The Five Side-effects of Kindness: This Book Will Make You Feel Better, Be Happier & Live Longer by David R. Hamilton PhD

Author:David R. Hamilton PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House UK
Published: 2017-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

ACT OF KINDNESS

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We briefly met the loving-kindness meditation in the first chapter. It’s often called mettā, which is the Pali (the sacred language of Buddhism) term for ‘loving-kindness’. It’s defined as ‘the wish that others find genuine happiness and wellbeing’ and is rooted in an attitude of compassion and kindness. Scientists use it to study the effects of compassion and kindness under a controlled setting because everyone does the same meditation.

The meditator repeats a series of wishes such as: ‘May [a loved one] be filled with loving-kindness, be well, peaceful and at ease, happy and free of suffering.’ They focus these wishes on themselves, loved ones, random people, people who cause them some stress and all sentient beings (all life), in a gradually widening circle of compassion. With practice, this builds strong feelings of compassion and a motivation to be kind.

In a study conducted by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and her team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 65 men and women attended weekly loving-kindness meditation classes for six weeks and were encouraged to practise the meditation every day. They were compared to a control group who didn’t do the meditation. Everyone’s vagal tone was measured at the beginning of the study and again at the end.

After the six weeks, vagal tone had increased significantly in the loving-kindness meditators. It did not change at all in the control group. Practising compassion and kindness had directly increased vagal tone.7

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