How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [60]
Optimism is essential for maintaining a healthy brain.
Positive thoughts neurologically suppress negative thoughts.
When you change the way you think, you begin to change your outward circumstances.
Consciousness, reality, your mind, and your spiritual beliefs are profoundly interconnected and inseparable from the functioning of your brain.
Today, for many people, God has become a metaphor for our search for ultimate truths and our ability to imagine a better future for all. And, as a recent UCLA study found, this search for meaning is usually viewed as a spiritual pursuit, not a religious one.18
The cultural evolution of God follows the neurological evolution of the brain. The circuits that generate images of a wrathful God are closely tied to the oldest structures in the brain, and the circuits that allow us to envision a compassionate and mystical God are in the newest part of our brain. We can't get rid of our old limbic God, which means that anger and fear will always be part of our neural and spiritual personality. However, we can train the newer structures in our brain to suppress our biological tendency to react with anger and fear.
EXERCISING YOUR COMPASSIONATE NEURONS
The emotional circuits of our limbic brain have less plasticity than the frontal lobe.19 For example, we all get angry or frightened in the same way, but everyone experiences love in surprisingly different ways.20 Still, it's not fair to call our reptilian brain primitive, for it too has co-evolved with the frontal lobe and now has the ability to adapt and respond with increased appropriateness to new situations and stress.21 Other primates do not exhibit this adaptive skill. Unexpected changes frustrate them and they often lash out because the limbic structures in their brain are less flexible, with far fewer connections with their frontal lobe.
To bridge this gap between our “old” and “new” brains, a special structure appears to have recently evolved—the anterior cingulate.22 As I mentioned earlier, it connects our emotions with our cognitive skills, playing a crucial role in emotional self-control, focused problem-solving, and error recognition. Most important, it integrates the activity of different parts of the brain in a way that allows self-consciousness to emerge, especially as it applies to how we see ourselves in relation to the world.23
Since meditation stimulates this circuit, we believe there is also a coevolution of spirituality and consciousness, engaging specific neural circuits that allow us to envision a benevolent, interconnecting relationship between the universe, God, and ourselves. The circuit that extends from the frontal lobe to the limbic system has a rich interconnection of neurons centered in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is activated whenever we see someone who is suffering, and this allows us to feel empathy and compassion.24 If you can't resonate to other people's pain, then you are less likely to come to their aid. The anterior cingulate is a delicate structure, and damage to this area can change your personality in unpleasant ways.25 You can become depressed and lose your ability to be empathetic and sensitive to the feelings of those around you.
The anterior cingulate also contains a class of spindle-shaped cells called von Economo neurons, which are found only in humans, great apes, and certain whales.26 These neurons have an extensive array of connections with other parts of the brain and are believed to be intimately involved in the development of social awareness skills by integrating our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They guide us toward positive emotions and away from negative ones.27 But they are also disrupted by stress. If you expose yourself to ongoing stress, their functioning is reduced, but if you place yourself in an enriched environment—with a lot of love, communication, and sensory and intellectual stimulation—you strengthen the effectiveness of the von Economo neurons and the anterior cingulate.28 Since meditation simultaneously