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Practice may make perfect when it comes to kindness and compassion. A new study shows that regularly practicing kindness and compassion through meditation actually activates the brain and makes people more empathetic to others.
Meditation can affect certain regions of the brain that can make people more loving, compassionate, and kind. The University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a study that has proven meditation makes people more sensitive toward other individuals. "We can take advantage of our brain's plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities," says researcher Antione Lutz, associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "Thinking about other people's suffering and not just your own helps to put everything in perspective."
The scientists studied 16 volunteers who had no experience with meditation and 16 Tibetan monks who had at least 10,000 hours of meditation practice. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brain for changes. They found the regions responsible for emotions were significantly changed after what is knows as "compassion meditation."
Two weeks prior to the fMRI scanning, the volunteers were trained to use compassion meditation techniques by the experienced monks. They were trained to concentrate on their loved ones, and wish them health and happiness. Later during the training, the volunteers were taught to concentrate on other people and generate emotions of love towards them.
After being successfully trained in "compassion meditation," the monks and volunteers were fMRI scanned during a general state as well as during meditation. They were all exposed to a variety of positive and negative human voices (such as a baby's laugh, restaurant noise, and a woman in distress) during the scanning process. The scientists used these voices instead of images because people using meditation usually have their eyes open but are not focused on what they are looking at.
The scans reported significant changes in the insula, a region of the frontal brain that is mainly responsible for emotions. The insula captures changes made to the body by emotions such as blood pressure and heart rate. The information is then transferred to other parts of the brain.
When exposed to the voices, both the monks and volunteers showed significant insula activity. Those with the longer meditation experience showed even more brain activity during the meditation session than the non-experienced volunteers. However, all of the participants in the study showed compassion and kindness emotions were improved during the "compassion meditation" sessions.
The scientists suggest the findings of this study can be very useful for today's society. If people used this technique, they could become more caring toward others and less inclined to violence. It may also help people who suffer from depression and anxiety problems. We could also use this technique with problem children to help them become more sensible. All of these things could be possible thanks to this study of "compassion meditation."
