanium implants

Researchers in Japan and China tested a novel urease fabrication process for coating titanium implants with bioactive CaP/gelatin composites. Published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, the research suggests that titanium implants coated with CaP and gelatin have great potential in clinical joint replacement or dental implants.

Titanium (Ti) pipes and its alloys are the most popular materials used in orthopedic implants because of their good mechanical and chemical properties, biocompatibility, corrosion resistance and low allergenicity. One drawback, however, is that they cannot bond directly to living bone, but need to be coated with bioactive materials to improve their integration.

Calcium phosphate (CaP) and collagen are the main constituents of natural bone, and therefore gelatin – a denatured form of collagen – has excellent biodegradability and biocompatibility properties. Many organic-inorganic composites combine the advantages of each component, hence a composite of CaP and gelatin may be an effective coating for Ti implants.

In a study published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, researchers in Japan and China tested a novel urease fabrication process for coating titanium bars  supplier implants with bioactive CaP/gelatin composites.

In the study, Wei-Qi Yan and colleagues implanted tiny 2 mm by 10 mm CaP/gel/Ti and CaP/Ti rods into the thigh bone of rabbits, while pure Ti rods served as controls. Four and eight weeks following the operation, the authors observed much more new bone on the surface of the composite CaP/gel/Ti rods than in the other two groups. What's more, the CaP/gel/Ti rods bonded to the surrounding bone directly, with no intervening soft tissue layer.

The authors titanium bar importer concluded that the CaP/gel/Ti implants fabricated using their urease process not only enhanced the proliferation of stem cells and differentiation of bone cells, but also the bone bonding ability of the implants. This research suggests that titanium bar importers  implants coated with CaP and gelatin have great potential in clinical joint replacement or dental implants.