Throughline

American history through song | Throughline

I think we can read in the song this sense of encountering the lowest point of devastation and still having a sense of the divine and possibility and maybe why the song has a particular power in the US context. this place that's made of dreams and also their deferrals.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

Most of us think of spirituality as something that happens when we have extraordinary experiences — when we see something beautiful, hear a piece of music that moves us to tears, or find ourselves confronted with the vastness of the universe. But Andrew says the research suggests something different: that spiritual experiences are available to all of us, and that we can cultivate them through intentional practice.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 2

moments of connection, spiritual practices, and even periods of suffering can sometimes open the door to deeper meaning and growth.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences — that sense of oneness, of feeling connected to something larger than themselves — tend to have a thicker cortex in certain brain regions. And this is true even after you control for whether someone goes to church or synagogue or mosque, or whether they believe in God.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have these experiences — near-death experiences, or experiences of awe, or spiritual experiences generally — often come away feeling that they have encountered something that is more real than ordinary reality. And this sense of 'hyper-reality' is one of the most commonly reported features of these experiences.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences tend to feel more connected to others, to feel like there's a sense of meaning and purpose to their lives. And interestingly, they also tend to have better mental and physical health outcomes.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences also tend to be happier, have better mental health, and find more meaning in their lives. And this is true regardless of whether they belong to a formal religious tradition — even people who don't consider themselves religious seem to benefit from these kinds of experiences.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences also tend to be healthier and happier. They show lower rates of depression and anxiety, less substance abuse, and they even tend to live longer. And it's not just that healthy, happy people have more time to go to church or temple — the spiritual experiences themselves seem to be driving these positive outcomes.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences tend to be healthier and happier. They have lower rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. They even live longer.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences tend to be healthier and happier than those who do not. But psychologist Lisa Miller has found something even more surprising: the brains of spiritual people are actually structurally different from those who are not spiritual.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences also tend to have better mental health. They have lower rates of depression and anxiety. They're less likely to die by suicide. They're less likely to abuse substances. They show greater well-being and life satisfaction.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences feel a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. They feel less fear about death. They tend to be more altruistic. They show greater resilience in the face of stress and trauma.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences — who regularly feel a sense of awe, or feel that they are in the presence of something greater than themselves — tend to be happier, more generous, and more connected to other people. They are also less afraid of death.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences also tend to report greater psychological well-being. They have higher life satisfaction, more positive emotions, and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. In some ways, this makes perfect sense — feeling connected to something larger than yourself, believing that the universe is fundamentally benevolent, these things might naturally make you happier.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have what researchers call 'spiritual experiences' — states of overwhelming connection, awe, or transcendence — consistently show changes in a specific region of the brain called the parietal cortex. What's surprising is that damage to this region, whether from a stroke or a tumor, can actually cause people to become more spiritual, not less.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences are better able to cope with stress and trauma. They also report higher levels of well-being, greater generosity, and a stronger sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have frequent spiritual experiences tend to be healthier and happier. They report lower rates of depression and anxiety. They are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, less likely to be involved in domestic violence, and less likely to develop dementia in old age.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

People who have more spiritual experiences also tend to have more activity in a particular brain network — a network that also lights up during other activities that draw our attention away from ourselves and toward other people, other beings, the wider world.

Hidden Brain

Waking Up Your Spiritual Brain: Part 1

Psychologist Lisa Miller says our brains also crave something else: transcendence. She suggests that spirituality is a universal human capacity, and that feeling connected to something larger than ourselves may be essential to a fulfilling life.