The Science Of Spiritual Experiences: How To Rewire Your Brain For More Happiness & Purpose
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Hey, each friend male and welcome to the male robbin's broadcast.

You know, I ve always thought that neuroscience and spirituality are two totally different topics, but what if the two were actually deeply connected? And what if science and brain scans could prove this connection? Well, today's guess doctor, Andrew newberg, is a neuroscientist to medical doctor who has spent decades studying how your brain processes spiritual and religious experiences.

Doctor newberg is the first neuroscientist to demonstrate with ground breaking brain scan research the underlying biological mechanism of spiritual experiences on your brain and body. In this episode, you're gona learn how spiritual and religious practices and simple daily actions that you may not even think your spiritual, but they are, can rewire your brain for more joy, connection, clarity and purpose, no matter what you believe, or whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual or natheless. This is a fascinating conversation at the intersection of neuroscience and human spirit, and what you may believe or not, this mind blowing science will change the way you see the power of your brain and spiritual practices as a way to awake IT.

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Hey, it's well, i'm so excited that you're here. You know, it's always such an honor to be able to spend some time with you and to be together if your brand new. Welcome to the male rob's broadcast family.

Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. IT tells me that you're the type of person that's interested in deeper questions and having a deeper and richer experience in life. And I do too.

And that's why i'm absolutely thrilled the doctor, Andrew newberg, is here and our boston studios to talk to you and me today and to share his ground breaking research on the impact spiritual and religious practices on your brain. Doctor newberg is a real neuroscientist to medical doctor. He is the director of research for integrated health at Thomas jefferson university hospital and medical college.

He's listed as one of the thirty most influential neuroscientists alive today. He's published over two hundred and fifty peer reviewed articles and chapters. He is also the author of fourteen books, would share his cutting edge research.

And here's where this gets really interesting. Doctor newborn has been scanning the brains of people during meditation, prayer and countless religious and spiritual experiences, and what he is found will make you think very differently about the connection between your brain and spirituality. So please help me welcome doctor Andrew newberg to the male Robin's forest cast.

Thank you for having .

me on your program now. I'm so excited to just learn from you today. And i'd love to start by asking you if you could speak to the person who's listening directly and tell them what they might expect to be different about their life based on what you're going to share and teach us today. What do we can learn?

Well, I think one of the most important things for people to learn is how to make their life more spiritum. And that doesn't have to be supernatural. IT could be being in nature.

IT could be connecting to something creative. And sometimes there is something truly spiritual. But what we're going to be learning to today is about how our brain helps us to be spiritual, and through that process will learn how to actually be more spiritual.

And I think perhaps the one of the most important take on messages of all of the work that i've done is that we all have a pretty similar kind of brain. So these experiences are available to everyone. It's not like there is somebody who could be excluded from this. Everyone who's listening has the potential to to find their own path towards enlightenment and to thinking about their life in a much deeper, more meaningful way.

How do you define spirit? Al.

what is a great question? I A lot of this whole field of researchers is something called neurogenetic gy. And actually a lot of what I start with this, how do we define our terms? What do we think about them?

In fact, I chAllenge all of the listeners to actually go home and and write down on a piece of paper, spirituality and religiousness, and and try to think about how they would define IT. Because each of us defines terms a little bit differently. I think probably one of the most common ways of defining something spiritual is the idea of connecting with something greater than the self.

And that's why I say sometimes that can be a super natural IT could be connecting to god. IT could be connecting to a universal consciousness of some kind, but IT can also be connecting to nature, to something creative. IT could be connecting to music. I can be connecting to humanity and how we take care of each other in a more effective way. So all of those can be wised in which we feel that we ground ourselves and we connect us to something greater than what we are.

Now you use two words you said, spiritual and religiousness. What IT is there a difference? And and i'm only asking this just that as we dive into your work and your research and what we can learn from IT, right, we just understand the terminology might be talking about.

We have a baseline. Well, it's a great question because I think so many people really struggle with what those terms mean. And each person has to kind of think about IT for themselves.

Obviously, there's a lot of overlap. A lot of people will say, oh, you know, I am religious and I am spiritual. In today's world, there's a lot of people who say I am spiritual, but I don't really follow a particular religion.

I am not Christian, not jewish. I'm not buddh. I'm just, i'm just me. I'm just trying to explore the world.

I think that for the most part, both of them are trying to find a connection, trying to find a way in which we connect to something greater than the where the typical difference in the definition comes to is usually religions are part of a religious tradition. So there is a group of people who say, this is what that means to be cathos. This is what IT means to be booked.

But again, you know, I absolutely had people who then raise their hands and say, we will wait them in and on part of a spiritual community. And we have our definitions and things that we at here too, and we make as part of our group. So so there's really a lot of overlap.

But sometime that's why I actually one of using both those words a lot of times together because it's just to be inclusive. Some people say so that was a deeply religious experiences. Other people say that was the spiritual experience. And and part of what we are trying to figure out is where the differences in where the similarities.

but there's obviously a lot of similarities. I was so excited to talk you today because I recently became really good friends with somebody who was a pastor and leader of a massive mega church like charismatic Christianity evelina, which completely surprised me.

But as we've gotten to truly know one another deeply as friends, and we've talked about the bigger things that we believe in, we recently, just a weekend ago, we're having this deep conversation about his belief system and how IT is anchored in what you just described in more of a religious structure, belief, a order, so to speak, and my belief system, which is way more in the spiritual lane. And at the end of this long conversation, I like, you know, I never thought we d end up here, but I think we really are saying the same thing. We have different words to describe IT.

But the feeling that you get from believing what you believe is the exact same feeling that I get from my connection to something greater, to a sense of spirituality in my life. And so am so happy. That is some body that is studying that's lecturing about IT, writing books about IT that your definition of being religious versus being spiritual is more of what's in common than what's not what I have come to realized.

And I know we're going to be talking about brain scans and all that kind of cool stuff and a little bit, but I realized that you are looking at a brain scan of somebody who is religious or spiritual, whatever is that they are doing. Unless I talk to them and know what they're actually thinking about and feeling about on the inside, I don't know what i'm really looking at.

