Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today we’re joined by Dr. Andrew Newberg, co-author of How God Changes Your Brain and How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain. If those two titles are familiar, it’s because Andrew’s co-author, Mark Robert Waldman, has been on the show before. Dr. Newberg is a neuroscientist and Director of Research at the Markus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, as well as Adjunct professor of Religious studies and Associate Professor of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine. You’ve probably seen him in Newsweek, the LA Times, and more, or seen the byproduct’s of his work, including The Mystical Mind, Why God Won’t Go Away, and Why We Believe What We Believe.

My goal with this interview was to get a better understanding not just of neuroscience, but also to understand how it is influenced by our spiritual beliefs and practices.

In this episode, we talk about all things neuroscience, and go deeper than we did with Mark Robert Waldman into the cognitive benefits of implementing a spiritual or mindfulness practice.
We do take a while to get into the practical and hands-on stuff, but I think you’ll get a LOT out of the surrounding discussion. I learned a lot of interesting things about the brain, but also about the state of neuroscience, what we know about the brain, and some of the challenges facing the scientific field as a whole. Overall, I’m quite sure you’ll enjoy the conversation, and that it will provide you with lots of useful and actionable information!

This episode is brought to you by Organifi. Save 20% on their highly-recommended green juice products with coupon code “superhuman.”

This episode is also brought to you by my premium online training – The Become a SuperLearner Master Class. To learn more or check out a FREE trial with no credit card required, simply click the banner above!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who's Andrew Newberg, and how did he get to where he is at the intersection of theology and science?
• What is Andrew Newberg's take on consciousness and reality?
• Where does Dr. Andrew Newberg lean? Spiritual or Scientific? Philosophical or Theological
• What are the biggest surprises that Dr. Newberg has discovered in 30 years of researching the brain?
• How much do we actually know about our own brains? How much do we have left to go?
• How are the brains of people with religious and spiritual practices different or the same?
• A discussion about the frontal cortex, how it works, and what it does
• What are Dr. Andrew Newberg's take on psychedelics?
• What types of things can you do today to maintain cognitive and emotional health?
• Where can you learn more about Dr. Andrew Newberg and get connected with him?
• What's the #1 biggest takeaway from today's episode?

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Our previous episode with Mark Robert Waldman
• Consciousness, man and the machine (article)
• Solipsism (Philosophy)
• Andrew's Books
• Andrew's website

Favorite Quotes from Andrew Newberg:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: This episode is brought to you by Organifi. You know, the one thing that literally every. Single diet and nutrition expert that we've had on the show seems to agree on is that we need to eat more veg and get our greens and consume all-natural products. But let's be honest. How many of us actually have the time?

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This episode is brought to you by Become A SuperLearner The MasterClass. You guys, if you have ever wanted to learn things faster, to read faster and waste, less time reading, boring textbooks, if you've ever wanted to have near-perfect memory for names, numbers. Anything you want to learn and expand your mind and retain information in a way that you never thought possible? Well, then The Become A SuperLearner MasterClass is exactly what you've been looking for. It's a 10-week program developed by myself and my mentors alongside some of the world's best memory experts and world record-holding memory champions.

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Greeting SuperFriends and welcome to this week's show you guys before we get started. I want to read you this awesome review from Onassis of Germany who writes life-changer podcast in the league of Tim Ferriss and Dave Asprey.

Personally, I even prefer this one, listen to all episodes, keep up the good work. Wow. Thank you. It is so flattering to be compared to some of those legends of the podcasting world and for those of you guys who haven't left a review. Well, please do. We would absolutely love to hear it and read it out on the air.

On to today's episode, you guys, today, we are joined by Dr. Andrew Newberg. He is the co-author of the books, “How God Changes Your Brain and How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain” as well as some more, and if those two titles are familiar to you, it's because Andrew's co-author Mark Robert Waldman has actually been on the show before.

So Dr. Newberg is a Neuroscientist and he's a Director of Research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He's also an adjunct professor of religious studies and associate professor of radiology at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Now you're probably thinking, wow, those are two really, really different worlds that he lives in.

And that's exactly why I wanted to interview him. You've probably seen him in Newsweek, or the LA Times, or you've seen the byproducts of his work, including The Mystical Mind, Why God Won't Go Away, and  Why We Believe What We Believe. And you've probably even see him seen him in a controversial, but interesting documentary called What The Bleep Do We Know?

So my goal with this interview was just to get a better understanding, not just of the neuroscience, but also to understand how it's influenced by our spiritual beliefs and practices and how one person can live in these two separate worlds so fully and I think we did just that. So throughout the episode, we talk about all things neuroscience, but we also go deeper and we learn about the actual structural changes in the brain.

