When I was young I volunteered near a spiritual center, and I got into the habit of keeping prayer lists. I treated it as work. It was something I did for myself and for the community, and I took it as seriously as anything else I did there.

I believed it moved something in the world, and I still do. It did other things too. Writing a name down meant thinking about that person, their community, the thing they were up against. I felt more connected to them, and more aware of what was going on in their lives.

Often that turned into something practical. I would find myself reaching out, suggesting an idea, giving more of my time to a cause I had been praying about. I wanted it to go well for them, and I acted like it.

It also got me out of my own head. I overthink my own life. Putting other people first for an hour freed me from my own rumination, and when I came back to my own problems they were easier to deal with.

We are just not as healthy when we try to stand on our own, and that's because the human brain is built to operate within a network of caring human relationships.

PrayerAsks is that habit, kept by a whole community at once. The people who are struggling are held by more than one person, and the people holding them get some of what I got from those lists.