Hypnosis, meditation and prayer: trainable states with measurable brain changes

The Short Version

Three researchers who come at the mind from very different directions end up describing the same thing: an altered state of attention that you can learn, that shows up as measurable changes in brain activity, and that people can use to deal with pain, stress and distraction without a drug. Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel shows hypnosis quieting the brain's alarm system and linking its control centers to the body, with trials that cut procedural pain by 80% while patients used half the opioids [1]. Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg has spent about 30 years scanning people as they pray, meditate and speak in tongues, and finds consistent shifts in the parietal lobe, limbic system, thalamus and frontal lobes, along with lower stress, anxiety and depression in people who practice [2]. Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and meditation teacher, describes meditation as a trainable way to catch thoughts as thoughts, so that anger, pain and anxiety lose their grip, and he points to evidence that meditation, like hypnosis, suppresses the brain's self-talk network [3]. They disagree on how certain the science is and on who can get there, but all three say the state is a skill, not a gift.

Table of contents

What They Said

David Spiegel: hypnosis is focused attention, and it gives you control

Spiegel is associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, directs the Stanford Center on Stress and Health, and is a leading researcher on clinical hypnosis [1]. His starting point is a definition that strips away the stage-show image: "Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention" [1]. He compares it to the telephoto lens of a camera, which gives great detail but little context, and says most people already slip into hypnotic-like states every day, for instance when they get so absorbed in a movie they forget they're sitting in the audience, or so wrapped up in a sports game that they feel it in their bodies [1].

He has no patience for stage hypnosis. "You're making fools out of people," he says, explaining that stage performers quietly screen audiences for the most hypnotizable people [1]. He recalls a woman his father treated after a stage hypnotist told her a bird was in her hand: she felt trapped like a bird in a gilded cage in her marriage and wandered New York City in a dissociated state until his father helped her [1]. That story shows both the power of the state and its potential for misuse. The fear most people have is that hypnosis means giving up control, and Spiegel turns that around: "They think you're losing control. You're gaining control." [1] Being able to suspend critical judgment and see things from a new point of view is, in his words, a great therapeutic opportunity [1].

His own conviction came from a case in medical school at Boston Children's Hospital. A 16-year-old girl was struggling to breathe during a severe asthma attack despite two shots of epinephrine, and doctors were considering general anesthesia [1]. He hypnotized her and suggested each breath would be a little deeper and a little easier; within five minutes she was breathing comfortably [1]. A nurse complained that he had broken a law against hypnotizing minors, which he doubted existed, but the patient chose to continue; she had only one more hospitalization and later trained as a respiratory therapist [1]. The lesson he drew is that we have a brain without a user's manual and don't use it nearly as well as we could [1]. The practice also runs in his family: his father learned hypnosis in 1943, used it with wounded soldiers, and found a few hypnosis sessions often worked better than daily psychoanalysis [1].

Spiegel's clinical results are the strongest numbers in any of the three conversations. In a randomized trial published in The Lancet, patients having uncomfortable procedures without general anesthesia, such as treatment of liver tumors or imaging of the kidney arteries, got standard care with on-demand IV opioids, standard care plus a supportive nurse, or self-hypnosis training in which they imagined the body cool, tingling and numb, or floated to a desert island [1]. About an hour and a half into the roughly two-and-a-half-hour procedure, the hypnosis group had cut their pain by 80% compared with standard care while using half the opioids, with fewer complications, no anxiety, and procedures that finished 17 minutes sooner [1]. His comment: "if we had a drug that did that every hospital in the country would be using it now," but no industry exists to push it [1].

The effects can last. In a randomized trial of women with metastatic breast cancer who met weekly in support groups and learned self-hypnosis, the treatment group had half the pain of the control group by the end of a year while using very little medication [1]. In a trial published in Pediatrics, children having a difficult bladder imaging procedure who learned self-hypnosis were less anxious, felt less pain and finished 17 minutes faster [1]. He also cites a randomized trial from Israel in which adding hypnosis to PTSD treatment improved outcomes [1].

