Rewiring Your Brain with Common Prayer
My name is Frank. I am a tech addict. And as you are reading this via email or perhaps through a Facebook link, there is a good possibility that you share my compulsion. Before you decide, consider what neuroscientist are telling us about how certain technology usage mimics addictive behavior and is even rewiring your brain.
How technology rewards you
Much of the way one interacts with technology, causes the brain to release small hits of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter once linked to pleasure, but neuroscientists now know that opiates relate to the pleasure centers, while dopamine actually excites the brain to searching and seeking (See Psychology Today article). So as you go clicking around the internet for information, or check your phone for a text, or your Facebook feed for an update, you are sometimes frustrated by not finding what you want and other times you are rewarded with the answer you are looking for, a new text message or Facebook update from someone you care about. The random nature of this is actual part of the allure. Just as the gambling industry has long known that random paybacks of varying amounts keep people hooked longer, so too the frustration of not finding what you are looking for actually hooks you to your email account or Facebook feed (See article in The Altlantic).
The unpredictable nature of when you will get a tech pay off with information you care about is exactly what gets the dopamine system going. This activity causes your brain to receive hits of dopamine which itself drives a further desire to search. Watch someone checking their smart phone and know that each time they check for texts or social media updates, dopaminergic neurons are sending out messages to parts of their brain to encourage even more seeking. That obsessive smart phone user is actually getting chemically rewarded for the behavior just like a mouse getting cheese for successfully running a maze.
Why this matters
This constant search for connection via technology is mentally and physically rewarding, but as the reward is a chemical hit encouraging more seeking, the loop cycles again and again. There is a high cost to this feedback loop which comes in the form of exhaustion. Beyond this we find decreasing attention available for other tasks as multi-tasking isn’t actually possible. One has to switch from one task to another. Each time one switches tasks, attention suffers. For a well-written look at the tragic consequences this can have, read A Deadly Wandering. The book, by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Matt Richtel, explores matters of attention in detail by using the deadly example of texting while driving.
To be clear, I am using the term addiction loosely. The best science would name technology use a compulsion rather than an addiction. While that may seem a semantic distinction only, be aware if you do kick the tech habit, you still don’t know how difficult it is for your friends in recovery to stay off drugs and alcohol.
The Cure
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Your Brain on the Book of Common Prayer
Remember the old anti-drug commercial in which they show an egg and say “This is your brain”. Then they crack open the egg and plop it messily into a hot frying pan and the narrator says, “This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” Beyond this advertising metaphor, we actually have images of the brain on prayer and specifically The Lord’s Prayer. (See article in Lab Times). A Danish study looked at functional Magnetic Reasonance Imaging (fMRI) of devoted Christians as they recited a nursery rhyme, asked Santa Claus for things they wanted, prayed improvised prayers and prayed the Lord’s Prayer. While the nursery rhyme and “prayer” to Santa elicited no rewards, the improvised prayers and even more so the Lord’s Prayer excited “the dopaminergic system of the dorsal striatum in practising individuals.” In other words, the prayers elicited a chemical response in the brain.
This benefit is in addition to the documented anti-stress properties found in both meditative prayer—such as Anglican Prayer beads, Jesus Prayer, or Centering Prayer—and in regular corporate worship (See article at Huffington Post and Pew Research article). The photo above shows children praying The Lord’s Prayer in a chapel service at St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Belize City. Belize.
Regular worship with the well-crafted, oft prayed prayers of the liturgy actually assist in rewiring your brain in healthy ways as you build and maintain those neural pathways by regularly strengthening them through repeating prayers. Far from mere rote recitation, the liturgy can wire your brain for prayer and will use dopamine to reward you and encourage more searching for God. While science would never be able to say that this causes feelings of peace and well being, they are already prepared to say that religious community and prayer does correlete with longer, more fulfilling life (See U.S. News article).
Your kids and grandkids
Technology use is a particular problem for younger brains still forming those neural pathways. The best way you can teach the proper place of technology to the digital natives in your own family is through setting proper limits yourself and through teaching the joys of gardening, running, and most importantly praying at home and worshiping together in church.
-The Rev. Frank Logue, Canon to the Ordinary
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