Spiritual Practices for a Powerful Brain WORKBOOK Andrew Newberg, M.D. IMPORTANT To begin — Please save this workbook to your desktop or in another location. 2 Table of Contents 4 How to Use This Interactive Workbook ................................................................ 5 CD1: Looking at Popular Spiritual Practices ..................................................... CD1 Power Points ....................................................... 10 11 CD2: Spirituality’s Effects on the Brain .............................................................. CD2 Power Points ....................................................... 21 22 CD3: Spirituality’s Effect on Mental Health ...................................................... CD3 Power Points ....................................................... 25 26 CD4: How Beliefs Affect Your Brain ................................................................... CD4 Power Points ....................................................... 32 33 CD5: Spiritually Exercising Your Brain .............................................................. CD5 Power Points ....................................................... 39 40 CD6: Specific Practices for a Powerful Brain ..................................................... CD6 Power Points ....................................................... 50 Expand Your Mind-Development and Wellness Library 51 with These Exciting Programs from Nightingale-Conant ................................... 3 How to Use This Interactive Workbook How can you get the most out of this interactive workbook? Research has shown that the more ways you interact with learning material, the deeper your learning will be. Nightingale-Conant has created a cutting-edge learning system that involves listening to the audio, reading the ideas in the workbook, and writing your ideas and thoughts down. In fact, this workbook is designed so that you can fill in your answers right inside this document. By the end, you’ll have your own personal success system. For each session, we recommend the following: • Preview the section of the workbook that corresponds with the audio session, paying particular attention to the exercises. • Listen to the audio session at least once. • Complete the exercises right in this workbook. In addition to the exercises and questions, we’ve created a special section of the workbook called Power Points. These are spaces for you to write down the key ideas and points in the program that have particular meaning for you. Don’t just listen to this program — devour it! Strategies don’t work unless you use them. Test and use the strategies that make sense to you, consistently, over time — until they become habits. Listen to the program more than once. Listen for the key ideas that you can use to impact your attitudes, actions , and results. True change takes focus and repetition. Let’s get started! 4 CD1: Looking at Popular Spiritual Practices Spiritual Practice Helps Your Brain In this program, you’ll discover how the spiritual practices that people engage in not only help them spiritually, but actually help to improve the way in which their brain works. Taking part in spiritual practices actually creates a more powerful brain. We actually can think better and pay attention better, and our emotions can be regulated better so that we don’t become overly stressed or anxious. We can enable ourselves to have the emotional responses that we usually have and yet find ways of utilizing them in a much more effective way. Spiritual versus Religious How do you define the term “spiritual ”? Write your response in the space below. How do you define the term “religious” ? Write your response in the space below. 5 Our Definitions For our purposes, we will use a definition put forth by a group of research scientists in the study of religion and health. The criteria for “spirituality” are defined as the subjective feelings, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors that arise from a search or quest for the sacred. Here, the word search is referring to attempts to identify, articulate, maintain , or transform. And, we define sacred as being whatever the individual perceived as the divine being, ultimate reality , or ultimate truth. This is not to say that we’re using the only definition or the best definition of the word spirituality . It’s just a useful one that can help guide us in this program and in our research. Similarly, religiousness includes the criteria for spirituality and/or a search for non-sacred goals. Sometimes people are religious, but not spiritual. They enjoy being a part of a religious group or they enjoy their religious or spiritual practice, but aren’t doing it because of some quest for the sacred. • Not affiliated with a • 2/3 of mainstream particular religion, religion but practice members spirituality Spiritual Spiritual and Not Religious Religious Not Not Spiritual Spiritual or But • Belong to a religion, but • Atheists/ Religious Religious not for spiritual Some scientists reasons (e.g., cultural Jews) It’s Personal To some degree those definitions are very individual. You have to think about your own definitions for your sense of spirituality and your sense of religiousness. Do you fit on the chart, and, if so, where? 6 Prayer versus Meditation The most common types of practices that people refer to as spiritual are prayer and meditation. And as with spirituality and religiousness , there’s often a fair amount of overlap between the two of them. For example , a lot of people will say that their prayer is a kind of meditation , and some people will say that their meditation is a kind of prayer. And of course , to some degree, prayer and meditation can be very separate and very different. Prayer itself typically comes out of a specific religious or spiritual tradition. But there are different kinds of prayers. People can engage in prayer while they are at the spiritual worship site like a church or a synagogue. These prayers may be very scripted. You may have to say certain things about God, talking about God’s relationship with human beings, praying for healing, praying for a person who has died. All of these different aspects are what prayer can be. Prayer can also be a form of communication with God. For example, there have been some very interesting studies that have shown that when people engage in conversational prayer with God, they actually activate some of the same brain areas that we activate whenever we talk with another person. Thus , for the person who is engaged in a conversational prayer with God, he or she is really treating as if God as another person. Prayer can take on a lot of different forms , and you may have very specific ideas about prayer itself. And prayers can be just words ; they can be singing ; they can be certain movements. For example , the rosary is a kind of prayer in which you use your fingers as well as understanding certain ideas and concepts and say certain things about God. So , all of these different types of practices fall into the realm of prayer. What is your idea of a “prayer” ? Meditation can be very similar. People can engage in a meditative prayer in which they continue to focus over a longer period of time on a particular idea or a particular concept, or simply repeat the same prayer over and over again. Meditation itself tends to be a very ritualized and very rhythmic type of process. People may engage in concentrating on a particular object, and this particular object can be a visual object. They might bring forth in their mind a spiritual image, for example , a cross or an image of God . Or they might actually just focus on a word or a phrase. They might just say a single word , which is sometimes referred to as a mantra. Or they might actually repeat a particular prayer or particular phase from the Bible , for example, over and over again. 7 Meditation can be even more simple , by looking only at a particular type of body process. The most common aspect of meditation is focusing on the breath. Simply by focusing on your breath , you can begin to relax your body, relax your mind. You might be able to lower your levels of anxiety and stress and depression. And sometimes people can even have some very, very powerful kinds of experiences just by watching their breath and focusing on their breath. People can engage in meditation while they’re walking around. You can even engage in meditation while you’re walking down the street of whatever town or city you might live in. What are your ideas of “meditation” ? It’s All About You If you decide to engage in some kind of program or some kind of practice for yourself, you might want to explore a variety of them. Try several different ones, talk to people who teach them, and find something that really does make some sense to you and is consistent with your beliefs about spirituality and life. Find something that feels right to you and that you feel that you can engage in as fully as possible. Because , again, the research shows it’s not necessarily what practice you’re doing, as long as it’s a practice that has an importance and meaning for you and is something that you can engage fully in. The more you can engage your brain and your mind in the practice, the greater the effect that practice will have on your mind and on your brain. Kirtan Kriya Practice In the Kirtan Kriya study , we found that not only did it help to lower the participants ’ levels of stress and lower their levels of anxiety, but it also helped to improve their memory. It literally changed the way their brain worked — not only when they were engaged in the practice but when they were at rest. We found some very significant changes again in the areas of our brain that help us to concentrate and to remember, and that engage in our emotional lives as well. Here are some resources for Kirtan Kriya meditation. http://www.learntomeditate.com/Kirtan-Kriya.html http://www.alzheimersprevention.org/kirtan_kriya.htm http://www.sikhnet.com/gurbani/audio/meditation-3-kirtan-kriya What we’re looking for is not just a change, but a change that’s relevant, a change that actually has meaning in the brain and in the body and in the way in which we think and feel about the world.