For stress and sleep, his technique separates the body's reaction from the mind's. Stress often snowballs: you notice your body tensing and sweating, decide it's really bad, and feel worse [1]. So people imagine their body floating somewhere safe and comfortable, such as a bath, a lake or space, and picture the problem on an imaginary screen, with the rule that no matter what they see, the body stays comfortable; then they use the screen to think through one thing they might do [1]. For sleep, he tells people not to look at the clock if they wake at night, because the clock is an arousal cue, and to watch their worries on the screen while their body keeps floating; he says he gets emails from people who hadn't slept well in 15 years and now can [1].

For trauma, Spiegel's central claim is that "the essence of trauma is helplessness it's not fear it's not pain it's helplessness." [1] Self-hypnosis is something you make happen and can switch on and off, so it restores a sense of control [1]. He describes a woman who survived an attempted rape with a skull fracture. Under hypnosis, with her body floating safely, she pictured the attacker on one side of the screen and realized he had planned to kill her; on the other side she pictured what she did to protect herself and saw that by fighting so hard she had probably saved her life [1]. It was worse than she thought, but she could now see her own strength [1]. He also uses the late Stanford psychologist Gordon Bower's idea of state-dependent memory: we recall best in the state we were in, and because many survivors dissociate during trauma, hypnosis can bring the therapy state closer to the one they were in [1].

He is clear that hypnosis is a skill. He usually sees patients only once or twice: he tests their hypnotizability, guides them through an exercise for their problem, and teaches them to do it on their own, and people can tell quickly whether it helps [1]. He also stresses that hypnotic states aren't only for relaxing. Classical pianists describe floating above the piano thinking about tone rather than their fingers, and athletes at their peak are flowing rather than thinking step by step [1].

Andrew Newberg: prayer and meditation on the scanner

Newberg is a neuroscientist and medical doctor, director of research for integrative health at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Medical College, and a pioneer of what he calls neurotheology [2]. His opening message is inclusive: "we all have a pretty similar kind of brain," so these experiences are open to religious, spiritual and atheist people alike [2]. The most common definition of spiritual, he says, is "connecting with something greater than the self," which can mean God or a universal consciousness, but also nature, creativity, music or humanity [2].

His research began with a simple question while he was scanning diseases: "if I'm doing brain scans of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, why can't I do brain scans of meditation and prayer?" [2] He explains that "About 30 years ago, we did our very first brain scans of people in meditation. And since then, we've scanned hundreds of people doing all different kinds of practices." [2] Those include secular practices like mindfulness and yoga, Buddhist meditation, and deeply spiritual practices including speaking in tongues [2]. Quiet practices can be done inside an MRI scanner, which he jokes "is the perfect place to start praying, because it's a pretty challenging place to be." [2] For practices that involve movement and singing, he uses nuclear medicine: a radioactive tracer that tracks blood flow or a neurotransmitter such as serotonin or dopamine is injected through an IV in the middle of the practice, and a scan 15 to 20 minutes later shows a snapshot of what the brain was doing at the moment of injection [2].

What the scans show falls into a few regions. The parietal lobe normally builds our spatial sense of self, keeping you on the sidewalk and out of the trees; in deep meditation or prayer its activity drops, and the boundary between self and world seems to dissolve into a sense of oneness with God, the universe or others [2]. The limbic system, the emotional center, becomes very active during intense joy or awe, marking the moment as special and writing it into memory, which is why such experiences can reshape beliefs [2]. The frontal lobes, active while people concentrate on a prayer or meditation, quiet down at the point where people surrender to the experience [2]. And the thalamus, a central hub that links brain regions and relays sensory information, changes too: "we see very significant shifts in the activity of this Thalamus in people who have had these experiences versus people who have not had these experiences." [2] His speculation is that "there's something that happens that kind of opens up a new way of thinking" and that "there are kind of new connections that are forming in the brain." [2]

That led to a study of people on an intense retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: afterward their brains were more sensitive to dopamine and serotonin [2]. Mel Robbins connects this to the afterglow many people feel after a retreat, a moving service or a concert, and Newberg agrees, noting that antidepressant drugs also work on the serotonin system [2].

A scan can't tell him what someone is experiencing, so Newberg also surveyed a couple of thousand people about their spiritual experiences in their own words [2]. His team found five elements almost everyone describes: unity or oneness, intensity, clarity, surrender and transformation [2]. About 90 to 95% of people said the experience changed them for the better, affecting their relationships, work, religious beliefs and even their fear of death [2]. People from different traditions show common patterns, such as the parietal drop when they feel oneness, but the content differs: a Christian may feel connected to Jesus, a Muslim to Allah, a Buddhist to universal consciousness [2].