I mean, I can say, oh, your final lobe became more active or something like that. But we that actually kind of propelled me to do a research project about starting about ten years ago, where we did a whole survey of people's spiritual experiences, and IT was an online survey. We ve got a couple thousand people who talked about their spiritual experience, and we asked some questions about who they were and what their background was.

But in ultimately, we said, here's a box, you know, right, to tell us what you felt and what you experience. And IT was an incredible treasure trove of information in data, because, you know, on one hand, if we want to know about the definitions or what spiritual ality is, we can go to the the heads of the meggie churches. We can read what buta had .

to say on IT go important. And IT isn't important .

part of IT asking the everyday person, you know, what do you feel when you feel something spiritual? What, oh, you have this spiritual experience? Tell me about what you felt? What emotions did you have? Did you see a light? Did you hear something? Did you see god? Did you see an ancestor? And what happened with you? And so this this treasure, true of data, has been actually a very fundamental part of a lot of the work that we do, because he helps us to figure out where the commonalities are and where where the differences are.

You know, on one hand, everybody's experiences unique, but there also are a lot of commonalities. And I think that becomes important ground for us, both in terms of neuroscience, but also just in terms of helping us to understand each other and to understand, as you are just talking about with with your friend, that you have differences. But ultimately, there's a common element to that, that you are both trying to strive for the .

same kind of thing. What was fascinating to me as we were using different words, but IT was very clear that we had the exact same physical, physiological, emotional experience in our bodies when we were feeling the things that we were describing, that we believe, and that to me, was this epiphany. And you know, just to give us a little bit of background before we begin to the neuroscience and the connection between spirituality and how IT impacts the brain and can you tell me a little bit about what made you wanna study the brain and religious and spiritual experiences?

Well, they started out as a child as they say um and you know when I was very Young I distinctly remember kind of being upset by the fact that there were different religions I you know to me I was like， if we're all looking at the same world, then why are we all thinking the same way? Why are they different? Religious systems, political parties, moral ideas about the world shouldn't all just feel the same way.

And clearly we don't. So I thought, I IT, well, i've gotto figure this out. Some somebody d's got to figure this out.

So this will be me. And so, you know, I started asking a lot of questions, and i've always love science. So you know that to me, kind of a natural thing to do. But as I got kind of towards my college years, I began to feel like as wonderful of sciences. And I still love science, that there are certain limitations that science has, especially when IT comes to things like our objective experiences, our consciousness, something spiritual.

You know what? What exactly does all that mean? How is our mind and our brain connected to each other? So I I started to look into philosophy and theology and religious studies and you know, all these other ways of kind of looking at the world.

And then finally, a lot of this really came together for me when I was in medical school. I did what, I guess, in today's lingo would be to take a gap year. I took an extra year, and I connected with two wonderful mentors.

One of them was in the field of brain imaging. And so I started to research brain imaging, and we studied parkinson and alzheimer's and depression and all these different kinds of things using amazing brain imaging techniques. But the other person who I met was actually interested in this discussion about religion and the brain.

In fact, he had actually been thinking about this since the one thousand nine and seventies. And he was an atropos gist, as well as the psychiatrist by training. And we used to have these amazing dinner parties. I would be sitting around the table with literally people who were no belt prize winners, people who are basically revolutionized, you know, fields of psychiatry and psychology. And so what and we're doing drinking songs and work.

And and and one of the things that he loved more than anything or rituals that he sort of pattern years, and he ultimately kept thinking about how rituals that are so fundamental to our religious and spiritual cells. And I don't know what conversations you had with your friend, the things that you do, the things that you repeat, the meditations, the prayers, whatever practices that you do, these are so fundamental to us as human beings. And in fact, there's rituals, not just in religion and spirituality, but politics, education, sports, everything.

But he is an anchor logic. So where do these visuals come from? Well, theoretically, if they evolve, they must have come from animal rituals. But one of the interesting things about animal rituals is that there are all mating rituals.

So there was this whole connection between sort of the physiology of our body and our brain, and even maybe our sexuality, but how that kind of correlated with the rituals that lead to these incredible experiences, these enlightenment kinds of experiences, that change the way we think about everything. So there was this whole sort of path, and then ultimately, that prefer be a label. And my brain went off and I said, well, wait minute, you know, i'm doing brain scans of parkinson's and alzheimer's.

Why can I do brain scans of meditation and prayer? And that's really what kind of set off the more formal approach that I began to take. But but for me, so much of what I was doing, you know, not only became scientific, but was very contemplative. And I really spend a lot of time, and still do, in a kind of meditation, thinking about these questions.

You know, what is the nature of reality? How do we get to that reality? What am I thinking about? Why am I thinking about IT? And within those practices, the ways in which I was trying to approach those questions, I had experiences that sounded like some of these other experiences, mystical experiences and things like that, the world where the similarity ies and differences between what other people talk about. And again, all of that kind of came together to propel me into expLoring these topics, and I been doing that ever since.

So just to give the person listening kind of a sense of how all this research works, because I love this visual of you combining all the brain stands that you've been doing with this real interest in spiritual and religious and mystic experiences. Do you do brain scans on people when they are praying and when they are meditating? How does that work?

About thirty years ago, we did our very first brain scans of people in meditation. And since then we've scans hundreds of people doing all different kinds of practice. And some of them are secularized practices like mindfulness or yoga.

Some of them are deeply meditative, uh, like buddy meditation, and some of them are deeply spiritual. We've study people speaking in tongues. One of my other mentors always said, you know, if you're good carpenter, you have a lot of tools and your bucket.

So we have a lot of ways of getting brain scans of people, and, you know, for some types of practices, if you can just lie there very quietly and be in a scanner like an M R. I scanner, we can do that. We can just sort of shot somebody into a scanner, and we can put them in there and say, we want you to go head and and do your prayer practice.

And of course, as I always like to joke for the listeners who have had a memories, can they know that sometimes is being in a memory scan is a perfect place to start playing because it's it's a pretty chAllenging place to be for a lot of people. They are able to do that. The other area that I developed, a lot of my expertise is a field of medicine called nuclear medicine.

