The Awakened Brain

June 14, 2021
In this insightful study, psychologist Miller (The Spiritual Child) shares research on the role of spiritual experiences in the human brain to argue that “an awakened brain is the healthier brain.” She explains personal spiritual experiences, including a Lakota ceremony that taught her “healing was not synonymous with brokenness part of life,” and how such spiritual insights inspired her to start treating patients in an “intentionally spiritually supportive way” that was at odds with conventional psychiatric wisdom; the approach was based on developing a “personal relationship with a surprising transcendent presence” so as to allow one to “stop trying to fix the world.” Miller explores the long-term effects of spiritual searching and recounts her breakthrough discovery of the awakened brain, or “the neural circuitry that allows us to see the world more fully and thus enhance our individual, societal, and global well-being.” While Miller’s writing can veer toward the academic—with many technical terms and lengthy sections of data—the practices she suggests to “awaken the brain” are relatively straightforward and include mindfulness practice, exposure to nature, prayer, and therapy. Those interested in the interplay between spirituality and neuroscience will find much to consider.

July 1, 2021
A compelling examination of the correlations between spirituality and mental health. "This book is the story of how I discovered the awakened brain, why it matters, and how we can cultivate it in daily life," writes clinical psychology professor Miller, founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia. In a landmark 2012 study, she demonstrated that spirituality contributes to preventing depression. Participants, all at genetic risk for depression, were asked how personally important spirituality or religion were to them; subsequent MRI scans showed that "the high-spiritual brain was thicker and stronger in exactly the same regions that weaken and wither in depressed brains." Miller critiques popular psychological treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, as bound by limiting assumptions. In 1998, when she presented her epidemiological research to colleagues, she was met with skepticism. The overwhelming majority of scientists "accepted that biology was real, and spirituality was not real." The author has spent much of her career addressing this dichotomy by evidencing a biological basis for spirituality. She interweaves stories of her own struggles with depression and infertility into her professional findings. Her work shows depression and spirituality as two sides of the same physiological coin and that engagement with awakened attention and connection is "a matter of choice." Every human, she notes, "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." When we put that capability to good use, we access "unsurpassed psychological benefits: less depression, anxiety, and substance abuse; and more positive psychological traits such as grit, resilience, optimism, and tenacity." Miller's 2016 study of 5,500 participants representing the most popular global religious traditions revealed "that people shared five spiritual phenotypes," including altruism and sense of oneness. With a more definitive way to ascribe meaning to spirituality, the author examines which phenotype is most effective in thwarting depression. Potent, profound, and accessible.

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July 1, 2021
Miller's work with mentally ill people made her wonder about the efficacy of maintaining professional distance. Increasingly, she realized that measures like cognitive behavioral therapy could only achieve so much, and she developed a growing concern that psychiatry tended to pathologize patients. When she led a makeshift Yom Kippur service, the attendees responded in ways that drove her to define ""a new role for treatment."" This book, however, does not focus on religious practice. Instead, it tracks the development of Miller's growing awareness of the role that spirituality can play in treating mental illness. Of course, many in the medical community resist such efforts, but Miller details scientific studies that show the structural benefits to a brain that is ""lit up"" to a deeper reality. This awakening helps people move beyond trauma and depression and into greater purpose, clarity, and harmony with the world. This book will give scientists much to consider about spirituality's health benefits as it provides evidence for what the deeply spiritual already intuit. Skeptics, too, should check it out.

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