Newberg insists this isn't reserved for mystics. "we don't have a separate brain that becomes spirit," he says; the same brain areas are at work in small experiences, so a sunrise, a walk in the woods, a Mozart concerto or holding a child sits on the same continuum as a mystical experience [2]. His favorite example is a police officer he saw while in medical school, directing traffic by dancing, waving his arms and blowing his whistle in rhythms: "that's an enlightened being" [2]. It's not what you do but how you engage it [2].

On the health side, he speaks as a doctor: "the data are pretty clear that it helps you to manage stress better. It helps you reduce stress. It helps to reduce anxiety, depression." [2] Because those states are tied to the heart and lungs through the autonomic nervous system, he says spiritual practice "helps our immune system work better" and helps combat diseases like cancer and heart disease [2]. And the brain stays trainable: "we did a study where we looked at older individuals who started to do a meditation practice and their brain changes. So whether you're 85 or five, you can change your brain and you can change your brain in positive ways." [2]

He is also the most openly humble of the three about what the scans mean. When an area "lights up," he asks, "if there's 10 million neurons in that area, are they all becoming more active? Is it just 20 of them?" [2] After decades of work, "the questions are more than the answers," and he says "we've just scratched the surface" [2]. He doesn't expect science to prove or disprove the spiritual, only to enrich our understanding [2].

Sam Harris: meditation as a trainable way of seeing your own mind

Harris, a neuroscientist, author and meditation teacher who created the Waking Up app, grants the familiar benefits of meditation, like lowering stress and improving focus, but says the science on many of them is provisional [3]. For him the deeper purpose isn't to change the contents of consciousness but to recognize what consciousness is like, and in particular that the feeling of a separate subject sitting behind the eyes is an illusion [3]. If you look for the thinker behind your thoughts, he says, you won't find it, and that discovery brings deeper benefits [3].

His connection to the brain-science thread is the default mode network: midline regions that become active between tasks and during self-referential thinking [3]. In one of his own experiments, challenging people's political or religious beliefs increased activity there [3]. Both meditation and psychedelics seem to suppress these regions, which are associated with self-talk and mind-wandering, and Huberman adds that his colleague David Spiegel has found hypnosis dramatically suppresses the default mode network too [3]. That single exchange links all three practices to the same brain system.

Harris's account of why we feel like a self is itself about attention. Toddlers talk out loud to themselves and keep going after the parent leaves the room, and we never stop, because evolution never built an off switch for self-talk [3]. His key line: "the self is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking." [3] A thought arises uninspected and seems to become you, and even a thought of self-hatred can quietly set your mood [3].

The first thing practice reveals is how untrained attention is. Harris challenges listeners to pay attention to anything, their breath, a hand or a clock, for 30 seconds without getting lost in thought, and says essentially no one can, even if their life depended on it [3]. On silent retreats people often feel they're getting worse after several days, able to stay present for only five seconds, but he calls that progress, because they're finally seeing how distractible they are [3]. Mindfulness, in his definition, is careful attention to the contents of consciousness without being lost in thought; thoughts still arise, but you notice them as thoughts [3]. He mentions research showing improved visual discrimination after a three-month retreat, as if the frame rate goes up [3].

He describes two "step functions" in practice. The first is being able to notice thought as thought: when you're angry and replaying reasons to be angry, noticing the thinking lets it dissolve, and the anger has a short half-life once you stop feeding it, so you can decide how long you want to stay angry [3]. The second is recognizing that no one is doing the noticing, just an open condition in which everything appears; as a matter of experience, he says, "consciousness is not in your body" [3]. At first you feel like you're on a riverbank watching thoughts flow by, "But the truth is, you are the river." [3]

For pain and stress, this is where meditation becomes practical. Paying close attention to pain shows that much of the suffering came from resisting and worrying about the sensation, which breaks apart into shifting sensations when fully felt [3]. Anxiety before a talk works the same way: felt as pure physiology, it stops mapping onto who you are [3]. He also offers a model for chosen stress: a hard set in the gym physiologically resembles a medical emergency, but because you chose it and understand it, you can be at peace while straining [3].

