How God Changes Your Brain

How God Changes Your Brain PDF Author: Andrew Newberg, M.D.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345512790
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
God is great—for your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Based on new evidence culled from brain-scan studies, a wide-reaching survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences, and the authors’ analyses of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and therapist Mark Robert Waldman offer the following breakthrough discoveries: • Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process. • Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety and depression and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love. • Fundamentalism, in and of itself, can be personally beneficial, but the prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain. • Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain, altering your values and the way you perceive reality. Both a revelatory work of modern science and a practical guide for readers to enhance their physical and emotional health, How God Changes Your Brain is a first-of-a-kind book about faith that is as credible as it is inspiring.

Sex, God, and the Brain

Sex, God, and the Brain PDF Author: Andrew Newberg
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1684428637
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
For the modern world, it seems as if sexuality and spirituality have always been at odds. But what if the two are actually deeply connected? And what if science could prove this connection? From neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, Sex, God, and the Brain argues that our religious and spiritual experiences derive directly from our sexual being. While others have speculated on a connection between religion and sex, Newberg is the first to demonstrate—with groundbreaking brain scan research gained through Orgasmic Meditation studies—that the underlying biological mechanism of religious, spiritual, and sexual experiences are identical. With research technical enough for academics, but explained simply enough for the everyday reader, Sex, God, and the Brain, will reframe our understanding of the link between spirituality and sexuality.

God's Brain

God's Brain PDF Author: Lionel Tiger
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 163388337X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Two distinguished authors, renowned anthropologist Lionel Tiger and pioneering neuroscientist Michael McGuire, elucidate the perennial questions about religion: What is its purpose? How did it arise? What is its source? Why does every known culture have some form of it?Their answer is deceptively simple, yet at the same time highly complex: The brain creates religion and its varied concepts of God, and then in turn feeds on its creation to satisfy innate neurological and associated social needs.Brain science reveals that humans and other primates alike are afflicted by unavoidable sources of stress that the authors describe as "brainpain." To cope with this affliction people seek to "brainsoothe." We humans use religion and its social structures to induce brainsoothing as a relief for innate anxiety. How we do this is the subject of this groundbreaking book.In a concise, lively, accessible, and witty style, the authors combine zoom-lens vignettes of religious practices with discussions of the latest research on religion's neurological effects on the brain. Among other topics, they consider religion's role in providing positive socialization, its seeming obsession with regulating sex, the common biological scaffolding between nonhuman primates and humans and how this affects religion, and evidence that the palliative effects of religion on brain chemistry are not matched by nonreligious remedies.This fascinating book provides key insights into the complexities of our brain and the role of religion, perhaps its most remarkable creation.

Sex, God, and the Brain

Sex, God, and the Brain PDF Author: Andrew Newberg
Publisher: Turner
ISBN: 9781684428625
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
While others have speculated on a connection between religion and sex, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, in Sex, God, and the Brain, is the first to demonstrate--with groundbreaking brain scan research--that the underlying biological mechanism of religious, spiritual, and sexual experiences are identical.

Recapture the Rapture

Recapture the Rapture PDF Author: Jamie Wheal
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006290549X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
“A highly personal, richly informed and culturally wide-ranging meditation on the loss of meaning in our times and on pathways to rediscovering it.” —Gabor Maté, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction A neuroanthropologist maps out a revolutionary new practice—Hedonic Engineering—that combines the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology. It’s an intensive program of breathing, movement, and sexuality that mends trauma, heightens inspiration and tightens connections—helping us wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all. This is a book about a big idea. And the idea is this: Slowly over the past few decades, and now suddenly, all at once, we’re suffering from a collapse in Meaning. Fundamentalism and nihilism are filling that vacuum, with consequences that affect us all. In a world that needs us at our best, diseases of despair, tribalism, and disaster fatigue are leaving us at our worst. It’s vital that we regain control of the stories we’re telling because they are shaping the future we’re creating. To do that, we have to remember our deepest inspiration, heal our pain and apathy, and connect to each other like never before. If we can do that, we’ve got a shot at solving the big problems we face. And if we can’t? Well, the dustbin of history has swallowed civilizations older and fancier than ours. This book is divided into three parts. The first, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, takes a look at our current Meaning Crisis--where we are today, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, what might be coming next, and what to do about it. It also makes a case that many of our efforts to cope, whether anxiety and denial, or tribalism and identity politics, are likely making things worse. The middle section, The Alchemist Cookbook, applies the creative firm IDEO’s design thinking to the Meaning Crisis. This is where the book gets hands on--taking a look at the strongest evolutionary drivers that can bring about inspiration, healing, and connection. From breathing, to movement, sexuality, music, and substances--these are the everyday tools to help us wake up, grow up, and show up. AKA--how to blow yourself sky high with household materials. And the best part? They’re accessible, by anyone anywhere, no middleman required. Transcendence democratized. The final third of the book, Ethical Cult Building, focuses on the tricky nature of putting these kinds of experiences into gear and into culture—because, anytime in the past when we’ve figured out combinations of peak states and deep healing, we’ve almost always ended up with problematic culty communities. Playing with fire has left a lot of people burned. This section lays out a roadmap for sparking a thousand fires around the world--each one unique and tailored to the needs and values of its participants. Think of it as an open-source toolkit for building ethical culture. In Recapture the Rapture, we’re taking radical research out of the extremes and applying it to the mainstream--to the broader social problem of healing, believing, and belonging. It’s providing answers to the questions we face: how to replace blind faith with direct experience, how to move from broken to whole, and how to cure isolation with connection. Said even more plainly, it shows us how to revitalize our bodies, boost our creativity, rekindle our relationships, and answer once and for all the questions of why we are here and what do we do now? In a world that needs the best of us from the rest of us, this is a book that shows us how to get it done.