We talk about spirituality. We talk about the cognitive benefits of implementing all of this into your daily life and well, I think you're going to learn a lot. We take a little bit of a while to get into the practical and hands-on stuff, but you will certainly get a lot out of the way there. I certainly learned a lot of interesting things about the brain but also learned a lot about the state of neuroscience and what we know about the brain, and some of the challenges that face the entire scientific field.

So I'm quite sure you guys are going to enjoy the conversation. I'm quite sure it will provide you lots of actionable information that you can put into your own lives. So if you enjoy it, let me know on the Twitter machine or leave a comment on the blog and without any further ado, I'm very pleased to present to you, Dr. Andrew Newberg.

Dr. Newberg, welcome to the show, my friend. I'm so happy to have you today. Thanks so much for making the time.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Uh, thank you for having me on your program.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. I've been looking forward to it since we, uh, chatted with your co-author Mark Robert Waldman, and I'm hoping we can kind of geek out a little bit on some neuroscience today, you and I.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: That sounds good.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. So before we do get into it, I'd love to hear just, just a little bit about your background and how exactly you came to be where you are today. I mean, I think it's really interesting whenever I find someone who is involved in these two seemingly opposed worlds of theology and also science. So I would just love to hear kind of how you ended up there.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Sure. Sure. So for me, I was always interested in what I referred to as kind of the big questions. How do we understand reality? How do we as human beings kind of understand ourselves and the nature of the universe itself, and as I initially thought about all of this, even when I was just a kid, you know, part of what was also disturbing to me was how?

People can come away with such divergent perspectives. I mean, how is it that there are people who have different religious faiths, different political perspectives, different scientific ideas about the world. To me, if we're all looking at the same world, we should all be coming away with the same conclusions.

And clearly, we're not. So how does that happen? And for me, part of it was. Thinking about the human brain, how does our human brain help us to understand the world and help us to make sense of that world and try to look at the neuroscientific perspective on that. But the other piece of it was the philosophical or the theological, and I realized that there were some big questions about consciousness and about the experience of reality.

That really seemed to go beyond what only science was able to do. And so, as I continued my scientific pursuits, I also began to look into various philosophical and theological ways of looking at this and in many ways, it became a bit of a kind of philosophical meditation. If you will, a contemplative process that took me inside my own mind, as well as exploring the external world.

And I guess I, I mean, I ultimately came to the conclusion that one side by itself, wasn't going to get us all the way there that we really needed to think about ways of being more integrative and look at all the different ways in which we put our understanding of the world together, and then all of this kind of came to a head when I was in Medical School.

And I did, uh, what's referred to when I was at the University of Pennsylvania a year out where I spent a year doing research. And it was during that year that I met two very influential mentors in my life. One who showed me how to do imaging and brain imaging and we started to study Alzheimer's disease and depression and all these other neurological psychiatric conditions.

And I also started working with uh, Dr. Eugene Tukwilla, who was a psychiatrist at Penn who had also been interested in the big question issues, and then we started to explore how the brain is kind of interwoven with our abilities to think about these things. And then of course, you know, one day I was just like, well, gee, if I'm, you know, studying the brain, And it's functions when somebody has, Alzheimer's why can't I study the brain functions when somebody has a religious experience.

And so we started to do some of our early brain imaging work and that's maybe 20 years ago now. And we've scanned probably, you know, over 300 people's brains doing all different kinds of religious and spiritual practices. I'm sure some of which we'll talk about, but also exploring the bigger parts of these questions.

I mean, what does this mean? How do we understand our religious and spiritual cells, you know, what is our perspective on reality? What are the different experiences that we have and how do we put all of that together to make some sense as to what we as human beings actually are, does this ultimately help us to figure out who we are and what we need to do in life and how our world actually works?

Jonathan Levi: All right. So, wow. Very interesting. I have to ask you actually, like kind of a deeply personal question, but what's your take on consciousness? I mean, after coming at it from both sides, I'm just kind of dying to hear what have you come away with? You know, like a lot of, I think very smart people are now saying maybe we're in a simulation, a lot of, kind of on the more spiritual side, people that are now saying we may be in one dimension of reality after coming at this from the two different angles.

What's your take, I mean, what do you think the human experience is?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well, the short answer is I have no idea. The longer answer is, is that my best guess is that I actually think that, you know, certainly there's the scientific version where we're looking at the brain creating consciousness and you know, all of these are on the table as far as I'm concerned, but I don't think anything has been proven or disproven at this point for the most part.

You know? So that's one perspective. The other perspective is, to take a more spiritual type of perspective that consciousness is, you know, instead of the material world being the primary stuff of the universe, that consciousness is the primary stuff of the universe. It certainly is consistent with a lot of Buddhists and even Hindu ways of looking at things that the universe is essentially consciousness and that the material world essentially derives out of that.

