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Anxiety and The Soul
How brain science can help you leverage this connection to live a calmer life
Anxiety is the wound of the soul, the portal through which we enter into deeper understanding of ourselves and the world — Unknown
What is the soul?
The soul is an immaterial and eternal essence that gives life to a living being. While some physician soul photographers have claimed to have captured images of the soul on their photographic plates (1), most people believe that the soul is formless and invisible (2).
What is the connection between the soul and the brain?
While there is no definitive connection between the soul and the brain, several lines of thought merit consideration.
Idea 1: People who believe in a soul intuit that it exists. Intuition can be detected in the brain (3). One key collection of neurons, the insula, has been implicated in intuition. When stimulated, this can lead to a mystical feeling of bliss and clarity (4), suggesting that “intuition” and “the soul” may be connected through the insula in the brain.
Idea 2: Descartes believed the pineal gland was the “Seat of the Soul.” (5) This may be due to its widespread connections in the brain (6).
