What the research tells us

Loving-kindness is thinking and feeling unconditional kindness to all beings. Compassion is the wish that beings are not suffering and feel loved and cared for. Meditations that focus on these two things are thought to help our mental and emotional wellbeing. In this review of the research, it was found that Loving-kindness and compassion meditation activated areas of the brain that are involved in emotional processing and empathy and can help with anxiety, anger, marital conflict and coping with long-term caregiving.

Hoffman, SG, Grossman P, Hinton, DE. (2011) Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions. Nov;31(7):1126-32.

doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003. Epub 2011 Jul 26.

Being kind to oneself when times are difficult and stressful may help people who are struggling with their weight management. In those studies where participants practised self-compassion, there were improvements in eating behaviours, physical activity behaviours and weight loss. Even more importantly these improvements were maintained in follow ups of those in the physical activity study.

Brenton-Peters et al. (2021). Self-compassion in weight management: A systematic review.  Nov:150:110617. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2021.110617. Epub 2021 Sep 16.

“Like many emotions and behaviours, kindness is contagious…Those experiencing or witnessing kindness, in turn can mimic these actions and propagate them further…”

The researchers suggest that promotion of kindness on a population scale can add to things like meditation, exercise, and counselling to manage stress. Kindness can help people feel more connected to each other and kindness, including kindness to oneself helps overall mental health and makes us feel good.

Fryburg, D. (2021) Kindness as a Stress Reduction–Health Promotion Intervention: A Review of the Psychobiology of Caring. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine; 16(1), 

89-100.

According to Kristin Neff, self-compassion is when someone is supportive towards themselves when they are suffering or in pain “be it caused by personal mistakes and inadequacies or external life challenges”. Neff believes that self-compassion comprises of six elements including self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness, reduced self-judgement, isolation and overidentification. Self-compassion is not weak, selfish, self-indulgent nor undermine motivation. Self-compassion is a skill that can be learned and in people who do practise self-compassion they are more likely to have increased life satisfaction and happiness and decreased depression, anxiety and psychological distress. 

Neff, KD. (2023). Self-compassion: Theory, method, research and intervention. 2023 Jan 18:74:193-218. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-032420-031047. Epub 2022 Aug 12.

In a review of the literature on self-compassion multiple studies found that self-compassion could help so many people with mental health issues including generalised anxiety disorder, depression, severe self-judgement, and for those who “beat themselves” up. The researchers also found that in people with Borderline Personality Disorder, doing a short training program in loving-kindness and compassion meditation improved their symptoms and lowered their self-criticism. 

Dimitra, KE  et al. (2020) Self-Compassion in Clinical Samples: A Systematic Literature 

Psychology,11, 217-244 https://www.scirp.org/journal/psych ISSN Online: 2152-7199 ISSN Print: 2152-7180