In fact of Jean Tukwilla and I wrote an article a number of years ago, one of our first ones called “Consciousness in the Machine” and, and we basically say, well, you know, there's really two ways of looking at this one is that consciousness is primary. And that we have to understand how the material world comes about the other is that the material world is primary.

And we have to figure out how consciousness comes about. And of course, within that, there's a variety of different approaches that people have taken. I think my best thought is at least the way I think about it. And again, I, I have no specific reasons to think this is any better than anything else. But other than that, it's interdisciplinary.

I have a feeling that it's a little bit of both. I actually think that, that the material world and the consciousness world are kind of two ways of looking at the same coin, basically two sides of the same point and so that they are intimately interwoven with each other. I don't know if you could even say that one is primary, but that they both kinds of derive from and are derived from each other.

And I think that that's maybe the best way I can think about it at the moment, but you know, when you look at the different experiences that people have, there's too much difficulty in explaining either side without the other and so it kind of gets back to a little bit of what we just talked about in the first question about.

Kind of the intersection of science and the spiritual field to some referred to as neurotheology, that interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach that utilizes both sides and utilizes them in a very interwoven kind of way and I think that that's probably how we ultimately will wind up thinking about consciousness, but we still have a long way to go to figure that out.

Jonathan Levi: I really liked that. I want to ask another kind of deeply personal question, which feel free to not answer or answer very vaguely, but say, you know, if zero was 100% scientific, you know, men of science and 10 was 100% spiritual being someone who has studied these two fields, where would you say you fall?

I mean, do you kind of evenly give weight preference priority to each of them, or has one of them kind of won out in your own psychology? Just because I think it's going to be interesting to see as we answer kind of some of the more, the more in-depth questions, like what has influenced you more?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well at the risk of copping out on the answer.

I mean, I am probably pretty down the middle. I greatly appreciate the value of science. I love science. I love what science can tell us about the world and how we can understand our, our physical world through science, but see limitations in it. And to me, much of what I do feels as if it is a spiritual journey, as well as a scientific one.

And that spiritual side is that side that kind of connects us to the greater universe. And whether there is something more than what is just physical or not. I guess it sort of depends on how one defines what more means, and I guess one thing that I try to avoid a little bit is differentiating supernatural and natural is two concepts that to me, if there is a quote-unquote supernatural side, well then it's just part of the natural side. You know, maybe we can't see it well yet. Maybe we can't figure it out yet, but, um, I don't think that that means that it is something beyond what the universe is all about, but I also think that the universe is probably a lot more complex than anything that we give it credit for.

And, and certainly, you know, when we think about an infinite universe using a very finite mind, I mean, we are extremely limited in being able to understand what it is. And so my guess is, is that, you know, we see this little piece that we refer to as the material world, you know, with galaxies and stars and planets and all that and us.

But I have a feeling that there is a lot more to that, but we, we have a long ways to go to really gather it in. And, and that's why, to me, it really is a kind of pretty evenly combined scientific as well as spiritual pursuit. But, you know, again, with that equivalence in mind, As I always have argued too. I mean, I also have to be open to the possibility that one side will ultimately went out, and, uh, that is a possibility as well. But, um, at this point I feel like it's pretty even.

Jonathan Levi: I like that. I actually don't think that that's a cop-out answer at all. I really appreciate that answer because I think it's so easy for people of the scientific community to write off or, you know, vice versa. So I actually really appreciate that you see the merit in both.

I think it's going to be really interesting as we kind of ask some more difficult questions to keep that in mind, that you're really coming at this from the left brain and the right brain, so to speak. So let me ask this, I mean, this is kind of an unfair question for me to ask, but, you know, could you summarize the last 30 years of your work and help us understand?

I'm kidding. But what I would like to know is. Of all the research that you've done so much around the brain so much around the spirituality and the neuroscience and, and all of this stuff and I guess as a jumping-off point, I'd like to understand what are some of the biggest surprises and takeaways from all the work that you've done?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well, I think that there are a couple of main ideas that kind of keep coming up for me. One of them is that, and this isn't, I suppose a surprise, although it always seems a bit of a surprise when you kind of feel it and realize it, which is that this whole everything is, you know, how we experience reality, how our brain works is always far more complicated than we ever seem to be able to grasp. And so when I first published an article about what happens during spiritual practices, we talked about four or five brain areas and kind of broadly about what they did and how they did it and how they interacted with each other.

You know the most recent development of that has really led us to thinking about many different areas of our brain, many different processes, many different functions, all again, interwoven at a very complex network. And so I think one of the take-home messages is that it's pretty complex, that there is not one little part of our brain, which is the spiritual part.

There's not a separate part of our brain, which is the spiritual part that are again, uh, you know, much like what we were just talking about, our spiritual and our scientific and our cognitive and our emotional side. They are all deeply interwoven in the processes of the brain and it's very difficult to really simplify that in any way, shape, or form.

