Big Idea Daily | The Awakened Brain
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The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Lifeby Lisa Miller, Ph.D. |
“The subjects for whom spirituality and religion were highly important had a healthier neural structure than did those for whom spirituality and religion held medium, low, or no importance.”LISA MILLER, PH.D. |
BIG IDEA
The Challenge And Its Antidote
FROM THE BOOK“We live in an age of unprecedented mental anguish.
Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse have reached epidemic proportions globally. In 2017, 66.6 million Americans—more than half of the respondents on the National Survey on Drug Use and Health—reported binge drinking within the past month, and 20 million meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. Thirty-one percent of American adults will develop a full-blown anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, and 19 percent in any given year. The World Health Organization reports that 264 million people on the planet are depressed; depression is the third most costly disability worldwide. Each year, 17 million American adults are depressed. Over 16 percent of youth in late adolescence currently face depression, and the impact of depression on suicide accounts for the second leading cause of death in adolescents, rivaled only by death by auto accident.”
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Brian's Notes
That’s from the Introduction to the book.
After that passage, Lisa continues with some more data on the pandemic levels of burnout and chronic stress we face.
I literally felt nauseous as I typed it out and felt into the unprecedented pain we, as individuals and as a society, are experiencing in the modern world.
Then...
Lisa tells us about the ground-breaking MRI research she and her team conducted in 2012. One question her team posed—which was viewed as controversial at the time—led to remarkable insights.
They asked participants in the study to respond to“a major question used in the clinical science literature to quantify inner life.”
This one:“How personally important is religion or spirituality to you?”
And...
They discovered that: “The high-spiritual brain was healthier and more robust than the low-spiritual brain. And the high-spiritual brain was thicker and stronger in exactly the same regions that weaken and wither in depressed brains.”
She tells us...
“The MRI findings marked a pivotal moment on the way to my breakthrough discovery that each of us has an awakened brain. Each of us is endowed with a natural capacity to perceive a greater reality and consciously connect to the life force that moves in, through, and around us. Whether or not we participate in a spiritual practice or adhere to a faith tradition, whether or not we identify as religious or spiritual, our brain has a natural inclination toward and docking station for spiritual awareness. The awakened brain is the neural circuitry that allows us to see the world more fully and thus enhance our individual, societal, and global well-being.”
The book is all about the research studies that led to these remarkable results AND the practical things we can do to awaken our brains.
Why would we want to do that?
Because...
“When we engage these perceptual capacities—when we make full use of how we’re built—our brains become structurally healthier and better connected, and we access unsurpassed psychological benefits: less depression, anxiety, and substance abuse; and more positive psychological traits such as grit, resilience, optimism, tenacity, and creativity.”
Big Ideas
01: THE MODERN CHALLENGE
02: PERSONAL SPIRITUALITY
03: THE QUEST ORIENTATION
04: THREE DOORS
05: AWAKENED CONNECTION
“Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.”ALBERT EINSTEIN |
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