Sabbath: Good for men, bad for women?
One study on practicing the Sabbath suggests men feel better while women feel the same.
Our discipleship journey includes how we construct, protect and practice the Sabbath.
But it turns out that keeping the Sabbath can be both relaxing and stressful depending on your gender. A study in the Journal of Psychology and Theology1 notes that men in Seventh-day Adventist communities experience significantly reduced cortisol levels—hormones associated with stress—when keeping the Sabbath. However, women experience higher levels of cortisol.
The study notes: “Overall, cortisol was lower post-Sabbath than pre-Sabbath. In addition, females had significantly higher cortisol than males […]. Most importantly, the interaction between cortisol collection day and gender was significant. Men had lower levels of urinary free cortisol post-Sabbath. Conversely, women experienced no differences in urinary free cortisol from pre- to post-Sabbath.” This suggests that women are not always experiencing the positives of keeping the Sabbath in Seventh-day Adventist communities.
Why?
Seventh-day Adventists tend to avoid work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. But what does avoiding work actually mean? If there is some kind of work being shifted to women, then the possitive effects of Sabbath on women is lessened.
Another interesting conclusion from the study is that intrinsic religiosity affects the cortisol changes—that is, if you are more integrated with your faith in your daily life, you have higher cortisol levels pre-Sabbath and lower levels post-Sabbath.
“Pre-Sabbath cortisol levels increased as intrinsic religiosity increased. Post-Sabbath cortisol levels decreased as intrinsic religiosity increased. We believe this lends credibility to the explanation that the changes we see in pre- and post-Sabbath cortisol are potentially explained by religious beliefs, values, and behaviors.” This helps to explain that the cortisol changes are indeed related to religious belief.
Previous studies have noted that death rates in Israel went down on Sabbath days in Jewish communities and that the pattern was stronger in men. One study postulated that there are “ritualistic demands” on women that cause them to not experience the same effect.2 Similarly, the authors of the Seventh-day Adventist study state, “[…] SDA men may have fewer and women greater physical demands on Sabbath relating to meal and home preparations before sundown on Sabbath. SDA women and men may both have greater psychosocial interactions, support, and/or demands on Sabbath during worship activities.” One possible explanation in the study is that the men in the study may work at higher rates during the week and thus experience Sabbath as a respite from that work.
Our conclusion is that it’s important to think about how the Sabbath is affecting your entire family. Are you and your spouse both experiencing the ameliorating affects of Sabbath?
This certainly explains why I am more open to spending time with my kids, engaging in social activities and relaxing on a Sunday. Whereas, my wife tends to be less excited to leave our home. One thing, in particular, that comes to mind is how much I look forward to my Sunday night small group. But if small group on Sunday is actually causing my spouse to have increased anxiety, are we really sabbathing as a family?
A note on AI: Seeking Christ is a sacred act, one that we are not willing to cede to artificial intelligence. We uncompromisingly do not use artificial intelligence to write our posts. We hope that the genuineness of our writing bleeds through every paragraph.
Morton, K. R., Lee, J. W., & Burks, E. (2025). The Effect of Sabbath Keeping on Cortisol in Seventh-day Adventist Men and Women. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 53(3), 315-329. https://doi-org.dtl.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/00916471251346140 (Original work published 2025)
Anson J., Anson O. (2001). Death rests a while: Holy day and Sabbath effects on Jewish mortality in Israel. Social Science and Medicine, 52(1), 83–97. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11144919