And then it just gets more and more complicated because you start throwing in things like neuro-transmitters and the different synopses and all that, and it just gets very, very complicated. So I think, you know, that's certainly one going back to what we were just talking about. I think the other important point is that, as I've come to look at all of this and see all of what kind of the cognitive neuroscience's tell us, to me, what they're telling us is that everything affects our brain. So every aspect of reality that we perceive is ultimately perceived through our brain, and in that regard, we are, as I like to say, we are trapped within that brain in our we're inside our brain.

And we're looking out at the world. And we're trying to make some kind of sense out of that world. And we do our best to do that. We have a very finite brain, a very limited brain, a very error-prone brain that is looking out on an infinite universe and trying to make, I mean, the fact that we can get up in the morning, it was amazing as far as I'm concerned, but you know that the ability to just have any kind of clue as to what's going on is, is amazing. And I think that it tells us something very important about the challenges that we all face as individuals and looking at the world around us. And so, you know, again, part of what I think that means is that, uh, we have to be very careful about the conclusions that we draw because all of our science is within our brain.

All of our spirituality is within our brains. All of our perceptions of reality are there. So all the different ways in which we think about things are there. And therefore, you know, we have this big sort of philosophical paradox of how do we get outside of our brain to understand what is truly out there.

And that's also, again, part of what has led me into thinking about. Specifically some of the mystical experiences where people do describe the idea of getting outside of the brain. So I think that's another, you know, another big take-home piece to me is that we're basically trapped within our brain and trying to understand the world and we're all kind of in that same boat. And I suppose the third major take-home message that I could always kind of come away with is an appreciation for everyone's beliefs because I recognize the fact that we are all in this same boat, that we're all looking at the world. And that because of our genetics, our environment, our, the foods, we eat, the places we are, the people we've met, the books we've read, you know, and on and on and on and on are basically an infinite number of inputs into this whole system that, you know, you think one way and I think another way is just, it makes so much sense that we're going to come away with vastly different perspectives on what the world is. The fact that two people may even have a pretty good agreement is pretty amazing in terms of how we think about the world. So that to me means that all of us need to have a much greater sense of compassion and understanding of people who have different belief systems and that's amuse a big tasteful message too.

Jonathan Levi: I really liked that. I liked that a lot. And as you were speaking, I was kind of thinking about this question that I've been asking myself a lot recently with just the rise of AI into kind of the public awareness and this idea of, you know, do we need something more sophisticated than the human brain to understand the human brain and to understand the human experience, which brings me kinda to my next question, which is you hear a lot of people say these quotes, which are always, you know, somewhat exaggerated.

Like we know more about the ocean floor and then we know about our own brains. And I'm wondering, I've always wanted to ask a neuroscientist about this. Is that actually true? And whether or not it's true, how much do we actually know about our brains? I mean, we may not know what we don't know, but is it the case that there are still huge components of the brain that we just don't understand how they work?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: I mean, I don't know. It'd be hard to kind of quantify. I'm not an oceanographer, so I'm not sure. I know how much we know about the ocean floor, but our knowledge of the human brain is, is pretty impressive. I mean, we have really learned a lot about the human brain and certainly over the last 15, 20 years with functional brain imaging, the ability to look at the brain in a living person and what it does, the understanding of diseases and things like that.

I mean, it is very remarkable what we have come to learn, but on the other hand, it may be even that much more difficult. To get to those next levels of understanding. I mean, there may be whole other levels of how our brain works, that we're just not even aware of yet. So I think that we know a lot and it's a little bit like the field of neurotheology.

When I get asked about it, I mean, on one hand, You know, we've scanned 300 people's brains and, you know, there's a hundred articles out there on the brain and meditation and spiritual practices and things like that. So we have a knowledge base and it's good, but in many ways, I can't help but feel that we're just scratching the surface as well and that there's so much more for us to learn and it may be infinite and there may be these fundamental impossibilities. I mean, I don't know if we can ever truly know what human consciousness is because we are inside of it. And so, that is always tantamount to leaving us in some degree of failure and doubt that we can never quite get beyond our own thought process is to understand our own thought processes. And I, I teach a class on human brain imaging, and the last class each year, I always kind of put it to my students. You know, what's the definitive study to prove our consciousness and to prove if the way we think about the world on the inside is accurate and you know, no one's ever come up with anything close to, I think to what a good answer would be for figuring that out.

There's just too many assumptions that we wind up having to make. That makes it almost impossible to know that doesn't mean we can't know.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: But it's not going to be easy and I think our best shot at getting to know that is to use this kind of combined approach that integrates both our sort of philosophical and spiritual mind, as well as our scientific one.

