The 5 side-effects of compassion 

From an article on Word on the Streets

David Hamilton has a PhD in organic chemistry and helped develop drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. Inspired by the placebo effect, he now helps educate people in how they can improve their health without drugs. He is the ‘Kindness Tsar’ for Psychologies Magazine and an advocate for kindness and is working passionately to help inspire a kinder world. He writes:

We typically think of side-effects in the negative, as in the side-effects of drugs. But many of our positive behaviours also have side-effects. Here are 5 side-effects of compassion:

1) Compassion Wires the Brain

Compassion causes brain changes that makes it easier to be compassionate and kind. Compassion begets compassion through creating actual changes in the brain.

2) Compassion is Good for the Heart

Compassion fosters warm emotional contact. When we connect with others in this way, we produce a hormone that helps maintain cardiovascular health. It dilates the arteries and reduces blood pressure and also helps clear out potentially disease-causing agents.

3) Compassion Slows Ageing

Research shows a strong correlation between compassion and the body’s inflammatory response. As inflammation is one of the major agers of the body, compassion slows ageing.

4) Compassion Improves Relationships

Research shows that compassion improves relationships. It fosters emotional connections between two people. Compassion also breaks down barriers in relationships with people who challenge us. When we see someone suffering and we are moved to help, we forget reasons why we might have a difficulty with the person as our natural tendency to care takes over. In these moments, we see only good and express only good.

5) Compassion Motivates Kindness

When we see someone suffering we feel empathy. Empathy is ‘I feel with you’, as we imagine and share someone’s pain. Empathy evolves into compassion, as we not only share the pain but we want the person’s suffering eased. Compassion quickly evolves into kindness, where we are moved to do something to ease the person’s suffering.

Read the full article here.