Many of know that prayer can be good for the soul, but can it also help the brain and body? And what about attending communal religious worship? Can that too help us improve our mental and physical health? Author Rob Moll, who recently penned the book What Your Body Knows About God, discusses what he discovered when he investigated the fascinating world of spirituality and neuroscience.
Rob’s journey of discovery on the path of neuroscience began when he was writing his previous book, The Art of Dying. He notes that he became interested in the topic of death when writing about the Terry Schiavo case for Christianity Today. His curiosity took him to, of all places, a position answering phones and serving as an usher at a funeral home. We discuss what that experience was like and how it prompted him to think about the connections between the spirit and the body. One his main observations that he took from that job was how people who treated the physical body as something reverent (and not just a shell) tended to work through the grieving process in a healthier manner. Along the way, Rob provides us with some personal details about his own background, being raised by some “Jesus freaks” who drifted from the faith but eventually came back to, in all places, a California church that was founded by Chinese.
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