And what's interesting about that as a, as a field, is that we administer, usually we inject some kind of radioactive tracer, and that follows some part of the body or the brains function. And a lot of times will inject a tracer that looks at blood flow, which is a really good way of looking at an activity in the brain. Or sometimes will inject a tracer that has to do with a neurotransmitter like serita and a dope mean that I know a lot of people have heard of.

And what we can do is we can have somebody they don't even have to be in the scanner. They can be outside of the scanner, that when we are doing our study of speaking in tongues, they're moving around. They're doing all different kinds of motions and singing and things like that.

And rather in the midst of the practice, I go in and I inject them through an intravenous ous catheter that I put in long before they started. So I I they don't even know on there and and then they finished their practice, and then I put them into the scanner about fifteen or twenty minutes after they are done. But IT shows me what their brain was doing at the moment of the practice itself.

And so it's really capturing a snapshot of, if you will, of of a person's brain state. And and we can do that for other things. Do we can do IT for reading and doing math or what, you know, whatever other things that you want to do. But but we use IT to study spiritual experiences and practices. And and it's been great at giving us as good as picture as possible of what's going .

on in the brain. So doctor a newberg, what do you see in someones spring when you pray, meditate or have a spiritual experience? What happening?

Well, the first answers is there's a lot of things that happened. And in fact, for any of the people listening who have had spiritual experiences, they probably know that it's not just one kind of thing that's happening to them. IT could be emotions IT could be thoughts IT could be feelings IT could be things that you sense.

And so if you actually think about spiritual and religious experiences, there are so many different aspects of our brains function that really can potentially get involved. There's S A whole network of structures in the brain that there is a pattern of activity within that, that helps us to have these kinds of experiences. Now there are some areas that I think are particularly relevant.

So for example, to just name a couple, there is an area in the back of our brain called the parade lobe. And this is an area of our brain that takes a lot of our sensory information and helps us to kind of create a spac representation of ourself. So if somebody listening to the pod gasses is walking down the street, the prio be is keeping them on the side off, making sure they don't run into a tree.

And because IT knows where you are. And so that's a very important process that IT does well when people are deep in meditation or prayer practices, what we have observed is a decrease of activity in this prior to love. Now why would that make sense? That's what we thought, what happened.

So if his era Normally turns on to give us our sense of self, what's going to happen when IT shuts down? We lose our sense of self, and we don't see the boundary between our self and something that out there in the world. So we may feel a sense of ones, a sense of connecting ss, and this can be a connectiveness with god.

IT could be a connectives with the universe. And in fact, it's interesting because going back to my point earlier about sort of the evolution of all of this, we have a whole continuum of this sort of unitary experience. So you and I right now, we have a connection with each other because we're having A A discussion and hopefully our brains are in sync and resonating with each other. So that's A A degree of connection, but that may not be, you know, that's not nearly the same kind of connection as with a truly good friend or with a romantic partner, which really bounds people to get.

That makes a lot of sense because as I was digesting what you are saying just about that one singular part of the brain, if that part of the brain is what locates you in 3d space， and IT gives you a sense of your place in a physical world, if that stops being so active, IT makes sense that IT opens up the door to not processing where you fit within, but actually a deeper connection to all.

exactly. That's exactly right. And so there is this kind of continuum where we have start of our everyday, i'm here, the cars there, the tables here, to a close, a relationship.

You and I are having this conversation. Our brains are resonating with each other. We feel a sense of connecting ess there, but then we know we can have our our best friends and how we feel connected to them.

We can have a romantic or sexual partner, which even connects us even further our our children, our families. And then ultimately, you have these sort of mistal enlightenment experiences where, you know, everything becomes one, and we know those. To me, you are some of the most fascinating experiences. And going back to why I got into all of this, i've always been particularly fascinated by those experiences.

Because if our question is what what is the nature of reality and how do we know that reality? IT is interesting that in those mystic experiences, that's where people at least say things like, I have experienced the world on a more fundamentally real level than I have ever experienced IT before I have a sense of clarity, have a sense of knowledge and understanding that I never had before. Now i'm not saying that the writer they are wrong, but it's interesting that death happens in those experiences.

And that's also a part of why I think IT becomes important for us to say so what's going on in the brain. And so for example, another area of our brain is olympics system, and this is an area of our emotions. And so when things are very intense, when things you know.

Hit us. We have a profound sense of joy, a profound sense of all love, whatever we feel our olympic system turns on. And we've seen this in our brain scans, that these areas of the brain become very active.

And I think that's part of what's signals to the person that this is a unique experience in. There clearly is a differentiation. People know that this is the spiritual experience that I had, and this is my everyday life.

And there is a difference between. So part of what I think is going on is the olympics c system is saying this is really important. And what's also kind of interesting about how olympics system works is that Normally, does that help us feel our emotions? But he also writes things into our memory banks, and that makes sense that we would do that.

We want to remember the things that are emotionally important. So you have this incredible experience and near death experience, a psychiatric experience. So, you know, whatever IT is, not only did I feel real in the moment, but IT gets written into your brain.

IT gets writing into your memories. IT transforms your beliefs. So IT changes everything about you. And that's also part of what we have noticed with these experiences about how they are truly transformative in a person's life.

So do you notice in these scans that there's the same types of outcomes in terms of what happens in your brain, regardless of the spiritual or religious experience in the type of IT and IT? Is there all the same stuff that is stimulated?

I do think that in some sense of the answer to the question is yes, that you know, if you are a boost to hindu, a muslim who all feel that wonders with god, then you're going to see that decrease in the prior lobe. So, you know, that will be a certain common element that you'll have. However, there are the distinctions, so Christian might be feel connected to jesus, or a muslim might feel connected to ala um a bud's might feel connected to universal consciousness. So the particulars start to become a little bit more unique.

So one of the questions that I have is, you know, if you have this experience, if you feel if one personas I felt love, and something says, I felt energy, and somebody also I felt of force, and someone else says I felt god, are they the same, fundamentally, the same experiences that then people just interpret differently because of our backgrounds in the way we think about things? Or are they actually different experiences? And again, I think sometimes it's depends on its feeling love versus feeling god. Maybe they are different.

but from the brain scan and the neuroscience time point, what you're studying is how these experiences that we describe in vary different ways, right? Actually look the same when you look at the scan or you look at the physiological and neurological and emotional and neurochemical thing that's going on. There are definitely .

similarities that in terms of how they look on the brain scans. But with the brain, there's always another complexity to IT. The problem is, is that, you know, if I were to say, oh, here's this, you know, area of the brain that lights up IT becomes more active.