Harris is explicit that this is learned, and that learning it took him a long time. He spent roughly a year on silent retreats, in stretches from a week to three months, meditating 12 to 18 hours a day, before he understood the point he now teaches, and he argues that better information can shorten that search [3]. His practical advice is to start with eyes closed and a short daily session, then erase the boundary between formal practice and the rest of life, including eyes-open practice [3]. Running, skiing or playing guitar isn't meditation in itself, he says, but once you know how to meditate you can meditate while doing any of them [3].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Agreement

The state is a skill, not magic. Spiegel says hypnosis works because it becomes a skill that people can tell quickly is helping, and he teaches it in one or two sessions [1]. Newberg says anyone can change their brain, from 85 to five, and advises trying practices until one fits [2]. Harris spent a year of retreats learning what he now teaches and says better information can shorten the path [3]. None of them treats the state as a gift for a chosen few.

Everyday life already contains the state. Spiegel points to getting lost in a movie or a game [1]. Newberg points to a sunrise, a hike or holding a grandchild, which sit on the same continuum as mystical experience [2]. Harris points to flow states in sport, sex or creative work, when attention is absorbed and the sense of self drops away [3]. All three are describing a stronger, deliberate version of something ordinary.

The self-referential brain quiets. Spiegel's fMRI work shows the executive control area becoming inversely connected with the posterior cingulate cortex, part of the default mode network tied to self-reflection [1]. Harris says meditation and psychedelics suppress that same network, and Huberman relays Spiegel's finding that hypnosis does too [3]. Newberg's scans show the parietal lobe, which builds our spatial sense of self, going quiet as the boundary between self and world dissolves, and the frontal lobes quieting at the moment of surrender [2]. Different regions, but the same pattern: the parts of the brain that keep up a running sense of "me" step back.

Neurons that fire together wire together. Both Spiegel and Newberg reach for the same rule. Spiegel uses it to suggest repeated self-hypnosis may strengthen these networks [1]. Newberg uses "the neurons that fire together, wire together" to explain both how practice deepens and how people get stuck in old patterns [2].

Drug-free, or close to it. Spiegel sees hypnosis more as a replacement than something that needs a supplement, rarely combines it with drugs, and notes benzodiazepines can blunt focus [1]. Newberg notes that his retreat study found increased serotonin sensitivity, the same system antidepressants target [2]. Harris uses mindfulness to take apart pain and anger with attention alone [3].

Disagreement

How solid is the evidence? Here the three plainly differ. Spiegel presents randomized trials in The Lancet and Pediatrics with large effect sizes [1]. Newberg, speaking as a doctor, says "the data are pretty clear" about stress, anxiety and depression and extends the benefits to immune function, cancer and heart disease [2]. Harris is more cautious: he doesn't discount the benefits of meditation but says the science on many of them is provisional [3]. The reason for the gap is partly what each is measuring. Spiegel tests a specific procedure against controls in a specific clinical setting [1]. Newberg is summarizing a broad literature on engaging the spiritual side [2]. Harris cares less about the benefits than about an insight into the self, so he has little reason to oversell the health claims [3]. Newberg is himself cautious about his own scans, asking whether a "lit up" area means 10 million neurons or just 20 [2].

Can everyone get there? Spiegel is the most restrictive. About a third of adults are not hypnotizable and about 15% are extremely hypnotizable; hypnotizability peaks from roughly six to eleven, is largely fixed by the early twenties, and was more stable than IQ in a 25-year retest [1]. Training raises scores only a little, and he says it isn't worth the effort [1]. Newberg says the opposite about spiritual practice: everyone has a similar brain, and the right practice is a matter of finding your own key [2]. Harris assumes anyone can learn mindfulness, though he admits that when he guided Richard Dawkins through a meditation, Dawkins saw nothing of interest [3]. The difference makes sense: Spiegel measures a stable trait that sets how deep a hypnotic state can go, while Newberg and Harris describe practices that anyone can start. Spiegel's own answer for people who score low is to use other approaches, including mindfulness [1], so the positions meet in the middle.

