I Heart Me (20 page)

A 2014 study checked out the connection between self-compassion and stress-induced inflammation. That sounded like a mouthful, didn't it?

Before we go any further, I want to point out that inflammation isn't necessarily a bad guy. It's actually a vital part of the immune response to injury. It's most obvious in the redness and swelling that occurs around the site of a wound. This helps draw blood, oxygen and repair nutrients to the wound site, aiding the healing process.

It occurs on the inside of the body too, as the body tends to the ‘wounds' of stress and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Again, it's simply doing its job of helping the body return to health. The problem arises when there's too much inflammation occurring too much of the time, which is a symptom of consistent stress and unhealthy living. In time, if we lack a way of dealing with our daily stressors, frustrations and annoyances, stress-induced inflammation mounts up and can cause all kinds of collateral damage in the body, including cardiovascular disease, and even increase the risk of cancer.

Inflammation like this can be thought of like a tap dripping water into a sink with a plug in it. Eventually the sink fills up and spills over, causing collateral damage to the floor.

To measure self-compassion in the study, participants responded with ‘I agree' or ‘I disagree' to a series of statements. Responding with ‘I agree' to a statement like ‘I try to be understanding and patient toward aspects of my personality I do not like' would indicate self-compassion. Responding with ‘I disagree' would show a lack of self-compassion in that area. Responding with ‘I disagree' to a statement like ‘I am disapproving of and judgemental about my own flaws and inadequacies' would indicate self-compassion. Responding with ‘I agree' would indicate self-criticism.

The study, which involved 41 volunteers, found that those who had more self-compassion had a lower level of stress-induced inflammation. Their bloodstreams were clearer of inflammation.
²

Think about what that means! Self-compassion protects biology. As well as being protective against stress-induced inflammation,
it is now understood to be protective against the diseases linked to it, and these include cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes and even Alzheimer's disease.

Think of it as akin to putting a high-quality rubber seal on the tap so it stops dripping and at the same time pulling the plug out of the sink.

In a 2009 study, researchers actually taught people self-compassion as part of a compassion programme to study the effects of compassion (for self and others) on inflammation.
³
They enrolled 33 people between the ages of 17 and 19 into a six-week training programme, part of which involved learning strategies for being more self-compassionate and practising the loving-kindness meditation. This is a Buddhist meditation which we'll look at more closely later. The volunteers were compared to 28 people in the same age group who didn't learn self-compassion, but who attended health group discussions for the same time periods instead. This was the control group.

After the six-week period was over, the volunteers were all given a task that was designed to stress them so that the scientists could measure stress-induced inflammation. The task is known as a TSST (Trier Social Stressor Test). The people who had learned self-compassion had much lower levels of inflammation than those in the control group. The amount of practice also mattered. Those who did the most sessions per week (six to nine) had much lower levels of inflammation than those who did the fewest (one or two sessions).

The second type of inflammation countered by self-compassion is self-inflammation, which is what self-criticism is.

The loving-kindness meditation has been shown to substantially reduce self-criticism, especially in people who are very good at it … the self-criticism, that is.

In a 2014 study, 38 volunteers who scored highly on an assessment of self-criticism were randomized to either practise the loving-kindness meditation or be part of a control group. There were 19 in each group.

The study found that the volunteers who had learned self-compassion were significantly less self-critical than they had been at the start. And a three-month follow-up that was designed to see if the effects would last showed that the meditation group had maintained the reduction in self-criticism. They had not gone back to their old self-critical ways. They had learned a new, gentler, way of treating themselves.
⁴

Another study involving 139 people found that a seven-week course in loving-kindness meditation increased daily experiences of positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement and awe.

These emotional gains impacted the participants in multiple ways. They felt a greater sense of purpose. They had more mastery over their lives. They also felt greater life satisfaction. They felt more optimistic about the future. They enjoyed improvements in the quality of their relationships. Oh, and their overall health improved too.
⁵

The loving-kindness meditation helps reduce the inflammation of difficult relationships. It's especially powerful in helping to improve personal relationships that are in trouble, whether those are with loved ones, work colleagues or even people who are seen as enemies. During the meditation, we cultivate a sense of love and compassion towards the person (or people) who are challenging us. When we do this, feelings of hostility are gradually replaced by gentleness.

Some of us, of course,
want
to remain hostile towards certain people. Some people hold on to anger for years. They think those involved deserve it. They may do. But hostility towards others is extremely unhealthy for
us
. Do we deserve
that
?

In fact, if our goal is to develop cardiovascular disease, hostility towards others is one of the fastest ways to get it. It's at least as efficient as having an unhealthy diet. Consistent hostility and aggression in relationships is strongly linked with hardening of the arteries. In a piece of startling symmetry, where the outside reflects the inside, scientists found that as we harden towards others, we harden on the inside too. The research has been called ‘Hard Marriage, Hard Heart'.
⁶

It was the outcome of a study of married couples. Their behaviour and ways of communicating with each other were noted and each couple was scored according to whether they showed love, kindness, compassion, patience and affection or whether they showed hostility and aggression and were domineering or bullying.

The results were very clear. Those who were most hostile had the highest levels of coronary artery calcification, or CAC for short. It's where the coronary artery moves from having the internal consistency of a lightly poached egg to something resembling plasterboard.

The arterial damage was not caused by diet or lifestyle. It was caused by hostility and aggression.

Self-compassion is a powerful antidote to hostility, aggression and anger. The loving-kindness meditation is especially effective, because as well as cultivating compassion for ourselves, it cultivates empathy and compassion for others.

As we soften on the inside (emotionally and also biologically), we begin to soften on the outside, in our interactions with people, and this softens relationships. It also helps foster a sense of trust and connection with people we don't know very well, even total strangers. It helps build social connectedness.

This was the finding of a Stanford University study where 45 volunteers practised the loving-kindness meditation even just briefly for a few minutes a day. They were compared with 48 volunteers in a control group who didn't do the meditation.
⁷

The version of the meditation was simple. Each person would imagine two loved ones standing on either side of them and they would send their love to them. Some people imagined sending love as a pink ball of light, others just wished them love, health and happiness, others used words. Any way proved as good as any other. Then they would imagine sending those loving, compassionate feelings to a neutral stranger.

Even a brief meditation practice helped the volunteers to feel more connected to loved ones
and
complete strangers.

When it comes to getting on in the world, forming relationships is key. And the key to forming relationships is letting our barriers down and allowing connections to happen. As you know, that occurs through having courage to be ourselves and not hide our vulnerabilities. It also occurs through self-compassion.

With practice, the loving-kindness meditation helps build trust and compassion at an automatic level. In other words, we don't even have to think about it.

The star of the show in how compassion, whether for ourselves or another person, reduces inflammation is the vagus nerve. This nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body, stretching from the top of the brain stem throughout the body. It gets its name from the medieval Latin for ‘wandering', as it is so long it pretty much wanders all through the body, interfacing with the heart, the stomach and other organs.

Compassion and the vagus nerve work closely together. Scientists say they are ‘correlated', in that a person who is very compassionate usually has high vagal tone (akin to muscle tone). High vagal tone is healthy because it means that even when we give the vagus nerve a lot of work to do, it can still keep inflammation low, just as a person who is physically fit can handle more physical exertion than people who are not in such good condition.

The vagus nerve is the body's number one way of controlling inflammation. Following injury, inflammation rises to the optimum required for healing. Once at that level, the vagus nerve puts the brakes on it and ensures it doesn't get out of hand. It keeps inflammation at bay on the inside of the body as well. It works through sending a signal into the immune cells and right through to the DNA. The signal tells certain inflammatory genes to switch off.

In a real way, then, the effects of self-compassion run throughout the nervous system right to the genetic level. How amazing is that?

Given that one of the major pain-management strategies in the world is the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, it also explains why research shows that practising the loving-kindness meditation can reduce pain in chronic pain sufferers. When inflammation is turned down at the genetic level, pain lessens.

In one study, 43 chronic back-pain volunteers either participated in an eight-week course in the loving-kindness meditation or received standard care for their back pain. At the end of the study, the volunteers who did the meditation had significantly less pain.
⁸

Also concerning back pain, a study conducted at Boston College showed that patients suffering from chronic back pain benefited from helping other pain sufferers. It was called ‘patient to peer' and the intensity of pain significantly dropped in the sufferers who helped other sufferers.
⁹

Wouldn't you like to learn some strategies for developing self-compassion?

One of the ways we can learn self-compassion is through training ourselves to think differently. Inner harshness is a habit. And, just like any habit, it can be changed with a bit of practice. And I say ‘practice' because, like anything, to get good at something we need to practise it. No one ever became an Olympic medalist after going out for a jog just the once!

If we practise self-compassion, we'll get good at self-compassion. So let's get started.

SELF-LOVE GYM:
Swap a Thought

One of the simplest strategies for developing self-compassion is to swap a self-defeating thought for a gentle one. This exercise is about making a stock of gentle thoughts to draw from.

• Make a list of some of the ways you've shown kindness or compassion to someone, or when you've shown patience or gentleness.
  
• Make a list of your positive attributes, your skills and your achievements.
  
• Make a third list, this time of instances when you've coped with a difficult challenge or when you've shown courage.
  
• And make a fourth list of some of your happiest memories.
  
• Now, each time you catch yourself in the act of self-criticism, take a deep breath in, release it gently, then recite or visualize one or more of the items from your lists.
  

It may sound simplistic, but two things happen when you do this. The first is that the intake of breath moves your attention away from the criticism. While this happens, it drives brain resources away from the stress centres of the brain and towards more conscious control areas. It prevents you from getting involved in a train of self-abusive thinking.