Well, how many neurons are in that area? If there's ten million neurons in that area, are they all becoming more active? Is that just two of them? I think what's very exciting about this research, because while I can try to find the common elements, there is also sort of an embracing of the unique enemy that we each have. We, all of us, have a different kind of expression of our religious, spiritual in self. And so each person is going to we have to kind of look at each person as an individual, but also appreciate how it's kind of connected to everybody else as well.

This is so amazing. I know there's so much more we going to dig in to, but I wanted take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors do not go anywhere because there is so much more that we're onna dig into when doctor newburg cannot return after a short breaks to stay with us.

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Welcome back. I am so thrilled you are still here with us because there is so much more that doctor newberg is going to share with us about the impact of spiritual practices on your brain. So doctor, ever you know, earlier when we were talking, you mentioned this study that you did.

And how was a treasure trove a spiritual experiences for people? right? Could you tell the person that's listening? Just a list of what are the top things that people reported as spiritual experiences, just to give the person that with us in this conversation, a way to think more broadly about what spiritual and religious experiences can include.

What we did is that we took all of the narratives that people provided and all the answers that people provided, and we basically ran them through some very complex to know computer analysis to try to figure out what was going on. And IT is interesting because you can start to group certain things. You can group if somebody says, I felt connected, I felt at one, I felt unified.

We can start to put those together. And as you mentioned, we were able to come up with five core elements that virtually every person talks about in these experiences. So I hope this does resonate with everyone out there who is listening, who has had this kind of an experience.

So one of them, we've already talked about a little bit the feeling of unity or onest. So the person feels connected, connected to god, connected to the universe, connected to humanity. And we think that this has something to do with the prior lovers we mentioned.

So this is the kind of thing almost everyone talks about that element of the experience. And again, IT could be, IT could be A, A, A supernatural connection. IT could be, you know, just connecting to nature.

So if the sense of unity is a very, very important part of these experiences, the next element of these experiences is a feeling of intensity. And so there is something about these experiences that is whatever they're describing, its the most it's the greatest feeling of love you've ever had. IT was the most beautiful light that they have ever seen.

IT was an infinitely powerful in what all these kinds of you know words that are just superlatives that tell you that for this person, IT was more than anything else that they have ever experience before. So intensity is is the second element. The third element is a sense of clarity.

And what that means is that people, when they have these experiences, are like, i've got, I now understand the world in a way that I never had before. It's the proverbial vale being thrown off and being able to see the world in a way that they never had before. H, sometimes I can be a profound religious revelation.

okay? Now I know what religion I need to pursue. Sometimes it's scientific. Okay, I get IT. You know, the world is this incredible physical place, and i'm connected to the stuff of the stars, whatever is, but is the sense of clarity.

And this one is a little bit more intriguing when get into the brain piece, because part of what's happening here is that is kind of changing the whole way this person's brain functions as well. Part of the answers we don't fully know, no, because it's almost impossible capture the moment of those experiences. However, there's a couple of really important things that we have found, some of our brain cancer.

One area that we have found that also seems to change in a lot of these practices is a very core structure called the salary. It's right in the middle, our brain. And the reason it's important is that IT connects different parts of the brain to each other, and IT also brings sensory information, particularly from vision and hearing, into our brain.

So IT is relevant to, like our whole perspective of reality. And we see very significant shifts in the activity of this salami. And people who have had these experiences versus people who have not had these experiences.

So part of my speculation is, you know, there's something that happens that kind of opens up a new way of thinking, a clearly learn kind of new connections that are forming in the brain. And that leads to another study that we did, where we did a study of people going through a very intense immersive retreat. And in this case, IT was actually a retreat based on the spirit al exercises of sync ntia.

So IT dos have a bit of a Christian perspective to IT, but I think IT holds for anybody who decides to go on some really, really intense long, you know, meaning days, weeks, maybe months. And what we did in this case was we did a scan of their brain, not just looking at activity, but looking at neurotransmitters. And so for the people out there who you don't part of, how our brain ultimately connects with, the different neurons connect.

There are these chemicals they get released. Dopa means the tony or poly things the people have heard of, and they tell the other neurons what to do. So what we found was when we scan their brain before and after this retreat, that their brain had become more sensitive, the effects of serotonin and and dopamine.

And that's very important, because doping is often referred to as the feel good molecule. IT makes us feel happy. IT makes us feel you for if enough of IT. So IT sort of changes are attitude about the world, that we now look at the world in a very positive way, as supposed, maybe kind of a downer.

You know, if if you really think about if you've ever had spiritual experience, which are everybody has at some level, if you've ever been on a retreat, if you've ever had some sort of thing happened or even gone to a religious service, those is deeply moving, right? Or a musical concert where you just were and at one and IT was unbelievable. There is an afterglow effect, which probably, based on the science, comes from the fact that you're more sensitive to the dope.

Exactly, exactly. And so cool. That is cool. And and the tony as well, and serota is very important because first, all the drugs that helps us with depression go to the zero tone and system and help the sort of augmented.

So these practices are making us more sensitive to serotonin. So this is all part of that feeling of clarity. Now there's two other core elements. So one of them is a feeling of surrender.

What seems to happen, whether a person is trying to get to this experience through, you know, years of meditation or prayer or going to church, something like that, whether IT happened to them, spontaneity, what, whatever is going on. At some point, our purposefulness kind of gets taken over, that the experience kind of pulls us along and we let go surrender. You know, people use different terms, but IT is this feeling of surrender.

In fact, going back to the discussion about sexuality, that is also what happens. You know, at some point, we're just going along for the right at that point, and it's just going to happen, is our body's natural process. And what's interesting about this feeling of surrender is that, again, there's an area of our brain that I think is very relevant here.

So our frontal lobes, which are located behind our forehead, when we are purpose, when we are doing our actions, when we are concentrating on the meditation, concentrating on a prayer, our fund has become more active. That's what our brain scan studies have shown. But when the person gets to those profound experiences, the front of op shuts down and quiets down.

