Andrew B. Newberg > Quotes

“choose your words wisely, because they will influence your happiness, your relationships, and your personal wealth.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“Any form of negative rumination—for example, worrying about your financial future or health—will stimulate the release of destructive neurochemicals.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“These conversational shortcomings are not caused by poor education.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“When we limit ourselves to speaking for only thirty seconds, the brain quickly adapts by filtering out irrelevant information. There’s another advantage to speaking briefly: it limits our ability to express negative emotions.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“Before you speak, ask yourself this question: will your words improve the silence?”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“The brain is a stubborn organ. Once its primary set of beliefs has been established, the brain finds it difficult to integrate opposing ideas and beliefs. This has profound consequences for individuals and society and helps to explain why some people cannot abandon destructive beliefs, be they religious, political or psychological.”
― Andrew Newberg

“Certain positive words—like “peace” or “love”—may actually have the power to alter the expression of genes throughout the brain and body, turning them on and off in ways that lower the amount of physical and emotional stress we normally experience throughout the day.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intimacy

“We just ask a person, before they engage in a conversation with someone else, visualize someone they deeply love, or recall an event that brought them deep satisfaction and joy.”
― Andrew Newberg

“To see God as primarily loving, a person must embrace a liberal interpretation of the Bible, ignoring or rejecting the vindictive passages.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

“We can't tell you the origin of the experience. But we can tell you the brain does appear to be built to have these [mystical] experiences. There are examples of people reaching similar states, spontaneously. But for the most part, it takes work. Meditation and these powerful prayer experiences require dedication and practice. But people have figured out how to do this, and the question is, 'What is the source of that experience?' The answer is, 'We don't know.' Science doesn't really have an answer for you.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't

“Rather they are largely related to an underdeveloped brain, for the areas that govern social awareness, empathy, and related language skills are not fully operational until we’re about thirty years old. Despite this neurological handicap, scientific research shows that anyone—young or old—can exercise the language and social-awareness centers of the brain in ways that will enhance their capacity to communicate more effectively with others.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intima cy

“We believe that the orientation association area is extremely important in the brain’s sense of mystical and religious experiences, which often involve altered perceptions of space and time, self and ego. Since the orientation association area is instrumental in shaping these basic perceptions, it must somehow be an integral part of spiritual experience.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

“The personality you assign to God has distinct neural patterns that correlate with your own emotional styles of behavior.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

“The problem isn't religion. The problem is authoritarianism,”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

“What does God feel like? When I ask people this question, their reaction is often the same. They pause for a very long time. This means something special to a neuroscientist, namely that a great deal of neurological activity is taking place as different parts of the brain attempt to put into words a concept that defies the parameters of language for many people. Indeed, for most believers, God is much more than an idea. God is a deeply valued experience that goes far beyond any theological definition of the word, which is why most people responded with a version of, “Wow! What a question … it's really hard to say.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

“religious and spiritual contemplation changes your brain in a profoundly different way because it strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhances social awareness and empathy while subduing destructive feelings and emotions.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

“changes in the spiritual beliefs of young adults will dramatically alter the spiritual landscape of America.”
― Andrew B. Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist