The unimaginable suffering in Haiti is overwhelming and at times I’ve caught myself shutting down emotionally and creating distance because the pain is so difficult to bear. I’ve heard friends express anger, pity and depression over the devastation. These responses are draining so we are of little help to others in time of need. Our challenge is to feel compassion while deeply caring about what the people of Haiti are going through without experiencing the emotions that drain our personal energy. We need to develop a more balanced compassion.
We can’t change the tragedy in Haiti but we can become aware of what we feel and then ‘practice compassion’ to neutralize the negative emotions of anger, pity and confusion so we are better prepared for natural disasters and personal upheavals such as divorce, sickness or death of a loved one. In turn we improve the quality of our own lives.
Compassion arises from a sense of being connected. It brings about positive emotions that reduce stress and help us meet life’s challenges. Positive emotions bring about the increased health and vitality among elderly people who have pets or a circle of good friends, and are the reason that happily married couples live longer. It stands to reason that the more that we can stabilize positive emotions, the healthier, happier and more compassionate we will be. The world becomes a better place because we are in it.
But for most of us positive emotions aren’t sustainable because we don’t feel connected. Just as our sense of connection evokes positive emotions our sense of isolation brings negative ones. The more separate we feel the more depressed, angry and stressed we become. A sense of scarcity hangs over us. We feel competition for limited resources. Stress taxes the immune system making us prone to cancer, heart attacks and other life threatening illness. In short if we live from separation we die sooner.
The question is how can we most effectively evoke and stabilize positive emotions and balanced compassion in our lives? Is there something we can do beyond focusing on our breath or trying to think better feeling thoughts? The simple answer is yes. We can draw upon the wisdom of our body to bring positive emotions more to the forefront of our lives and with them, an increased sense of connection which improves our health and feel loved and cared for.
Scientists have been studying the biology of stress for years. We know that it triggers the fight or flight response which is regulated through the sympathetic pathway of the autonomic nervous system and mediated by the hormone adrenaline. It quickly ramps up processes that increase our energy level, such as heartbeat, respiration and blood flow, and it shuts down nonessential processes such as digestion. A structure call the amygdale which lies near the emotional limbic system in the brain triggers alertness, defensiveness and fear. These habitual negative emotions can stay revved up for long periods of time causing physiological burnout that compromises our health.
What many of us might not know is that our body also responds as we reach out to connect to others and to the natural world. In contrast to our response to stress, connection triggers the compassion response which evokes the positive emotions of love, security and gratitude. Also under the control of the autonomic nervous system this reciprocal response is regulated through the alternate parasympathetic pathway. While stress increases the heart rate and slows down nonessential processes to prepare for fight for flight, this counterpart slows down the heart rate, slows down breathing and relaxes us by synchronizing the heart, and the nervous system and endocrine systems. It is coordinated through the vegus nerve which resides in the chest and produces a feeling of warmth that spreads through out the heart area when it is activated. It also triggers the secretion of oxytocin, a hormone which elicits a sense of trust, love and compassion. Practices of connection also affect neurochemicals in the brain, including dopamine and GABA which bestow a sense of peace, happiness and security while reducing anxiety, depression and stress.
We can bring about the ‘compassion response’ by simply slowing our breathing. Nasal breathing is particularly effective as it increases the release of nitric oxide which improves the respiratory and circulatory systems. The response is strengthened even further if we consciously generate feelings of love and appreciation, and imagine breathing directly through the heart area. The practice has the added benefit of over riding negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Through practice the response becomes stronger and more enduring. In time, simply visualizing our breathing through the heart during a challenging situation will shift us from stress to relaxation and from thoughts of separation and limitation to connection, love and compassion. Recent studies show that repetition changes synaptic activities and eventually alters cell structure.
These structural changes making it easier to remain positive in our day-to-day lives and can happen fairly quickly. Repetition builds new neuronal circuits that reinforce the response and permanently alter the brain in ways that control emotions and alter sensory perception. It calms our body and our mind by strengthening a brain structure called the anterior cingulated which integrates different parts of the brain to allow self-consciousness to emerge.
We strengthen our social awareness skills by integrating the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that steer us toward positive emotions and away from negative ones. As we heighten our social awareness, we evoke balanced compassion which changes the way we see ourselves in relation to the world and positions us to be natural leaders in times of great change.
Sources: Institute of Heart Math (heartmath.org)
Born To Be Good. The Science of a meaningful life. Dacher Keltner. W.W. Norton and Company, 2009
How God Changes Our Brain. Breakthrough findings from a leading neuroscientist. Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Waldan, Ballantine Books, 2009