Jonathan Levi: It's interesting that you say that because I, you know, after so many bizarre experiences kind of that I've talked about on the show in the past, I kind of recently got more and more interested in solipsism or kind of this springing out of Descartes and his work this out idea of verifying improving consciousness, not just of yourself, but the classic kind of problem of other minds.

Am I alone? Am I, you know, what is the experience look like for other people are other people really there and came to the realization and it's a kind of tough pills. There are problems in philosophy that are simply unsolvable, and that might be actually one of those such kinds of unsolvable problems.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well, One of my colleagues, Jean de Quilly's one of his great lines that I always love and barely get a chance to use it. But you gave me the opportunity is that a solid system is a lousy job, but somebody's got to do it so.

Jonathan Levi:  Totally.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: But yes, I mean, you know, to some degree, a lot of our conclusions were a bit of a solid cystic concept that you know, we are. You know that the world is kind of, you know, our creation basically.

Jonathan Levi: So jumping into the next question and for our audience listening, we had a fire alarm situation and, and some technological woes on both sides. So sorry if that jump was really absurdly, uh, sudden, but, uh, why don't we move forward to kind of the next logical question, which is I think one of the most interesting things from the research of yours that I have looked at is the work that you've done with Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns being on very different sides of the religious spectrum. But yet you found, I think some very interesting stuff looking at their brains and so I wanted to ask you, Dr. Newberg, just how exactly are these devout religious individuals' brains different from the average persons? And I guess I would encourage you to feel free to kind of geek out on the neuroscience aspect of it, because we heard a little bit from Mark your coauthor, but I think it would really be interesting to me to just hear about structural neurological differences.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Oh, sure. Well, the question that you asked kind of broad, and there's a lot of interesting issues that come up with it. So, you know, first of all, I guess, you know, one answer to the overall question is that to some degree we all have. The same basic brain. We all have, you know, a frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, parietal lobe.

If I were to do basic brain scans on everybody, I would find a lot of similarities across them. And I think that there are certainly some degree that that's true across people from different traditions. And in spite of the fact that we've studied maybe 250 300 people using brain scans. It's very difficult to actually compare across those different traditions in part, because of the numbers and in part, because usually in each tradition, we're having people do different kinds of things.

So it's very hard for me to compare a Pentecostal speaking in tongues brain to a nun who's quietly in prayer. Clearly, there's going to be differences, but the differences maybe, I have nothing to do with the fact that they're different belief systems, but just what I've asked them to do. So, you know, certainly, you know, if I ask an atheist to run in place and I ask a, a religious person to lie down quietly, I'm going to see differences in their brain has nothing to do with them being an atheist or being religious.

So that's part of it. But that all being said, when we have looked at baseline brain processes and functions and so forth and my research group has done a little bit of work in that area. And there's been a few other studies that have also been published on that. In general, what we tend to find is that there are some baseline differences in terms of how the brains work.

And one of the main areas that we kind of keep coming back to a little bit as a very central structure called the thalamus and this to me is very important because the thalamus is a very central structure in the brain. It is involved with bringing up sensory information, particularly visual and auditory information up into the brain.

And it also allows different parts of the brain to interact with each other. So the frontal lobe and, and other areas of the brain interact with each other through connections through the thalamus. So the thalamus is a very central structure. It's very important. Uh, some have actually argued that it is the seat of consciousness because it's also an area that shuts down when people are anesthetized or go into deep states of relaxation or sleep.

Um, so clearly has something to do with at least being awake and alert, which is maybe a little bit different than the consciousness that we were talking about a little earlier in the program. But one of the things that we have found is that there's a left and a right side of the thalamus. And what we have found is that people who have been doing religious and spiritual practices for a long period of time. Tend to have more substantial asymmetries in their thalamic activity. So one side tends to be a little bit more active than the other and what that may mean. I don't know. I mean, it's not clear exactly why that would have some relationship to what's going on.

Although we have also noted that when people are engaged in these practices when they're actually doing a practice like meditation, that sometimes the thalamus can have. Uh, more substantial asymmetries than when the person is just at rest. So it seems like there's something going on at the level of the thalamus and that, that, that may have something to do with the practices.

And ultimately by doing those practices that alters the way that person's brain functions. And of course, to me, why I do get sometimes excited with this is that if this really is such a crucial part of our brain, that helps us to establish our sense of reality and how we experience reality, then it makes sense that these practices would alter that and really have a great power to change the way a person thinks about reality.

And I think that that speaks to the importance of various rituals and practices like meditation and prayer as a way of literally changing a person's brain and the way in which they think about realities so that's certainly one element of this. Another, set of studies and consistent with some of our findings as well have looked at, the brain volumes of different structures.

