Can mental training in compassion lead to altruistic behavior and better health?

This study follows prior research documenting the positive effects of other compassion training programs, such as theCompassion Cultivation Training developed at Stanford Univeristy and the Cognitively-Based Compassion Trainingout of Emory University. A study published earlier this year, also in Psychological Science, suggests that training in mindfulness meditation significantly increases compassionate behavior. But this new study is noteworthy for several reasons. For one thing, many of the previous studies have examined trainings that took several hours a week for at least eight weeks; this study’s compassion training, by contrast, took just a total of seven hours over two weeks. Also, prior studies of compassion trainings have mostly looked at their effects on brain activity, emotional well-being, or physical health. But this is the first study to both examine “whether training in compassion will make you more caring and helpful toward others,” says Weng, and then document how “those changes in behavior are linked to changes in neural and emotional responding to people suffering.” Weng says she’s excited by the implication that people can develop significantly more compassion and altruism, even outside of a training like the one she helped to create. “Our findings support the possibility that compassion and altruism can be viewed as trainable skills rather than as stable traits,” she and her co-authors write. “This lays the groundwork for future rese...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neurologists Authors: Tags: Education & Lifelong Learning Health & Wellness altruistic compassion Greater-Good meditation mental-training mindfulness Source Type: blogs