Compassion helps make caring parents: Brain scans show that when people experience compassion, their brains activate in neural systems known to support parental nurturance and other caregiving behaviors. Compassion helps make better spouses: Compassionate people are more optimistic and supportive when communicating with others.
Compassion helps make better friends: Studies of college friendships show that when one friend sets the goal to support the other compassionately, both friends experience greater satisfaction and growth in the relationship. Compassion helps make better doctors: Medical students who train in compassion feel less depressed and lonely, and avoid the typical declines in compassion that happen during medical school.
Feeling compassion for one person makes us less vindictive toward others. Restraining feelings of compassion chips away at our commitment to moral principles. Employees who receive more compassion in their workplace see themselves, their co-workers, and their organization in a more positive light, report feeling more positive emotions like joy and contentment, and are more committed to their jobs.
A compassionate workplace culture is linked to less burnout, greater teamwork, and higher job satisfaction. More compassionate societies —those that take care of their most vulnerable members, assist other nations in need, and have children who perform more acts of kindness—are the happier ones.
Compassionate people are more socially adept, making them less vulnerable to loneliness; loneliness has been shown to cause stress and harm the immune system. Compassion meditation: Cultivate compassion toward a loved one, yourself, a neutral person, and even an enemy.. Put a human face on suffering: When reading the news, look for profiles of specific individuals and try to imagine what their lives have been like.
Eliciting altruism: Create reminders of connectedness. Look for commonalities: Seeing yourself as similar to others increases feelings of compassion. A recent study shows that something as simple as tapping your fingers to the same rhythm with a stranger increases compassionate behavior.
The practice of mindfulness can help us feel safer in these situations, facilitating compassion. This is a valuable lesson for teachers, who can promote cooperative learning in the classroom.
Notice and savor how good it feels to be compassionate. Studies have shown that practicing compassion and engaging in compassionate action bolsters brain activity in areas that signal reward. Thank you, Emma Seppala, for the work you are doing and for the beautiful way that you are able to share these important ideas with so many of us!
My life is free from most suffering because I understand that it is always with us however, I can purge the suffering from less wants in life. And finally, let go of the hate…release the self into the collective world to find the positive energy that emanates around you….
I am so grateful that scientists and bloggers are pursuing this research and sharing it; to me this demonstrates real, altruistic compassion — thank you. Modern Neuroscience has also uncovered that we have complex, adaptive and functional neural networks in the heart and gut regions, and these neural intelligences have their own domains of skill and intuitive wisdom.
The highest expression of the heart intelligence is indeed Compassion, so highly pertinent to this study. Thank you for sharing. Your thoughts and esearch fit so beautifully with the new field of mBraining and this work offers some great background I can add in to what I teach.
Thank you. We frown on exposing children to toxins that would harm them physically, yet most of their lives, we harm them emotionally with our moral duplicity which created two sets of laws governing the view of, hence,, treatment of non-humans. If our moral, spiritual, mental and physical health and safety are connected, our laws must be consistent and not created by those who, for centuries, have exploited and killed other beings for profit, pleasure, convenience, and prejudice. If we asked children how they felt about baby chicks, piglets, calves….
I have also found the research into privelege and compassion to be interesting. I was interested to read that the act of meditation itself is helpful in developing compassion to much the same extent as specific meditations such as the Karuna Bhavana. I will keep practicing it though! Those who have a lot, in general, seem to have much lower levels of compassion and consideration for others. Explains why Bill Gates had such trouble getting the super rich to contribute to his wealth distribution drive.
Sandy vajrablue. Laura Beth Slitt. We do not so much unteach this, but have a society that values the individual over the community, this runs to the belief that greed is good. Much of this comes from parenting, we seem to be far too busy onour own projects to cultivate these healthy attitudes inour children.
Thank you for this article on compassion. Christians all over the world need to appreciate the fact that there is a positive correlation between compassion and well being.
We have seen surprising benefits of a compassionate way of life amongst people with severe mental illness. Compassionate intention setting if adopted on a regular basis could shift ones priorities and emphases significantly. Do please read our take on this issue:. I really wish you cited your sources like a proper Psychology paper, I am trying to find primary literature on the connection between emotions like compassion and empathy and intelligence.
Feeling empathy for for the lab-rats in this research study. Empathy and alturism have traditionaly been sysnonyms for compasson. Who is respomnsible for this revisionisms?
It seems completely presentist and, therefore, historically irrisponsible. Is compassion always good? I went to the store and they have live lobsters. Or a bee drink? If I see something such as the original occurrence, It haunts me. How is this normal compassion and how do I reign it in? Do I want to?
Questions, questions, questions. Excellent article. It helped illuminate basic human needs to belong. To find something greater than ourselves is at our core. We are drawn to that realization and feel enlightened when we achieve it. APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February , you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments.
By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines. Seppala is also a blogger for Psychology Today. For more of her articles or to contact her, visit www. APS interviews Michael Wohl on how collective angst can influence collective nostalgia.
Ben Lindsey-Clark May 1, Laura Friedeberg May 1, Katherine Van Uum May 2, Annette Starink May 10, John Ballard May 22, Tilisha Stitt May 31, Faith A. Colburn June 19, Sean July 22, Andrea Spruzina April 8, Thomas Brouchoud January 26, Anny February 27, Keisuke Masutani April 8, Heather McLaughlin August 30, Jan Stanley September 16, Reb Veale March 1, Suzanne Henwood March 1, People cannot always be or get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied or fought against suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration and self-criticism.
When this reality is accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equanimity is experienced. All humans suffer, however. Self-compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. This equilibrated stance stems from the process of relating personal experiences to those of others who are also suffering, thus putting our own situation into a larger perspective.
It also stems from the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.
We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time.
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