And generally have also found that that there's a difference between people who've been doing these practices for a long time, compared to those who have not. And one of the main features that people have reported is, and this is, you know, in a few studies has basically shown that there is an increased thickness of the frontal cortex and, this is also kind of interesting because people are using their frontal lobes a lot when they're doing a practice like meditation, we increase the activity in our frontal lobes as we concentrate and focus on the meditation. So to me, it may be a little bit of the analogy of, of lifting weights for a muscle.

In this context, the meditation or prayer is kind of the lifting weights and the brain functions is the muscle and not only does it actually become physically thicker, which is what some of these MRI studies have shown. But our studies have also shown that they actually have more activity in the there's a higher level of baseline activity.

And again, kind of what happens with the muscle. It gets physically thicker and it gets stronger. It can do more. And it seems like our brain is able to do that more by doing these practices. But again, that's still different than actually comparing the difference in a brain between somebody who is religious versus somebody who is not as one example.

And even in those kinds of studies, what we tend to be seeing is, you know, we're looking at kind of population-based differences and that's a little trickier to understand fully what that means. So even if I say. People who are more religious, have an asymmetric thalamus there are still people who are very religious who have asymmetric thalamus and there's still people who are atheist, who have asymmetric thalamus.

So there's not a one answer fits all kind of thing. That there are a lot of different variables that are going into these different aspects about how the brain works. And so it is going to probably be a lot more complicated than we realized, but these seem to be some of the, and we'll use some of the initial aspects about how we understand the brain.

And then there are certainly some underlying processes that probably relate to neurotransmitters, like serotonin and dopamine set points and concentrations that may be different depending on people who are religious or not. So there's a lot of complexities to it.

Jonathan Levi: Really interesting. I did have a kind of geeky question, I believe you said, and maybe it was the audio cutting out, but you said frontal cortex now, is there a difference between the frontal cortex and the prefrontal cortex?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: So I often use broader terms to be inclusive. So the prefrontal cortex is a part of the frontal lobe as part of the frontal cortex. And so, okay, it is a very important part. You know, it is very involved in our ability to focus attention and so forth. It is an area of the brain that is. Involved in meditation and various practices.

And it is also one of the key areas that seem to be thicker, for example, in people who are long-term meditators, but then as might be expected in neuroscience. I mean, there's the prefrontal cortex, but then there's the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and then there's the ventral prefrontal cortex. So now you start breaking it down to all these different aspects of even, you know, the prefrontal cortex and, you know, again, not even to make it more complicated, but when I say, oh, this is an area that lights up, you know, or that the thalamus is asymmetric. I'm talking about areas that are a centimeter or a couple of centimeters in size, there's millions of neurons in there.

So when one area of the brain is active, does that mean that you know, all the neurons are more active than a million of them are more active. 10 of them are more active. So there's really a lot of interesting issues that come about in terms of trying to figure out exactly what is happening when people are doing these different practices and what areas of the brain are involved in these experiences.

Jonathan Levi: Okay, well, that is very, very interesting also because I, you know, I've done a little bit of research also on meditation, but also on psychedelics and just this idea of how differently the prefrontal cortex behaves in each of those different activities and I think you can draw a lot of interesting parallels because as I understand it, the prefrontal cortex is largely involved also in awareness of self and so the reason that meditators have more empathy, you know, and also people. I mean, they experimented with LSD as a truth serum because you have this experience of unity with other people, similar to the way that an enlightened guru who's been meditating for 30 years will love you as they love themselves.

And it sounds like you would agree that there is definitely something to that in the role of the prefrontal cortex. That's very interesting. So what is your take on psychedelics as someone who's studied meditation so thoroughly?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well, I think that certainly the people who have experiences using psychedelic medications, they're very powerful experiences.

We actually just published an article based on our survey that we've done of spiritual experiences, where we looked at a couple thousand people's responses to an online survey, and as far as we can tell the psychedelic experiences can be every bit, if not more spiritual than the more quote-unquote naturally occurring experiences.

So that in and of itself tells us something about the power of what these different substances can do. But there's also, I mean, from a neuroscientific perspective, what's nice about them is that they do tell us a little bit more about the brain's physiology and the context of these experiences because we know where a drug like psilocybin goes, or LSD goes, we know what receptors it affects.

And so we can start to infer even more. Okay, well, you know, it's not just the frontal lobe, but it's the serotonin receptors or, you know, whatever this particular compound does and how it may relate to that specific type of experience that the person has. And I think part of, you know, there's been some very interesting research.

There's a. Uh, Dr. Roland Griffiths, who's done some very good work down at Johns Hopkins and he's, you know, exploring the phenomenology of the experiences. What do people actually feel? And I believe he's actually involved in looking at an imaging study now, which will be very helpful to be able to see you know, exactly what's going on in the brain.

