State of the art of sports spirituality in metabolic processes and immunity: a systematic review

Introduction: Religion, spirituality, and sport are increasingly popular disciplines in the sport. As a historical memorial to the Greek Olympic Games, human movement activities were part of religious cults and rites in ancient societies. The modern athlete normally follows his or her religious tradition privately. Thus, the practice of sports activities linked to spirituality/religiosity (S/R) has acquired increasing importance, becoming an important cultural paradigm. Objective: To carry out a systematic review on the main considerations of spirituality and religiosity in sport, showing the state of the art. Methods: The present study followed a concise systematic review model, following the rules of the systematic review – PRISMA. The search strategy was carried out in PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Scopus databases, in addition to Google Scholar. The quality of the studies was based on the GRADE instrument and the risk of bias was analyzed according to the Cochrane instrument. Results and Conclusion: A total of 156 articles were found, of which 76 articles were fully evaluated and 10 were included and evaluated in the present study to compose the systematic review. Based on the literary findings, spirituality/religiosity plays a vital role in improving sports performance and contributes to the well-being of athletes. In addition, spirituality/religiosity practices represent a driving force in the sport, helping athletes to deal with the uncertainties that can make them stressed/anxious, making them more motivated, confident, and responsible to play to the best of their ability. capacity as they perceive their athletic talent as a gift from God, thus reducing the pressure placed on them to cope with the competitive environment, better coping with sports injuries, and building trust between coaches and athletes.