TaxProf Blog: The Awakened Brain: Faith Makes You Happier And Healthier

NPR, This Ivy League Researcher Says Spirituality Is Good For Our Mental Health:

[A]ccording to Lisa Miller, a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, having a spiritual life is good for your mental health.

Miller is a psychologist and has dedicated most of her career to the study of neuroscience and spirituality. Her newest book is called The Awakened Brain, and in it she makes some really bold claims about how holding spiritual beliefs can decrease our rates of anxiety and depression and generally make us most likely to lead happier lives. I can hear your skepticism already! I get it. I’m a spiritually inclined kind of person but it’s still hard for me to understand how, scientifically speaking, believing in something bigger than yourself can make you healthier and happier. …

Lisa Miller: I thought a mental health system minus spirituality made no sense, and that became my life’s work, to understand the place of spirituality in renewal, in recovery, in resilience, and to put this in the language of science. …

If I were to characterize the first five years of my investigation, I would say I used the data sets that everyone else knew and trusted. I only asked one new question, which was: “What’s the impact of spirituality on the DSM diagnosis of addiction and depression?” The findings were jaw dropping.

The protective benefit of personal spirituality, meaning someone who says their personal spirituality is very important, is 80% against addiction. They have 80% decreased relative risk for the DSM diagnosis of addiction to drugs or alcohol. …

[T]he more high risk we are, the more that there’s stress in our lives, the more that we might be genetically at risk for depression, the greater the impact of spirituality as a source of resilience as preventative against major depression.

Rachel Martin: What does that look like in the brain?

Miller: One of the most beautiful findings in my 20 years as an investigator was from an MRI study conducted together with our colleagues at Yale Medical School. We looked at people of many different faith traditions and the first finding was that there is one neuro seat of transcendent perception and we share it. …

Martin: How are you actually doing that with people? Are you asking your subjects to pray? What are the spiritual inputs that are going into them so that you can measure it on their brains?

Miller:The very specific prompt was, “Tell us about a time where you felt a deep connection to God, your higher power, the source of life.” Everyone had a story like that and as they told their story, we recorded them and it was then played back in their ears while they were inside the scanner.

Martin: Ah, they heard themselves recounting their spiritual experience.

Miller: It was tailor made to their own moment.

Martin: And you saw their brains light up?

Miller: Oh yes. Connecting to these memories, the bonding network comes up online just as when we were held in the arms of our parents or grandparents. …

Martin: Can you tell me how this manifests in the real world? I’m thinking about this anecdote you include in the book about a client of yours. A girl you refer to as Iliana.

Miller: Iliana adored her father, I mean, he was the sun and the moon and the stars to her. They were so close. And one night two men who her father knew, came into his corner store, robbed him and murdered him. And she was devastated. This was a grief that was so deep. She simply could not free herself from the grief that was shackling her heart.

One day, Iliana skips into my office. There’s a levity and joy. She plops into the seat and says, “Dr. Miller, you’re never gonna believe this. My cousin and my cousin’s girlfriend chaperoned me so I could go to a party and I met the most wonderful boy. We talked so long, it must have been 20 minutes. He was so polite and so kind. But here’s the best part, his name.” Which was the same very unusual name as her father.

She said, “Don’t you see? My father sent him. My father is looking out after me.” And from that day on she was in the world of the living. What changed everything for Iliana was the awareness that her father walked with her. She maintained a deep transcendent relationship with her father, as most people around the world do.

Iliana trusted her deep inner knowing that this was far too probabilistic to have happened by chance. That this very rare name held both by this new boy and her father could possibly mean nothing.

Martin: Can I ask, what are you thinking as you hear this? I mean, are you thinking that is just a crazy coincidence, but if she needs to believe that this is a sign from God, who am I to tell her otherwise? Because it seems to be working.

Miller: Well, at the time, that was certainly the most common interpretive framework amongst psychologists and psychiatrists. But I could see plain as day that this was a tremendously sacred moment. This was a living miracle. This was a gift.

For me to have treated it like some kind of cultural diversity variable or that it’s just the meaning she makes would’ve actually taken all of the energy and spirit out of that transformative awakening moment. I joined her.

Now I did that authentically because it was my view as well that this is far too nonprobabilistic to have happened by chance, that there are very few people by that very same name and that the first boy she met in a year and a half since her father’s passing should have the name of the father. It was a synchronicity. There was a deeper meaning being revealed.

Lisa Martin (Columbia), The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life (2021):

A groundbreaking exploration of the neuroscience of spirituality and a bold new paradigm for health, healing, and resilience—from a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning researcher

“A new revolution of health and well-being and a testament to, and celebration of, the power within.”—Deepak Chopra, MD

Whether it’s meditation or a walk in nature, reading a sacred text or saying a prayer, there are many ways to tap into a heightened awareness of the world around you and your place in it. In The Awakened Brain, psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller shows you how.

Weaving her own deeply personal journey of awakening with her groundbreaking research, Dr. Miller’s book reveals that humans are universally equipped with a capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust as a result of it. For leaders in business and government, truth-seekers, parents, healers, educators, and any person confronting life’s biggest questions, The Awakened Brain combines cutting-edge science (from MRI studies to genetic research, epidemiology, and more) with on-the-ground application for people of all ages and from all walks of life, illuminating the surprising science of spirituality and how to engage it in our lives:

The awakened decision is the better decision. With an awakened perception, we are more creative, collaborative, ethical, and innovative.

The awakened brain is the healthier brain. An engaged spiritual life enhances grit, optimism, and resilience while providing insulation against addiction, trauma, and depression.

The awakened life is the inspired life. Loss, uncertainty, and even trauma are the gateways by which we are invited to move beyond merely coping with hardship to transcend into a life of renewal, healing, joy, and fulfillment.

Absorbing, uplifting, and ultimately enlightening, The Awakened Brain is a conversation-starting saga of scientific discovery packed with counterintuitive findings and practical advice on concrete ways to access your innate spirituality and build a life of meaning and contribution.

“Lisa Miller is the leading psychologist of her generation on the benefits of religion and spirituality. She asks, ‘What makes life worth living?,’ and finds evidence-based answers.”—Martin Seligman, PhD, founder of the Positive Psychology movement and New York Times bestselling author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness

“Dr. Miller is a consummate scientist who refuses to accept one of our culture’s most pervasive and damaging assumptions: that science and spirituality are at odds. She unequivocally shows that spirituality heals.”—Larry Dossey, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Healing Words

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