Okay. So there's no, of course, you know, going back to some of our earlier discussions about the nature of reality in our western tradition, we tend to have this fairly mechanistic way of thinking about these things in the sense that we tend to look at well, if this drug causes, you know if you give a drug and then the person has an experience that the drug has caused the experience and that the reality of the experience is sort of inferior.

To our everyday reality because it was drug-induced for those people who have these experiences, especially if it's in the context of a spiritual tradition, like a shamanic culture or something like that, that for them taking these substances is really the window is the doorway into that spiritual realm.

And so it is not viewed as artificial by them, but as the way of making it happen and, you know, the analogy that I use a lot, is, I have very bad vision. So, you know, when I wake up in the morning, The world is a very blurry place. I put my glasses on and I see the world clearly. Now my brain hasn't changed and the world hasn't changed, but my perception of the world has changed.

And so what if taking a drug like psilocybin, doesn't actually, I mean, yes, it may change the brain so to speak, but what if it's not really changing reality and it's not really changing the brain per se but it's just allowing the brain to see the world in a more accurate way. And so when people say that they see God or that they see connections within things, as part of these experiences, maybe those connections really exist.

We just don't typically have access to them, but by taking this drug, we do. And so, you know, just because we can look at these drug-induced experiences, there could be a lot of very complex ways of thinking about it that doesn't just leave us in a mechanistic realm of how we understand them.

Jonathan Levi: Wow. So I want to transition. I just realized we're actually running low on time and somehow you and I have kind of, uh, you know, just shut the breeze about such interesting stuff for so long so I want to make the transition into some of the practical stuff that folks at home can apply. I would encourage folks also, of course, to listen to your coauthor's interview on the show where he talks about more of the lifestyle benefits and improvements in quality of life that can be made by implementing a spiritual practice. But I would love to hear from the neuroscientific perspective, if you were a someone's kind of personal mental health physician, would you prescribe for them as a daily regimen? Whether or not they are a spiritual or religious person just to maintain brain health, emotional health, mental acuity, things like that.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Well, I'm actually in the Marcus Institute of integrative health here at Thomas Jefferson University and we do spend a lot of time talking to people about their brain health and how to maintain that.

And for us, it is an integrative process. So we actually, you know, even start before we even get to the brain with our gut and how we eat and find to make sure that we eat healthy and eat good foods and try to avoid, you know, as we kind of hear a lot in, in the popular press today, you know, a lot of PR avoid the processed foods, eat foods that are good, not inflammatory because inflammatory foods can cause inflammation in the brain as well.

And certainly, there's links between obesity and depression and obesity and Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease. So, so it is very important for us to encourage people to live a good lifestyle and that includes a better diet. Uh, good sleep habits, you know, exercising regularly. And then when it comes to specific things to do.

The work that Mark Walman, as you mentioned, and I have looked at basically, I mean, the shortest answer to, to think about is the more you do the better off you are. So, you know, it's great to do crossword puzzles, but then also do Sudoku and, and also, you know, read books and watch documentaries and talk to friends and engage in political debates. And you know, the more you do all different kinds of things, the better off you are. And then ultimately practices like meditation or prayer do appear to be very helpful. It gets back to that analogy that we talked about a little while ago about the brain in the context of a muscle.

And, uh, in the way I tell people about this or how people try to think about it is that, if you wanted to get, get to be a really good tennis player we'll you would go out and you would practice a lot of tennis, but you might also lift weights or you might also run. If you want to become a really good basketball player, well, you're not going to play tennis. You're going to shoot baskets, but you still might lift weights and you still might run. So there's some things that are specific for you to whatever processes or whatever goals you have, but there's also others that can be more general and more generic and can be valuable, you know, irrespective of what your, your ultimate goals are.

So for people who want to maintain that brain health practices like meditation and prayer are a little bit more like running and lifting weights. They're kind of good, no matter what you want to do. Whether you are a mathematician or a teacher, or, you know, you're just worried about keeping your memory as you get older.

So those are practices that can be very valuable. And then in terms of creating your own personal program, there is a lot of personalization that has to go into that and we don't have the data yet. And we're working on trying to figure out a way of acquiring that, but we don't have a way of saying, okay, you know, you're a 20-year-old college student, who's stressed about their finals.

You should do mindfulness meditation and you're a, a 33-year-old Catholic who's, you know, working and trying to get married and, you know, has sort of those stressors, but you should do the rosary. And that you're a, uh, 60-year-old, uh, you know, a widow who is, you know, looking towards the later stages of life and you have those stressors and, you know, you should do Tibetan meditate or whatever.

We have no way of really, you know, it's not like in medicine where if you come to me with a sinus infection, I kind of know what antibiotic to give you. So we need that data. And that's something that we're going to keep trying to work towards. But short of that data, each person, I think that ultimately has to kind of find their own.

