I know you all love earlier about the brain and the prefrontal cortex so today
let's talk about a little bit of science behind prayer and meditation what is up
everybody this is Chris from the rewire so where we talk about the problem but
focus on the solution and if you new to my channel my channel is all about
mental health so if you're into improving your mental and emotional
well-being make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell you guys I'm
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was out like 2,000 followers in December and now I'm at 9,000 bye anyways yeah so
this video it actually came to mind because this is something I would teach
my clients in treatment but this comes from Amanda either Tim Amanda if I'm
saying your name wrong I am sorry but yes she has a YouTube channel she talks
about stuff and basically she sent me this comment right here saying that she
recently posted a video a short one and I was driving back and I decided to
listen to it and basically her video was talking about is it God or is it the
police placebo effect so I'm gonna talk about the science behind this because a
lot of you a lot of you know that I'm a drug addict an alcoholic and recovery I
got sober through 12-step programs which promote your own version of a higher
power or God a lot of you who know me and some recent videos I've done you
know that I am you know agnostic alright so real quick-like
especially when it comes to addiction recovery a lot of people struggle with
that I was definitely one of them and what I would teach people is like just
do it just do it I don't know why it's working but just do it right because
that's what my experience was but as I started to educate myself about
neuroscience and all of that I started to learn why why we need to do this so
prayer and meditation actually had the same effects on the brain okay
so meditation just so you all know is completely secular if you decide for it
to be secular like yeah there are forms of meditation
in both both the Buddhist religion as well as like in Christian religions in
Christian religions I think it's called contemplative prayer but anyways there's
an amazing scientist by the name of dr. Judson Brewer he's a neuroscientist I
think he went to Yale I think it was Yale but now he is like the director of
research at the mindfulness Institute and I believe Massachusetts basically
what they do is they hook people up to brain scans and see what's happening in
the brain when you pray or meditate right so anyways you guys all remember
this beautiful hand bottle right here all right for those of you who don't
know this hand model you got your spine you got your brainstem if you fold your
thumb over you got the amygdala you got your hippocampus fold these fingers over
you got the prefrontal cortex all right somewhere in the back over here is
something called the posterior cingulate cortex okay so the posterior cingulate
cortex is part of our default mode network okay this is your default all
right this is the selfish self-centered part of the brain like people get
offended when I say that we are self-centered by Nature
sorry it's part of the default mode network okay so the default mode network
in the back back of the brain is tied in closely with the amygdala all right so
these two communicate with each other the amygdala is responsible for anxiety
as well as your fight flight or freeze mechanism right so when when you are
like in default mode you are more likely to be stressed more likely to be anxious
and what happens is especially when you do get stressed or anxious it triggers
the posterior cingulate cortex because the amygdala is about survival what am I
gonna do am I gonna fight am I gonna run away or am I gonna freeze right it makes
you think about you all right that is one of the reasons why in mass panic or
likes when people are like you know trampling one another it's because
they're not thinking about everybody else is thinking about themselves okay
so as you can see the posterior cingulate cortex not only does it make
us selfish and self-centered but it's tied in with our stress and with our
anxiety right so what they found dr. Judson Brewer what they found is that
when people meditate or pray okay when they meditate or pray what happens is is
that the default mode Network shut down and the prefrontal cortex comes
online this is extremely important because the prefrontal cortex is
responsible for a ton of things one of them is logical decision-making right so
you got to think when you are stressed or anxious the prefrontal cortex goes
offline not fully offline but it's not operating at full capacity okay so when
you're stressed or when you're anxious you can't make as good logical decisions
all right the prefrontal cortex is also
responsible for balancing your emotions okay it's responsible for emotional
regulation it's also responsible for fear modulation what that is how you
gauge your fear right should I be afraid of this or is this an irrational fear
all right it's also responsible for things like empathy as well as morality
and I can't remember if I mentioned it but self-awareness okay so when we are
in a stressed state of mind the prefrontal cortex is not doing its job
so what I would often teach people what I'm teaching you right now is even if
you don't like to pray even if you don't like to meditate there is scientific
reasons behind why you should all right this is going to help you greatly so
something that Amanda talked about in her video was she thinks so much she
questions everything and thinks so much right like it's just really some kind of
higher power or higher being when I pray or is this like a placebo effect here's
the way I improve my mental health I stopped caring okay I stopped caring I
used to be that kid who said why why why does this work this way why does this
work this way so even though I kind of answered why it works that way because
when you pray or when you meditate you get a clearer mind like at a certain
point I was just like you know what I don't know why this is working but it
works it's kind of like eating a delicious meal that you order at a
restaurant okay I don't know how they made it but it's delicious so I'm just
gonna quit asking questions alright so do me a favor start meditating
deactivate the posterior cingulate cortex so activating the prefrontal
cortex and start to improve your mental health all right and those of you who
haven't got the memo my channel is partly
calm app and the calm app is my favorite meditation app and it's not just because
I'm partnered with them I've been using it for years so make sure you check that
in the description and in the pin comment they have a bunch of free stuff
on there or you can pay I think it's like $60 for a year or you can just sign
up for the free trial just sign up for the free trial I think it's seven days
start meditating once a day for five or ten minutes and I promise you I promise
you either a you will start to see the changes in your life or be the people in
your life are gonna realize they're gonna notice that you're a lot more
tolerable to be around alright so there's a science behind prayer
meditation if you have any questions about mindfulness meditation whatever it
is let me know down in the comments below but I know a lot of you have
started meditating and I love you I love you so so so much for it so I like to
give you a little science behind why you should do this and why this is good for
you all right aside from it just strengthening that
good old prefrontal cortex right here all right actually let me know down the
comments below twisting and I have been talking about doing the hand bottle like
in a shirt like let me know if that's something you'd be interested in oh yeah
you guys see my cool rewired soul hoodie pretty sweet anyways that's all I got
for you with this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you
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patreon icon right there alright thanks so much for watching I'll see you next
time