So we see a lot of common themes. Biologically, they are helping us to understand this feeling, of surrendering to the experience and the feeling of onest and unity. So, you know, it's all kind of coming together.

And the last core element is basically a feeling transformation that, you know, IT really changes a person and changes them. That could be a conversion experience. IT could be a near death experiences, whatever IT is. And it's like that experienced whether they had IT when they were eight years old or twenty years old or eight years old, IT Carries with A A sense of realness and a sense of I am now a different person.

You know, between that before and after, I am a completely different person and whether not there's a complete rewiring ing, whether it's the sensitivity to dopamine and and you know, in our survey we ask people, how did you change you? And you know ninety percent and ninety five percent of people have changed for the positive and IT changed their perspective on their relationships, on their job. But they don't no longer fear death, and certainly on their sense of religious and spiritual belief. So IT changes like every aspect of a person. And that's why these are these big enlightenment kind of experiences that radically change everything about the person.

Well, you have been referring to big experiences, but when I look at the list, you just gave us a feeling of unity and intensity of the experience, clarity, surrender and transformation. I can think of very small experiences, right? So I think about the experience of going for a hike in the mountains and run.

And while it's not the most crazy intense experience, there's something about the quiet of IT that is intense compared to the noise of my day to day life. And I feel all those things. If I go to a beautiful religious service, even though it's just another saturday and sunday, regardless of the denomination or the type practice that i'm in, I could feel all those things right. You know, there are those experiences where you might hold your grandchild for .

the first time.

I so could you talk a little bit about the big versus the small spiritual experiences that are available to all of us and give some examples of those and why they matter in terms of your brain and your nervous system and the quality of your life?

Well, there are really important questions. And one of the key conclusions that I have come to and a lot of the work that i've done is that we don't have a separate brain that become a spirit. You know, it's not like when you work, walk into a house of worship, suddenly some other part of your brain that doesn't do anything for you otherwise turns on.

We're using all the same basic areas of our brain. So as you extremely well pointed out, there's a lot of small experiences, so to speak. You know that there are part of that continuum.

And I think what's good about that is that one IT helps us to understand how we get to the really big experiences. But as you also mention, I think they're very important for everyone to realize that those those small experiences are not so small and they can be very important, they can be very meaningful. And so when we call them a small, you know, that's not a negative.

People can just walking into some amazing places, or hiking in the woods, or something like that can create all kinds of feelings and all kinds of experiences. That have those characteristics and you have a little bit of a feeling of unity, a little bit of a feeling of intensity. But ultimately, there seems to be something where there's that kind of quantum leap that we get to these profound, mystical or enlightenment and experience.

But before we get to that, all of these other experiences are extremely valuable to people. They provide a lot of meaning, and the evidence also suggests that they do help people ultimately progressing down their their own spiritual power, their own power towards meaning and purpose in their life. IT could be looking at a at a beautiful sunday rise or sunset IT can be walking in the woods IT can be listening to a wonderful moods or concerto, as you mentioned, you could be holding your child or your grandchild or something like that.

Uh, so all of these smaller experiences are these these are the everyday experiences that everyone can potentially have, and I think is wonderful to be able to try to engage those experiences. One of the things that is interesting is that when we talk about the big enlightenment experiences, people who have been enlighten realized that life is about the small experiences. And in fact, you know, IT doesn't really matter whether you are you know the CEO of of you know whatever the biggest company in the world, microsoft or whatever, or whether you you know a uber driver or something like you can do anything in life, but it's how you engage IT and how you find your meaning and how you find these experiences.

When I think about this, I always think about when I was in medical school, there was this one intersection and there was a police officer who would direct the traffic, and i've never seen anybody so into what he was doing. And he's dancing around and waving his arms and motioning and blowing his whistle with different rhymes and things like and I like that's an enlightening, you know, like IT doesn't esn have to be doing something amazing? IT can be all the everyday things that we all do.

But how do we, how do we engage them? How do we try to make our connection with having breakfast in the morning, with walking down the street to our work? All of those can be deeply meaningful, deeply spiritual because you can help yourself to feel that connected this and when people do come to me and say, how do I get there yeah um and which is a very valid question.

And part of what I say is, is that you have to take some stock in yourself. What are you trying to get to? You know, do you want to feel less anxious? Is that you're basically you want to feel less animals or less stressed.

Sometimes you might be to connect with humanity. IT might be something more religious, whatever IT is, but it's important to think about what you're really looking for first, and to sit down, think about IT, write IT down. And then from there you then want to look for avenues that lead you down those pass.

So we know that there are thousands of different kinds of practices that are out there, meditation and yoga and prayer and all that kind of thing. So you have to do a little bit homework. What are the things, what are the approaches that are consistent with your goals and then you feel comfortable with.

And that, to me, is always very relevant. There is no one size fits all. Each person has to kind of find the paws that work best for them and then awesome. You know, it's reasonable to try things that are well known.

So if you and especially if you came from a religious background and you feel somewhat strongly about IT, then trying to pursue the religious background, maybe a good way to go. But for somebody who isn't, maybe mindfulness or yoga, you know, a hundred and other different kinds of practices, and then ultimately you have to try IT and see where IT takes you. If IT feels good and natural and you're starting to feel these kinds of intense and emotional and and good feelings and feelings of connecting ess, then you keep going with that.

If he feels uncomfortable or it's not taking you downpours that seem to be appropriate for you, then it's time to go in another direction. And so you know each of us can kind of find a path. It's definitely not you know a straight line um and it's gonna a lot of egg and digging but I think of people stay with IT. Each person can find that path, can find the the key to to the lock, so to speak, but each person has a different lock in a different key.

Oh, I am just loving everything that you're sharing that I I really don't want to stop, but I need to hit pause because we got to hear a word from our our amazing sponsors. And if your mind is spinning, just like mine is, I feel i'm having some sort of awakening right now. Share this with people that you care about.

Everybody deserves to experience the profound nature of his research and don't go anywhere because doctor newberg and I are going to be waiting for you after a very short break, and we're just getting started. Stay with us. You know, if there's one thing that I know about you because you listen to this podcast that you have big ambitions, you care about your goals.

