Praising God Rewires Your Brain. Here’s Proof.

Published: December 19, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

Ever since the beginning of time, worship has been a key part of the Christian life. Now in 2025, worship is one of the spiritual disciplines that deepens a believer’s walk with Christ.

Our lives are full of our family, careers, personal goals, worries, and so much more. Which is why worship is much more important now than it has ever been.

That’s why Michael Liedke, D.N.P., focused on the neurophysiological benefits of worship.

“Believers understand the positive ramifications of worship, although few could elucidate the exact mechanisms at work in the brain,” Liedke published the Neurophysiological Benefits of Worship in The Journal of Biblical Foundations of Faith and Learning. “It is only in the recent decades that advances in imaging technology as well as an overall increase in neuroscience knowledge, have allowed us to peer into the workings of the real-time brain. The ever-expanding concept of neuroplasticity has opened our eyes to the neurophysiological benefits of worship in the brain.”

1 Thessalonians 5: 16-17 challenges believers to “Rejoice always, ¹⁷pray continually.”

Hebrews 13:15 also tells readers to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”

Furthermore, in Revelation, John “describes four living creatures, each one with six wings full of eyes and day and night they do not cease to say ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God the Almighty, Who was and Who is and Who is to come.’ Revelation 4:8 (King James). In fact, the word “worship” is found 8629 times in the Bible, and 8600 of those have some reference to prayer.”

One of the effects of worship on the brain is a release of dopamine, which is “an important neurotransmitter in the central nervous system and has been shown to be highly active in important executive functions such as motor control, cognition, memory creation and reward- directed behavior.”

Andrew Newberg, a radiologist, first “began to study the effects of prayer on the individual using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI was a relatively new form of advanced imaging technology which is able to show detail unprecedented in prior imaging techniques, using the properties of the highly-oxygenated blood in the brain and is able to capture minute metabolic changes and extrapolate a detailed image of not only the physical location studied but also the metabolic characteristics of the same location.”

Using the fMRI, Newberg “recruited patients from different faith traditions and directed them to spend twelve minutes a day in active prayer, a conversation with God and control group who did nothing. After obtaining a baseline fMRI, a repeat fMRI scan was obtained and differences in volume and metabolic activity were evaluated. The startling finding shattered the previously believed myth that the brain would not grow in adulthood. A statistically significant increase in the volume of the cingulate cortex was observed and launched.

Newberg found that worship has a positive effect on the cingulate cortex and the amygdala in the brain.

Through worship, the cingulate cortex allows people to think and feel with more empathy. Newberg found that “as the cingulate grows in volume and metabolic activity, you transform into a nicer, more forgiving and trustful person.”

Likewise, worship’s effects on the amygdala result in the “down-regulation to the fight or flight mechanism.” This means that there is a ”

significant decrease in the deleterious effects of chronic fight or flight activation and the decrease in heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and serum markers of inflammation.”

Liedke found that believers who are stressed, worried, always needing to be in control, on edge, angry, or frustrated should focus more on worshiping God. This will allow their brain to release dopamine, which will cause people to feel and think more empathetically.

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