 I know you all love learning 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 Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're 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 so excited we are so close we are so close to 10,000 followers on instagram so if you haven't yet go follow me over there I just want to get the swipe up feature help me because it'll help you and I can send you guys some new videos books I'm reading all sorts of cool stuff just go follow me on instagram I love you all who are following me already you are all amazing I think I was out like 2,000 followers in December and now I'm at 9,000 but 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 Etherton Amanda if I'm saying her name wrong I am sorry but yeah she has a youtube channel she talks about stuff and basically she sent me this comment right here saying this 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 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 and 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 all right 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 that I started to learn why why we need to do this so prayer and meditation actually have the same effect 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 in 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 model 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 note mode network in the back top 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-fight-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 they're 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 shuts 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 gotta 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 uh 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 and 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 is this 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 all right so do me a favor start meditating deactivate the posterior cingulate cortex start 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 partnered with the 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 out in the description and in the pinned comment um 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 b the people in your life are gonna realize or they're gonna notice that you're a lot more tolerable to be around all right 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'd 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 and actually let me know down in the comments below tristan and i have been talking about doing the hand model like in a shirt like let me know if that's something you'd be interested in oh yeah you gotta see my cool rewired soul hoodie pretty sweet all right anyways that's all i got for you with this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because i make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you're all amazing and if you would like to get exclusive videos and content and private facebook group and all that click or tap on the patreon icon right there all right thanks so much for watching i'll see you next time