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do every day? Well, you know, for me, IT goes back to my questioning, uh, for me, this, everything that I do is really been part of my lifespan. And to me, I think IT is a combination of a kind of scientific and spiritual pursuit.

I i'd love to look for data. I like to look for knowledge and information. I'd like to use systematic ways of expLoring information, like getting narrative from people who have these experiences. But IT also is very contemplative for me and and so while I don't do if a formal kind of meditation, um this is really a risen out of a whole contemplative process that I continue to do this this day I am trying to figure out the answers to the questions and some of them .

are there things that you do after newberg, like when you wake up? Are there practices that you have in your own life that help you bring this science into your life and make your own experience of your day to day life on thus smaller level? Yeah, more spiritual or mystic or enlightened .

IT really comes down to the joy of asking questions. And to me it's always like, well, how do we think about this and how do we try to explore this and what should I think about next? And and asking people around me, what do you think I I think one of the real problems in our world today is we believe, you know, with the whole social media, we all get into the you know our own echo chAmbers, as everybody says, and we just get fed information that is relevant to us. To me, it's like I want to break out of that.

You know I I am always trying to what what is your path? What are you doing? Well, how are you thinking about things? What practices of you try? Uh, I love meeting people who are from different, you know, cultural backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ages, uh, they all have a story. They all have something that they want to share. And and I think that the answers are within all of us.

And in a way that the more we kind of bring all of us together and try to help us to answer those big questions, I think that's the best way to do is so for me, IT is just, you know, every day I wake up and think about what's the next question that I have to ask and how I gone to try to answer IT. And then once I get to some answer, I realized that is only ten more questions that I now have to work on. So it's always, to me, it's about expLoring the world, really.

You are describing this police officer that was directing traffic way that made you say that's an enlightened human being. What does that mean that an enlighten human .

being for me IT IT is it's about feeling that connection. It's about truly understanding and having a sense of meaning and purpose in your life and how you want to live that life and how to fully that means i'm i'm thinking about things. I'm feeling about things and it's sort of how you decide to to look at each of these things.

That to me is is how we try to think about defining someone as being enlighten or not. And I don't know anyone can ever say, you know, you are enlightened, you not and I don't know, you know, there is no magic. I I can do a brain scans, say, okay, well, there is the enlightened pattern.

This person is enlightened again, for each person is kind of their own way of looking at the world. But I think, for me at least, that IT does have to do with serve how we embrace ourselves and how we embrace the world as best as possible. And there are these different practices, and whether it's meditation, crae, something more spiritual, something with nature, something with humanity.

You mentioned hiking in romani. I go hiking in colorado. And to me that the analogy is we're also are trying to get to the top, but there's a lots of pass.

you know. So and there's .

also a beautiful and beautiful .

along to here and see every step taking .

every part of IT .

yeah I think and that's IT you take in every part of IT. The person that listens to this is someone who is really interested and seeing a bigger possibility for their life. And knowing what I can do.

And as i've been listening to you, I can't help but reflect on the fact that probably i'd say top three issue that people write in um about from around the world is this feeling of being stuck, this feeling of not knowing what my purposes. And I have a hunch that based on your field of research, you have a point of view about what feeling stuck actually is in the context of your body, your brain, spirituality, enlightenment. So what would you say to somebody who's listening? That's like, I just feel stuck. I just feel like I don't have a sense of purpose and how they can use this research to reengage in their life.

Yeah a very important thing for everyone who's listening that you know when you feel stuck. And I doubt that there's been a specific research study to try to identify that. But you know in terms of how we think about the brain, the brain that has billions and blips of neurons that are all interconnected with each other.

And I think when people are stuck, what's happened is, is that the connections that we have going on in our brain are the only ones we're using. And so so there there's a cute phrase that neurons that fire together, wired together, and that's a great thing. I mean, that that can be good.

So I mean, that's how we learn how to play the piano, is how we learn how to play a sport, is how we learn how to think about something spiritual or religious. The more we do IT, that's why meditation practice is, is work so well. The more you do IT, more those neural connections form in your brain.

And that could be good. But the problem is, is that because those are the neural connections that form IT can sometimes also close you off to other things and other options and other ideas. And so if it's working for somebody that can be great, but if it's not working, then you know, part of the stuck feeling.

Now this gets into the emotional responses that we have that a person is not feeling happy. And as I mentioned, we talked about the automatic nervous system. So not only are they thinking IT, but they're feeling IT.

You know, they feel in in their body itself, their body becomes less motivated and they're not able to sort of engage the world as we are time about a moment ago. Yes, as fully as possible. So the problem is, which is not an instrumental one, but the problem is, is that to break those neurotic connections requires energy.

It's not always easy to find that energy is, especially when you feel stuck. So part of what we've talked about in some of our work has been that you you actually have to make some kind of conscious purpose effort to at least just break out of where you are and then hope from there that you know, you can start to find your these other pathways. And that's just not like kind of casting you.

You know, lots of the wind here. Know if if you have some ideas about where you would like to go, you would like to find meaning, you would like to know, engage the world in certain ways, then you can look for those other avenues, because they are out there. And people have talked about lots of different avenues, and some of them are well known, going down a religious path.

Others are less, you know, more austerity or more super, but people can find those ways. But you have to purposely want to change and to think that you need to try to get out of that stucker. And then I think, and this goes back to, uh, our discussion about rich als, is that rituals are also a way of one in training the brain, but also helping to get the brain out and shifting the brain focus. So the goal is then to find a new virtual w, to find a new practice, a new way of doing things, and then begin to do that. And then hopefully that will Carry the rest of the brain and the rest of the person's life along.

But that makes so much sense, especially the visual of, if you feel stuck, you are likely stuck in patterns of thinking your commute, the same people, the same habit, the same way you move through your day. And that's part of what keeps you trapped.

And you gave us these five points that are very common in terms of uniting these spiritual, religious experience as unity, a sense of intensity and the experience, clarity, surrender, transformation. Even if you're stuck, I would imagine if you look backwards, 嗯， you can locate a moment in your life where you had a feeling of those things. And that provides the clue to you in terms of what you can just answer.