Is the goal relief or insight? Spiegel is problem-focused and calls hypnosis the oldest Western conception of psychotherapy: you use the state to deal with a specific pain, fear or memory [1]. Newberg aims at meaning, purpose, optimism and compassion as well as health [2]. Harris explicitly ranks relief second: the real purpose of meditation is recognizing that there is no separate self [3]. They are using related states for different ends.

Oneness versus emptiness. Newberg's first core element is unity, the feeling of merging with God, the universe or others [2]. Harris distinguishes the Buddhist idea of emptiness, having no center, from the oneness or merging experiences psychedelics can bring, which he says can be a bigger "somethingness" rather than true selflessness [3]. Newberg is describing what people report and carefully doesn't judge whether they are right [2]; Harris is making a claim about what the most useful insight actually is [3].

Why It Works

Hypnosis: three network changes and a body link

Spiegel's lab scanned highly and low hypnotizable people and found three changes [1]:

1. The alarm quiets. Activity drops in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, part of the salience network that detects conflict and danger, so you are less likely to be pulled out of your focus [1]. Highly hypnotizable people also show stronger coordination between this area and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), part of the executive control network, even when not hypnotized [1].
2. Control links to the body. The DLPFC becomes more connected to the insula, which senses the body and pain [1]. That explains a striking finding: hypnotized people who took an imaginary tour eating their favorite foods increased their stomach acid secretion by 87%, and one woman asked to stop because she felt full [1]. When they relaxed and thought of anything but food, secretion dropped by about 40%, and even after an injection of a drug that triggers stomach acid, hypnosis lowered it by 19% [1].
3. Self-monitoring steps back. The DLPFC becomes inversely connected with the posterior cingulate cortex in the default mode network, a dissociation that lets people act without worrying what it means for them and makes them more flexible and willing to try something new [1].

He adds that spectroscopy shows more hypnotizable people have more GABA activity in the anterior cingulate, a natural calming effect [1]. He also explains the eye-roll test's logic: it asks the brain to do something contradictory, and eye movements are closely tied to levels of consciousness, changing in sleep, dreaming and with drugs; looking up and closing your eyes while staying alert signals the brain to turn inward [1]. And breathing sits at the edge of conscious and unconscious control, which is why, after his research with Huberman on cyclic sighing, he stresses a slow exhale in his inductions [1].

Prayer and meditation: self-boundary, emotion, hub and neurochemistry

Newberg's mechanism maps onto his five elements [2]. Unity goes with a drop in parietal lobe activity, which normally maintains the spatial sense of self [2]. Intensity goes with a very active limbic system, which also writes the moment into memory, giving it the power to change beliefs [2]. Clarity goes with shifts in the thalamus, the hub that "connects different parts of the brain to each other" and "brings sensory information, particularly from vision and hearing into our brain" [2]. Surrender goes with the frontal lobes quieting after a period of concentration [2]. The retreat study adds a lasting neurochemical change: greater sensitivity to dopamine and serotonin [2]. Health effects run, he says, through the autonomic nervous system, which connects these states to the heart, lungs and immune system [2].

Mindfulness: seeing thoughts as thoughts

Harris's mechanism is partly neural and partly experiential. Neurally, meditation seems to suppress the default mode network, associated with self-talk and mind-wandering [3]. Experientially, suffering depends on identification with thought; the moment you notice anger as a thought, it has nothing to feed on and fades on its own short half-life [3]. With pain, attention shows that much of the suffering was resistance and worry layered on top of the sensation [3]. Spiegel describes a very similar move in hypnosis for stress: separating the physical reaction from the psychological story about it, so the body stays comfortable while the mind looks at the problem [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

Where the sources say it helps

• Procedural and cancer pain: 80% less pain with half the opioids during procedures; half the pain over a year for women with metastatic breast cancer [1].
• Children's procedures: less anxiety and pain and 17 minutes faster in the bladder imaging trial; pediatricians also use a "happy button" on a child's belly button during shots [1].
• Stress, sleep and phobias: the floating-body and screen technique, the no-clock rule for night waking, and building new associations for phobias, like the dog-phobic woman who later bought a dog and named it after Spiegel's father [1].
• Trauma: hypnosis added to PTSD treatment improved outcomes in the Israeli trial, and it can restore a sense of control [1].
• Stress, anxiety and depression generally: Newberg's reading of the data on spiritual practice [2].
• Anger, anxiety before a talk, and pain: Harris's mindfulness approach of catching thoughts as thoughts [3].
• Performance: hypnotic-like flow in pianists and athletes [1]; eyes-open meditation during ordinary activities [3].