Practices that work best for them. If somebody is an atheist, obviously I would not tell them to go and pray there's data that shows that prayer works and is helpful for people. But certainly not, if you don't believe in it. So you have to do things that resonate with you that you like and then there is a bit of trial and error, you know, kind of program that seems to match your ideas and your philosophies and your goals.

And then you try it for, you know, a month or a few months or something like that. And you see how it goes and if it doesn't work, then you move on to the next thing, you know, and there are hundreds or thousands of different approaches and practices, and everybody really has to kind of find their own personal rituals and, and programs and practices that work best for them.

So there certainly not a one-size-fits-all. It is very individualized and something that we really have to do a better job at encouraging people to find their own path. And it gets back even to the very first question that you asked us about my own path because every person's path is really a unique path and we have to help them down that path to figure out what works best for them.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. I think one of the most interesting things as I've listened to other people talk about meditation is, is everyone invariably will say, you know, I tried this, I just couldn't get around it. And then I found this and you know, you hear people talk about, I tried sitting, I tried Vipassana, couldn't get around it, but then I found yoga or, you know, Tim Ferriss talks about.

I tried Vipassana, couldn't get around it, and then I found TM. And it's kind of the sense that, you know, your body knows or your mind knows what medicine is right for you. And if you're taking, you know, a pain killer, that is just not right for your specific pain is not going to work. Whereas personally, when I found the pasta night, it resonated with me so much more than yoga.

And then I found other forms of meditation that I found to be even more useful and even more kind of effective. So it is a matter of just trying a couple of different things and, and the beauty of this is unlike, you know, with statin medication or antidepressants, you really can safely try everything out there without even consulting and really give it the full run. And you have no risk whatsoever in trying everything available at your disposal.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: No, absolutely. Absolutely.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. So I don't want to take too much more of your time here. I would like to ask where can people reach out and learn more? I feel like you have so much more wisdom to share with the audience that we didn't get to cover today. So where should we send folks?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: So the best place is my website. It's just Andrew Newberg N E W B E R G.com and there's information about the books and lectures that I've done, uh, research articles that we've done. So there is a lot of, lot of information and a lot of data that people can find that a lot of other ideas and other ways of trying to explore this neurotheology and, and the relationship between our brain and our spiritual selves.

And you're located in Israel is that I am in Tel Aviv. Yeah. The last thing I'll say is that on the next projects that I'm working on, which I'm very excited about is I'm one of the medical students here at Thomas Jefferson University is also an Orthodox rabbi. By training and he and I have teamed up and we are working on a book on Jewish neurotheology, which will be coming out probably about a year from now.

So it's a little, I'll have to come back on the program when it comes out.

Jonathan Levi: I'd love that.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: But we're looking at how does the Jewish mind work and how does the Jewish brain work and how does that relate to Judaism and, you know, various specific ideas and concepts that come out of that? I mean, to me, neurotheology is something that can be applied to any tradition.

So there's a lot for everyone to learn from it. But in this particular case, we're taking a look at that and, uh, which is kind of nice because it goes back to my own personal roots as well. So we're very excited about that.

Jonathan Levi: Any plans to be in Israel?

Dr. Andrew Newberg: We were in Israel about two or three years ago and had a wonderful, wonderful time there. So, uh, uh, certainly looking for the next opportunity to come. Don't have it yet, but maybe I'm hoping maybe when the Jewish neurotheology a book comes out and we're still working on the final title for that. But, um, uh, when that book comes out in about a year or so, I'll certainly make an effort to try to get to Israel, to talk about it with it.

Jonathan Levi: Absolutely, love to have you here and I just set a reminder for myself to contact you in about nine months so we can see how the book's coming along and, and chat about it.

So, Dr. Newberg, I want to thank you so much for your time. One last question that I would like to ask before we wrap up is if people really take away just one big takeaway message from the episode, what would you hope for that to be.

Dr. Andrew Newberg: I guess it comes back to some of the things that we talked about when you just asked me my take-home points from this research. And I think one is that our brain is immensely complex. All of our brains are doing the best job they can at looking out at the world and trying to make some semblance about what is real and how we understand our place in that world and hopefully it leads to a greater sense of understanding and compassion for everyone. Even those people who believe ways differently than ours, because ultimately their brains are just doing the same thing that our brains are doing. It's just that they came to a different conclusion based on all the different factors that have had an impact on them, which were different than the factors that had an impact on us.

And hopefully, by looking at neurotheology as a true intersection and a true interdisciplinary approach, combining science and religion and spirituality, we may get to the answer of these questions that will help all of humanity. So I guess that's my true take-home message.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic note to end on Dr. Andrew Newberg. I want to thank you again for your time. It's been a real pleasure and I'm glad we already have an opportunity to chat again in the new..

Dr. Andrew Newberg: Sounds good. Thank you.

Jonathan Levi: All right. Take care.

All right, SuperFriends. That's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

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