Or now I, I, I am thinking about my sister in law, who's also our chief Operating officer. And like a year ago, he was just talking about how I think i'm to go back to church. I really, I really think i'm going to go back to church because like so many people, you have kids, you get busy work, travel, sports, start all of something.

Nobody he's going to yet, and nobody's going to church. And SHE just felt this sense. I don't know. He would use the word stuck, but that something was missing.

And so SHE looked back into her experience and said, when in my life that I feel a little bit more fulfilled, a little bit more connected, a little bit more optimistic, a little bit more whatever, to fell IT in, yes. And it's made a huge difference in our life. And so I do think your own life offers clues.

And you've given us almost this five points of data to really look at and say, i've experienced this. I know for me, if I don't get outside for a walk in nature, I feel different. I it's a part of what makes me feel connected to something deeper is you talked about the nervous system and how I think a lot of people have rituals of either religious practices or meditation, or walking or other things that you do.

Yes, there are. I like a particular type of instance every morning, and even just the ritual of lighting IT and smelling IT, there is something that allows me to drop in to a deeper connection in presence in life. And if you could tell the person listening, what is the benefit to being proactive and conscious about creating a more spiritual mystic, enlightened or religious, whatever? What do you want to use? sure.

Experience in your data, date life. What's the benefit of this? I'll answer the .

question in two ways. I'll answer from the doctor perspective and all answered from a personal perspective. So from the doctor perspective, what a lot of the data, including research shows, is that when you engage that spiritual side of yourself, uh, IT really does have an impact on your biology, on your psyche.

H IT really affects your entire person. And the data are are pretty clear that that helps you to manage stress Better, that helps to reduce stress, that helps to reduce anxiety, depression. And because those are also off than physiologically connected to our heart and our lungs, and you through our automated ic nervous system, IT helps our immune system work Better. IT helps us to combat diseases like cancer, heart disease. And so for so there are really a lot of health from trying to engage the spiritual side of yourself again, how you decide do IT is up to you but um but doing IT um all the data points to physiological changes in the brain, in the body and and maybe the one the last thing to say, at least as far that goes, is that and we did a study where we looked at older individuals who started to do a meditation practice and their brain changes. So whether you're eighty five, four or five, you can change your brain and you can change your brain in positive way.

So from a clinical, medical kind of perspective, that the answer to your question about the benefit, but to me personally, and what I hope is, is also something that everyone wants to find, is that kind of that way to embrace the world, that way to embrace ourselves, that way to find a kind of enlightenment that makes us feel Better about ourselves, feel Better about the world, have a feeling of meaning and purpose, have a feeling of optimism and and a feeling of compassion, not just for everyone before ourselves as well. And that's what often these kinds of experiences lead to. Again, in our survey, ninety five percent of people talk about these experiences that leading to positive feelings about their relationships and their jobs and all the different ways in which they think about their lives.

So to me, trying to find that path is very important. And maybe the last thing to say is that people need to be patient with themselves because it's not like you just say, oh, okay, I just got to I just got to find that feeling of unity. I just got to take a walk in the woods and boom, I got i'm gonna enlighten.

Doesn't work that way. There is no guarantee. But as we are also saying in our analogy, as you're trying to walk up that mountain, take a look around because there's a lot of things that you can learn, there's a lot of things that you can sense, and there's a lot of ways that you can appreciate life.

And for me, in this world of neuroses, ology and doing all these brain can, it's great. We've found all these wonderful findings that we've talked about, all that, but the questions are more than the answers. And I have learned so much more just from doing this whole process because i've learned from all the people who have come in about their their beliefs and how genuine they feel and how important they feel.

And it's given me a great sense of appreciation and compassion for all the beliefs that we the people have, even for people who things that aren't the way I believe, things that's okay. And in our device of world, I hope that this kind of new way of thinking about things and, uh, a new enlightenment for the individual as well as for the society is something that can be useful both here and and around the world. And I hope that's where we get on an ideal tic person. And I hope that's what this all leads to.

Do you think your work could prove disprove the existence of religious experiences?

Well, I don't know if I will ever do that. Um I never say never person so, uh you know, anything is possible. But I think it's far more likely that IT is going to enrich our perspectives of what IT means to be like.

I come from this world of integrative medicine, and we talk about how we understand the person. We have four dimensions. We have our biological, which is what metal the medical Normally tries to take care of in any biotic.

But there is a psychological, social and a spiritual part of who we are. And the way we are best healed and the way we are best healthy and have our greatest sense of well being, is when all those four dimensions are working together. And so for me, I think that is IT possible that we might find some paradise shifting results someday.

Yeah, you know, we might. I have a colleague who's study near death t experiences because there's a real unique opportunity there. If we can document and prove that somehow our mind, or our consciousness or our soul, whatever that is, you know, gets outside of ourselves, that changes a lot in terms of how we think about who we are as human beings.

Now, whether we will do that, I don't know. And that's fit, to me the whole field of neurosis. Ology is so valuable because that gives us an opportunity to look at all of these big questions, theological questions, philosophical questions, questions about the nature of reality. And so for I will hope we will find some answers, but I hope that they will be answers that will be useful for everyone.

You just said something that I wanted debt have you on pack further, which was therefore from a medical perspective, there are four aspects to a human beings.

The medical world has really focused and and appropriately so on the biological part of who we are. So if we get we take an you know an anti viral or we take medicines to reduce inflation tion and IT, really just we take care of the biology. That's great, and it's been very successful.

But for someone who's dealing with chronic illness, ses, for example, like cancer or heart disease, well, IT affects their person IT. IT may make them depressed. IT may make them anxious.

They have a fear of death. They have bad dreams that, you know, all these different things. So that now is affecting the psychology of who they are.

And it's a reciprocaland relationship. You know, if you have some kind of illness or problem, it's going to affect your psych. And if your psychological status, if you're depressed, you're more likely to have heart disease and cancer. And so far, so those two reparative fit together. Yes, then you get your social interaction as well.