Where it doesn't, or not as well

• People who aren't hypnotizable. About a third of adults aren't, and training helps only a little [1]. The eye-roll test gives a hint: tilt your head back, look up toward the ceiling and slowly close your eyelids; if mostly the whites show, you are likely more hypnotizable [1].
• OCD and possibly ADHD. People with OCD tend to be less hypnotizable because they are so busy evaluating rather than experiencing, and Spiegel suspects many people with ADHD are not very hypnotizable, though he hasn't studied it [1].
• Undiagnosed symptoms. Spiegel recommends working with someone licensed in their primary discipline, because a problem like chest pain needs a proper diagnosis first [1].
• Guaranteed results. Newberg urges patience: there's no guarantee a walk in the woods will produce enlightenment, and "There is never a one-size-fits-all" [2].
• Quick fixes. Harris found that even his clearest insight took a long stretch of intensive practice, and he warns that chasing peak experiences, as with psychedelics, sets up a cycle of impermanent highs [3].
• The evidence itself. Harris calls much of the benefits science provisional [3], and Newberg admits scans can't say how many neurons are involved or what a person is actually experiencing [2].
• Psychedelics are not the drug-free route. Harris credits MDMA and psychedelics with opening the door for him but says their experiences wear off, and that people prone to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder should avoid them [3].

Anyone using these practices for a medical condition, chronic pain or trauma should do so alongside a qualified clinician, as Spiegel himself advises [1].

What To Do With It

1. Test your hypnotizability. Try the eye-roll test: head back, eyes up toward the ceiling, eyelids closing slowly. Mostly whites suggests you may benefit more from hypnosis; if the colored iris shows, lean toward other approaches such as mindfulness, as Spiegel does for low scorers [1].
2. Use the floating-body and screen exercise for stress. Imagine your body floating somewhere safe, like a bath, a lake or space, put the problem on an imaginary screen, keep the body comfortable whatever you see, and use the screen to think of one thing you might do [1].
3. Don't check the clock at night. If you wake up, skip the clock, which is an arousal cue, and watch your worries on the screen while your body keeps floating [1].
4. Slow your exhale. Spiegel now builds a long, slow exhale into his inductions to promote relaxation, drawing on his cyclic sighing research with Huberman [1].
5. Learn self-hypnosis from a proper source. Spiegel points to the Reveri app, with 15-minute sessions and one- to two-minute refreshers for pain, stress, focus, insomnia, eating and smoking, and to the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis for referrals to trained clinicians [1].
6. Try Harris's 30-second test, then practice daily. Attend to your breath for 30 seconds without getting lost in thought, notice how hard it is, and treat that noticing as progress; then start with a short, eyes-closed daily session [3].
7. Catch anger and pain as thoughts and sensations. When you're replaying reasons to be angry, notice the thinking and let the anger's short half-life run out; with pain or pre-talk nerves, feel the raw sensation and drop the resistance and worry around it [3].
8. Define what you're looking for and pick a fitting practice. Newberg suggests writing down your goal, whether less anxiety, connection to humanity or something religious, researching practices that fit, trying them, and changing direction if they don't feel right [2].
9. Build a new ritual when you feel stuck. Make a conscious, purposeful effort to break old patterns with a new ritual or practice, and look back at moments when you felt unity, intensity, clarity, surrender or transformation for clues [2]. Robbins, for example, uses walks in nature and lighting a particular incense each morning [2].
10. Bring it into ordinary life. Treat a sunrise, a walk to work or breakfast as a chance to engage fully, as Newberg's dancing traffic officer did [2], and, once you can meditate, practice with eyes open while running, cooking or playing music [3].

Sources

1. Dr. David Spiegel: Using Hypnosis to Enhance Health & Performance · Huberman Lab
2. The Science of Spiritual Experiences: How to Rewire Your Brain for More Happiness & Purpose · The Mel Robbins Podcast
3. Dr Sam Harris Using Meditation To Focus View Consciousness Expand Your Mind · Huberman Lab