The Awakened Brain

“Dr. Miller’s cutting-edge research heralds a new revolution of health and well-being. The Awakened Brain is an investigation of the choice we each have in confronting challenges and limitations—and it’s a testament to, and celebration of, the power within.”—Deepak Chopra, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Super Brain

“A captivating look at what happens to our brains when we’re connected to something greater than ourselves—and what it does for our lives.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“The Awakened Brain is a revelation of the spirit and the mind, and a revolution for all of us. Dr. Lisa Miller’s science is on the cutting edge, and her personal journey is both heartrending and uplifting.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“Lisa Miller is the leading psychologist of her generation on the benefits of religion and spirituality. She asks, ‘What makes life worth living?,’ and finds evidence-based answers.”—Martin Seligman, PhD, founder of the Positive Psychology movement and New York Times bestselling author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness

“A masterpiece! Dr. Miller’s method of using both science and experience to show how and why the awakened mind is essential and attainable for everyone is nothing short of enlightening.”—Andrew Newberg, MD, author of How God Changes Your Brain

“Dr. Miller is a consummate scientist who refuses to accept one of our culture’s most pervasive and damaging assumptions: that science and spirituality are at odds. She unequivocally shows that spirituality heals.”—Larry Dossey, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Healing Words

Auteur
Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and a professor in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the founder and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program in spirituality and psychology, and for over a decade has held joint appointments in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University medical school. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred empirical, peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children.

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"Based on groundbreaking findings and years of clinical study, The Awakened Brain reveals how humans are not only universally equipped with the capacity to tap into spiritual awareness, but that people with a positive, active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, 60% less likely to be depressed, and more likely to have a significantly increased sense of meaning and purpose, in addition to higher levels of academic success. Combining cutting-edge research with on the ground application by people from all ages and from all walks of life, illuminating the surprising science of spirituality and how to engage it in our lives."--

Résumé
A groundbreaking exploration of the neuroscience of spirituality and a bold new paradigm for health, healing, and resilience—from a *New York Times *bestselling author and award-winning researcher

“A new revolution of health and well-being and a testament to, and celebration of, the power within.”—Deepak Chopra, MD

Whether it’s meditation or a walk in nature, reading a sacred text or saying a prayer, there are many ways to tap into a heightened awareness of the world around you and your place in it. In The Awakened Brain, psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller shows you how. 
 
Weaving her own deeply personal journey of awakening with her groundbreaking research, Dr. Miller’s book reveals that humans are universally equipped with a capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust as a result of it. For leaders in business and government, truth-seekers, parents, healers, educators, and any person confronting life’s biggest questions, The Awakened Brain combines cutting-edge science (from MRI studies to genetic research, epidemiology, and more) with on-the-ground application for people of all ages and from all walks of life, illuminating the surprising science of spirituality and how to engage it in our lives:  
 
• The awakened decision is the better decision. With an awakened perception, we are more creative, collaborative, ethical, and innovative.
• The awakened brain is the healthier brain. An engaged spiritual life enhances grit, optimism, and resilience while providing insulation against addiction, trauma, and depression. 
• The awakened life is the inspired life. Loss, uncertainty, and even trauma are the gateways by which we are invited to move beyond merely coping with hardship to transcend into a life of renewal, healing, joy, and fulfillment.

Absorbing, uplifting, and ultimately enlightening, The Awakened Brain is a conversation-starting saga of scientific discovery packed with counterintuitive findings and practical advice on concrete ways to access your innate spirituality and build a life of meaning and contribution.

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Chapter 1

Nothing Could Have Been Done

A long, low howl broke the early morning quiet of the ward, followed by a scream. I rushed out of the cramped office where interns and residents filled out charts, ready to assist whoever was in distress. Before I could locate the source of the scream, a nurse hurried around the corner balancing a tray of bottles and sterile syringes and disappeared into a patient’s room. Soon all was quiet again. Fluorescent lights glared off the manila-colored walls and gray linoleum floors.

It was the fall of 1994. I’d recently finished my doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania and had chosen a clinical internship as a psychologist at a psychiatric inpatient unit in Manhattan, part of a network of premier university hospitals at the epicenter of clinical advances in psychotherapy and mental health. Because the clinical approach and standard of care would have been similar at any other major American urban hospital, I’ll call the ward Unit 6. (All names and identifying details of the patients have been changed.) The patients on Unit 6 were diverse in ethnicity and age, many poor, many with rough lives and recurrent diagnoses, many also grappling with substance abuse. Sometimes they were brought to the hospital emergency room by the police against their will, to prevent suicide or homicide.

This wasn’t a top-choice hospital—patients with good insurance often went elsewhere—but it wasn’t a final stop, either. To come here wasn’t the equivalent of being “sent upstate,” the euphemism many medical staff and patients used to refer to a long-term mental illness facility in northern New York. Yet all of the patients I’d met here had been admitted and re-admitted numerous times, their files three or four inches thick. I was one of four interns on the ward, each of us serving two residents at a time, as well as a caseload of eight through our outpatient clinic. We started each day with a team meeting at eight o’clock sharp, …