Chronic stress doesn't just wear down your body and your business decisions — it directly interferes with the parts of your mind involved in prayer, attention, and a sense of closeness to God, while also nudging you toward fear, doubt, and self-reliance instead of trust. The good news, backed by the same body of research, is that the relationship runs both ways: a well-tended spiritual life is one of the most consistently documented buffers against the very stress that's crowding it out.