Whether or not you pray, your brain is doing something when you sit in silence, slow your breathing, and direct your attention toward something larger than yourself.

Neuroscientists call it a shift in default mode network activity — a measurable reorganization of how your brain allocates attention when it moves from reactive processing to something more intentional, more still. Contemplatives have called it communion for centuries. The research and the ancient practice are describing the same phenomenon from opposite ends of the same corridor.