The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain

The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain PDF Author: Judith Horstman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118109538
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Who do we love? Who loves us? And why? Is love really a mystery, or can neuroscience offer some answers to these age-old questions? In her third enthralling book about the brain, Judith Horstman takes us on a lively tour of our most important sex and love organ and the whole smorgasbord of our many kinds of love-from the bonding of parent and child to the passion of erotic love, the affectionate love of companionship, the role of animals in our lives, and the love of God. Drawing on the latest neuroscience, she explores why and how we are born to love-how we're hardwired to crave the companionship of others, and how very badly things can go without love. Among the findings: parental love makes our brain bigger, sex and orgasm make it healthier, social isolation makes it miserable-and although the craving for romantic love can be described as an addiction, friendship may actually be the most important loving relationship of your life. Based on recent studies and articles culled from the prestigious Scientific American and Scientific American Mind magazines, The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex, and the Brain offers a fascinating look at how the brain controls our loving relationships, most intimate moments, and our deep and basic need for connection.

Wired for Intimacy

Wired for Intimacy PDF Author: William M. Struthers
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458765555
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Pornography is powerful. Our contemporary culture as been pornified, and it shapes our assumptions about identity, sexuality, the value of women and the nature of relationships. Countless Christian men struggle with the addictive power of porn. But common spiritual approaches of more prayer and accountability groups are often of limited help. In this book neuroscientist and researcher William Struthers explains how pornography affects the male brain and what we can do about it. Because we are embodied beings, viewing pornography changes how the brain works, how we form memories and make attachments. By better understanding the biological realities of our sexual development, we can cultivate healthier sexual perspectives and interpersonal relationships. Struthers exposes false assumptions and casts a vision for a redeemed masculinity, showing how our sexual longings can actually propel us toward sanctification and holiness in our bodies. With insights for both married and single men alike, this book offers hope for freedom from pornography.

The Great Sex Rescue

The Great Sex Rescue PDF Author: Sheila Wray Gregoire
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493428802
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
What if it's not your fault that sex is bad in your marriage? Based on a groundbreaking in-depth survey of 22,000 Christian women, The Great Sex Rescue unlocks the secrets to what makes some marriages red hot while others fizzle out. Generations of women have grown up with messages about sex that make them feel dirty, used, or invisible, while men have been sold such a cheapened version of sex, they don't know what they're missing. The Great Sex Rescue hopes to turn all of that around, developing a truly biblical view of sex where mutuality, intimacy, and passion reign. The Great Sex Rescue pulls back the curtain on what is happening in Christian bedrooms and exposes the problematic teachings that wreck sex for so many couples--and the good teachings that leave others breathless. In the #metoo and #churchtoo era, not only is this book a long overdue corrective to church culture, it is poised to free thousands of couples from repressive and dissatisfying sex lives so that they can experience the kind of intimacy and wholeness God intended.

Hooked

Hooked PDF Author: Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr.
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 0802497306
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
How sex is rewiring your brain—for good and for bad What does a three-pound brain have to do with one’s sex life? A lot, actually. Hooked is about what’s happening to your brain when you’re having sex. With scientific data put in layman’s terms, this book demonstrates that: Sexual activity releases chemicals in the brain, creating emotional bonds between partners. This is great news for marriages! Once formed, however, breaking these bonds can have damaging effects on the brain such as depression and difficulty bonding with someone else in the future. The continual forming and breaking of these bonds can have permanent effects on a person’s brain. PLUS! This updated edition also includes a brand new chapter about the effects of pornography on the brain. All this data about bonding, sex, and pornography has important implications in a casual sex culture. Regardless of what we wish were true, the facts tell us “safe sex” isn't as safe as it seems. Learn about your brain, the positive effects of sex within permanently committed relationships, and how you can protect yourself (especially your brain) from the dangers of casual sex.

Unleash the Power of the Female Brain

Unleash the Power of the Female Brain PDF Author: Daniel G. Amen, M.D.
Publisher: Harmony
ISBN: 0307888967
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
From one of the world's leading experts on how the brain works, a step-by-step, practical program for women to achieve greater health, energy, and lasting happiness by harnessing the power of the female brain. For the first time, bestselling author and brain expert Dr. Daniel G. Amen offers insight on the unique characteristics and needs of the female brain and a practical, prescriptive program targeted specifically for women to help them thrive. In this breakthrough guide based on research from his clinical practice, Dr. Amen addresses the issues women ask about the most including fertility, pregnancy, menopause, weight, stress, anxiety, insomnia, and relationships.