If you got cancer and your chemotherapy and you can't get to your pick ball game or your you know card game or whatever, and you see your friends or you can go to church because you're stuck in in a hospital, well, now your social environment goes away. And your social environment has been shown to be absolutely essential for health, well being and even mortality outcomes. Sometimes for practical purposes, getting somebody to the hospital, making sure they take their medicines.

But just having that personal interaction, that's why so many of the kids and so many people became depressed. And animal storing covin because we couldn't have our social supports that was horrible from that perspective. And then finally, there's the spiritual side, which is kind of wraps all of that up.

You know how we feel who we are as a person, how do we how does our existence have meaning? And, uh, and and how do we feel about who we are? Uh, that then spills back over to, are we optimistic about dealing with our health problems?

Are we optimistic about our social interactions, about our, about how we feel psychologically? And there was a big study that showed that optimism is is fun. You really IT with a longer life and unless disease. So all of these things are very interconnected, and and they all can be affected by each other.

So as an integrative medicine doctor, our goal is always try to find ways of helping people with each those dimensions and and to really ask the questions about them, because some of people are reluctant to talk about the spiritual side of things or the social side of things. And we know so many people come into our offices and they have headaches and their chronic fatigue. And then finally, you know, get divorce from their their spouse or whatever, and they feel like Better, you know, because that was giving them so much psychological stress or they get out of a job .

or something like that. What's the difference from a medical perspective between the psychological aspect of your life and the spiritual aspect of your life?

There's a lot of overlap. We have trouble distinguish them if you have a spiral experience. So what? What did you feel? What you might say? I felt joy.

I felt love. I felt. Well, those are psychological terms as well as potentially spirit al terms. So what was IT that made you say IT was a spiritual ence and that you just wasn't something that you know you psychologically you felt Better? And uh, so again, these are some of the bigger questions that we don't really have a complete answer to because there does seem to be something about all those other elements that we talked about, the unity. And so for the intensity that makes you feel that is a little bit different than just the psychological.

how do you want us to think about because i'm sitting you're grappling with IT right now and i'm going, okay. Well, psychological. I'm thinking about um my mood.

I'm thinking about my mindset. I'm thinking about focus attention. I'm thinking about um my core beliefs or the thinking errors that I engage in. Spirituality feels like a deeper issue, right, an anchor that impact psychology to me, almost the relation, almost like the relationship between where your social connections are and your actual biological health, right?

There's definitely an interconnected inss between them. Again, for each person, they have to kind of figure out and tears that out to a certain extent, but there's going to be a lot of overlap. And so many times we know that people you know hit that spiritual perspective, uh, because they have psychological issues.

They've hit that proverbial rock bottom, whether its depression, anxiety, substance abuse or whatever. And they feel like i've gotten turn this around. And many times, to turn around is something spiritual.

So there is definitely an interrelationship, but and that is part of what we're trying to understand. Again, part of the problem has to do with the language that we use. I an ultimately, it's always a little amusing to me because mystic experiences are by definition, undefinable or you know they're ineffable as they would say they can be described.

But I ve had so many people said I had this indescribable experience, but let me described IT to and so but we we want of being stuck with some of the words and and and that's why it's funny to meet sometimes when I look at the narrative because they are like. Make certain words and capitals because they infinitely more real or something like that because because they don't know how to describe IT, you know and and that is part of IT too, I think, which is the sort of the inability describe. But IT makes sense because these areas of the brain, when they're shutting down, that kind of takes them away from our ability to then interpret them from a language perspective. Like there's all these pieces of how we .

started to think about doctor news about what are your parting words.

Well, I I think I first I hope people have learned a lot about the brain and spirit ality and sexuality as well. Um I know I hope that everybody has realized some important things. I think people need to realize that within all of us we have a brain that is capable of finding these past IT doesn't mean it's going to be an easy pursuit. But I can happen to everyone and I can happen to anyone. And I think as long as people are pushing themselves, are asking questions or driving for something a little bit greater than who they are, trying to make that connection to something greater than who they are, I certainly ly hope that people will use this information to to realize that to to destroy for that kind of a goal and and hopefully they will find the right pathway for them. Maybe some of the athletes that we've talked about.

well, doctor or newberg, I am blown away by our conversation. I absolutely loved every minute of IT. So almost like a lot of what you talked about based on personal experience I just know is true, but it's so cool that even scanning people's brains and can explain the science behind what we're experiencing, regardless of the words that we use to explain IT and just validate from a medical standpoint and a neuroscience standpoint, why this is so important to be deliberate about bringing in your life.

right? absolutely. why. And agree, I mean, I did I think having having the science does give that added perspective. IT doesn't eliminate, as we said, you know, he doesn't eliminate the spiritual, doesn't eliminate the religious, but he gives us this new perspective to to look at things and to think about things in ways that we haven't done before. And hopefully that gives us some practical information.

People love to have that piece of data that they can say, okay, well, you know that yeah I make sense. It's my fun of love or is is that but again and ultimately it's all you know, it's our whole being. And h and that to me is what's the most exciting. But it's great to be able to to study IT, and it's been wonderful to do this work. But we've just scratched the surface and there is so much more to left for us to to explore .

and hopefully will do IT together. Well, doctor newborn, I am blown away by our conversation, and I am so excited that you have shared all of your amazing research and insights with me and the person that's listening today. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And I also want to thank you. I want to thank you for listening all the way to this moment for really taking in what doctor newberg shared with you today. And in case no one else tells you, I want be sure to tell you that I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a Better life.

And based on these brain scans and everything that doctor newberg just explained about the research, there is no doubt in my mind that one aspect of living a Better life is having spiritual experiences be a part of your day to day life. So I hope you feel inspired to try out some of the things that you heard about today, because I know it's going to make a huge difference in your life, and I really want that for you already. I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode.

Alright, are great. So how should I do with that? You can printed IT out for me.

Great second. Okay, great. Okay, great. okay. I do. Do the woo, mister car. Make sure you have like what's been interesting as an experience is just what IT feels like to live in an area they feel sleepy, spiritual and quiet and having your nervous system.

Yes, one of i'd love when we go hiking in colorado and many times on our high, just like.

And amazing feeling.

Yeah totally already. Thank you. That was.

Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue pen. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read you.

This podcast is presented soly for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licence therapies, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapy or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode .

stitcher.

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