Coffee or church? Which is better for you?

Is attend­ing reli­gious ser­vices bet­ter for your health than meet­ing friends for cof­fee?
If you attend reli­gious ser­vices reg­u­larly you are less likely to be depressed than nonat­ten­dees, accord­ing to a study in the Jour­nal of Reli­gion and Health. Reg­u­lar atten­dees also have a more opti­mistic out­look on life.

But the study only sur­veyed women 50 and older. I think that’s odd. But some of the find­ings are inter­est­ing and I think they trans­fer to gen­der and age. It makes sense that if you attend a spir­i­tual gath­er­ing (be it in a church, a yoga stu­dio, a syn­a­gogue, etc.) you are mak­ing social con­nec­tions, which also increases opti­mism and health.

What do you think? Is it any dif­fer­ent than reg­u­larly meet­ing a bunch of friends for coffee?