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Anthropologist Helen Fisher on the Brain and Love

I am fascinated by the neurology of the brain and how it affects cognition, emotion, volition, and spirituality. 

I am also fortunate enough to work during the week at an organization that uses brain scans to assist in the treatment of addiction and other co-occurring disorders. I get to speak to doctors and researchers on a fairly regular basis on how neuroscience influences spiritual health and vice verse. 

The following video from TED features Anthropologist Helen Fisher talking about the neurological basis of sexual desire, romantic love, and longterm attachment. She discusses why we love as a species and its sociological function of propogating our kind. Her research is interesting because it included MRI brain scans.

Here are few things that I found interesting in her talk I've simplified some of the ideas to make it more understandable for me. :)

• Romantic love is not an emotion. It is a drive. It is the same kind of rush that a person gets when doing cocaine as it heightens dopamine in the brain. (I find this interesting as most of the upper class crack addicts I work with frequent escorts or multiple partners when smoking crack cocaine.)
• Sexual drive leads to romantic love which leads to longterm attachment love. 
• Attachment love evolved to allow the individual to tolerate the other individual over a long period of time. This ensured the posibility of rearing the next generation.
• Longterm use of anti-depressants elevate serotonin and suppress dopamine. This suppression of dopamine actually suppresses the sex drive and the ability to fall in love which in turn impedes the subsequent ability to attach to another over a long amount of time. Shortterm use of antidepresssants to stabilize the individual is probably best.
• She concludes by saying happiness is something we work out over a lifetime and not a given. [I often teach my clients that in America we believe in the right to pursue happiness (Jefferson in the Constitution) which is very different than the right to be happy. Happiness is a by-product of a life lived according to healthy spiritual principles. It's a reward or by-product and not a given right!]
• Fisher contends that the 21st Century will see and may already be seeing greater marriage equality due to partners being more equal. She says that arranged marriages will be a thing of a past due to greater equality in the workplace which produces greater equality in the home.

The video is 23 minutes so watch this when you have some time to really listen.

   

Grateful to Hear

Sometimes I become so completely enmeshed in my own life that I forget to be grateful. Imagine that!

I came across this video the other day, and it reminded me again how important it is to be grateful in life.

Grateful to see.

Grateful to hear.

Grateful to smell.

Grateful to feel.

Grateful to be alive.

This young woman reminds me that we all have so much to be grateful for and not to take anything for granted.

  

Re-Thinking Adam & Eve

It was around the age of eleven that I learned to separate science from the Bible.

I was sitting in the local science museum listening to a lecture on dinosaurs and the age of the earth. I found it fascinating and loved seeing the pictures of strata of rock and hearing how scientists date planet. I wanted to hear more. 

It was also around this age that my frustrations peaked in Sunday School. I had questions about a lot of the stories that were being told me. They didn't ring true, at least in a literal sense. The lessons of faith I found riveting. But blindly believing that it literally happened did not register in my intellect--or in my young spirit.  For me, there were too many logical jumps in the Bible stories I was being told--if I were to believe them literally:

God's Job Performance

I found this through my friend Matthew Paul Turner over at JesusNeedsNewPR.

It's pretty brilliant. I mean, how can you go wrong when Stephen Colbert and a Jesuit priest sit down to evaluate God?

(The book sounds pretty awesome too!)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
God's Job Performance - Jim Martin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

 

Water, Words, and Power

A core spiritual principle which transcends religious traditions is the idea that the intention behind our words can carry great power.

With words we build up or tear down, we heal or we destroy. A word spoken in the right way at the right time can shift people, places, and things into a more desired state of being.

This video shows how words morph the molecular structure of water and how our bodies might respond organically as well. Perhaps this is how prayer and meditation--when practiced in a positive way--facilitate recovery, healing, and yes, miracles too.

 

 

 

Frank Schaeffer on Faith, Culture, and Sex

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

Neurotheology: This Is Your Brain On Religion

For thousands of years, religion has posed some unanswerable questions: Who are we?  What's the meaning of life? What does it mean to be religious?

Principles of NeurotheologyBy Andrew B. NewbergPaperback, 284 pagesAshgateList price: $29.95Read An Excerpt

In an effort to address those questions, Dr. Andrew Newberg has scanned the brains of praying nuns, chanting Sikhs and meditating Buddhists. He studies the relationship between the brain and religious experience, a field called neurotheology. And he's written a book, Principles of Neurotheology, that tries to lay the groundwork for a new kind of scientific and theological dialogue.

via National Public Radio

I have maintained that meditation and prayer have a physiological function that everyone benefits from whether they believe in a higher power or not.

I believe this because many of the atheists and agnostics I have counseled report a greater sense of serenity and peace after they spend time in solitude, contemplation, or meditation. These same individuals maintain their resistance or ambivalence to a belief in a higher power, yet report that they benefit psychologically and emotionally from the spiritual practice.

This study demonstrates this idea through SPECT scans and scientific research. The author reports that people who pray mantras, meditate, or speak in tongues report the same beneficial effects and the brain demonstrates that through the scans.

Listen to the Talk of the Nation Interview on the NPR site. It's about thirty minutes so you'll have to set aside the time (but well worth it). 

What are psychological, emotional, and spiritual effects for you when you meditate or pray?