We will learn:
- The surprising clinical evidence for how spirituality protects our mental health.
- How our own states of mental health pass down to our children and how spirituality is 29% inheritable.
- What factors create the spiritual connection necessary to physically alter our brains.
Have you ever felt a deep sense of inner peace after meditating, or felt a rush of euphoria during a spiritual experience? Isn't it interesting how something as intangible as spirituality seems to have a tangible effect on our physical selves?
Well, what if I told you that recent studies in neuroscience suggest that spirituality can actually alter the composition and structure of our brains?
People who have a spiritual connection have been shown to have increased gray matter density in areas of the brain associated with self-awareness and empathy. They've also been found to have altered activity in brain regions involved in stress response and addiction.
In other words, spirituality actually impacts our neurobiological makeup! How incredible is that?
And that's why I'm so excited about this episode today.
It turns out, the changes we experience aren't just the placebo effect. We're not just convincing ourselves to be more positive, we're actually creating physical changes to our brains. And there are a lot of scientific studies to back this up, which we'll get into.
Our guest is Dr. Lisa Miller. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and her new book The Awakened Brain. She is also a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she Founded the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology.
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