The Science
The science of neurocognition supports a visceral approach to prayer and reflection. The data is detailed and convincing:
we think and we learn with our bodies.
The science of neurocognition supports a visceral approach to prayer and reflection. The data is detailed and convincing:
we think and we learn with our bodies.
Body and mind are closely connected. They affect each other in both directions. The body can impact the mind: stress hormones and diet impact mood and cognition; exercise, yoga, and martial arts can alleviate depression. And the mind can also impact the body: frustration and pessimism weaken the immune system; and placebos have measurable effects on physical health. The connections between body and thinking can get quite granular. Feeling warm generates “warm” emotions; feeling cold generates thoughts of isolation; feeling wobbly makes us less sure of romantic relationships; heavy things can appear more important; feeling a smooth texture makes people act more cooperative. These connections may be neuro-structural, since the same brain areas appear to be involved in warmth perception and trust decisions, in touch perception and social judgements.
The link between movement and thinking is particularly clear. When our physical behavior contradicts our words or ideas, our brain cells show stronger activity (i.e., they are forced to work harder), and our movements become measurably more labored. This effect is seen both in simple movements (for example, waving while talking about stomping) and in more conceptual actions (for example, directing attention “towards” or “away” from ourselves). Holding our facial muscles stiffly in place (or receiving a botox injection) blocks our ability to recognize or finely distinguish emotions in others. On the other hand, it is measurably easier to do a movement, when we are hearing that movement described. In short, our movements can make it harder for us to think in one way, and easier to think in another.
Thinking and learning reside in our bodies. Nerves concentrate and organize our responses as organisms to the external and internal environment. “Place cell” and “grid cell” neurons help us keep track of where we are and where we are going. Memories reside in the neural pathways that they generate: these pathways record feelings and perceptions as units, and they bring memories to life as we reassemble them into (aptly named) recollections. Learning new thoughts and behaviors comes from repetition, as neurons that fire together wire together. This link between thinking and movement has only become clearer with the discovery of mirror neurons, which fire both when an animal acts, and when it observes a similar action by other creatures. Mirror neurons run through areas of the brain linked to movement and language; they have been connected with empathy, imitation, and learning.
Emotion and thought are not restricted to the brain, with its centers of sense, memory, pleasure, judgment, and so on. Perception, feeling, and thinking is a whole-body process. The spinal column contains sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve networks that regulate bodily functions and instigate “fight-flight” or stress dispositions. The enteric (gut based) nervous system is “an independent site of neural integration and processing” which affects motivation; sociability and withdrawal; the making hunches; and the managing of predictions. The gut produces just as many different neurotransmitters as the brain, and may even have its own psychoneuroses (Gershon 1998, quote at 17). Thus, it’s no surprise that the body often “knows” things before those things become present to consciousness; for example, galvanic skin responses (like those used in lie detectors) show that a hunch can tilt our choices in a certain direction well before we are able to articulate what’s going on.
The human person is not a ghost in a machine or a consciousness inside a brain-shaped control-room. The mind is not a computer which organizes thoughts and perceptions into abstract symbols, and then links them together in logical chains. Neuroscience suggests that our thoughts, intuitions, movements, and will, all interpenetrate in an integrated, bidirectional way. Thoughts, feelings, and movements are constantly affecting and producing each other (Hart 2017, 304). This supports the sociological insight that bodily habits and physical disciplines shape our ideas about value and belonging (Bourdieu, 1984). It also supports the insights of TO.
The implications for practice are profound. Most of us learn to live with systemic oppressions (including adultism) very early in life. We learn what feels "right" and what feels "icky," "shameful," or "inappropriate;" where we "belong" and where we "don't fit in." Whether we are brought up in an oppressor identity, or socialized as a member of a target population, we learn sexism, racism, class status, homophobia, and so on, long before we are able to analyze or ague about those oppressions with words. We learn the habits, feelings, and values of oppressive ideologies in our bodies. An embodied understanding of thinking can help us understand why the most effective approaches to unlearning oppression are also the most visceral approaches.