![]() ![]() Practicing this meditation regularly can increase self-compassion and decrease self-criticism. ( Here is a guided loving-kindness meditation from psychologist Barbara Fredrickson). Repeat the phrases for yourself, “ May I feel safe, may I feel happy …” Gradually expand your circle of people to whom you are sending your well-wishes and love to include people in your neighborhood or community, and then even further to all living beings. Don’t forget to tuck yourself in your compassion circle as well, says Cousineau. Even observing others perform kind acts and, importantly, being kind to ourselves, can make us happier.Īfter holding your warm and tender feelings in your heart, send them to someone else, again, repeating silently the four phrases. Researchers at Oxford University recently found that we can increase our happiness levels when we are kind to those with whom we enjoy close as well as weak ties (for example, family and strangers). ![]() For the elderly, prosocial behavior can promote longevity. It can stimulate the release of serotonin and oxytocin, which can increase trust, reduce fear and anxiety, and help us read each other’s minds. Performing acts of kindness can also increase life satisfaction, positive mood, and peer acceptance. To begin with, connecting with others through kind deeds allows us to meet our basic psychological needs of relatedness and belonging. Kindness not only feels good but also does us good. This distinct sense of satisfaction, the “ warm glow” or the “helper’s high” that ignites the brain’s reward systems, is said to be among the drivers of pro-social behavior in humans. If you recall the rush of positive feelings you experienced the last time you performed a kind act, you would likely agree that kindness feels good. And now, science is showing just why the accolades ring true. It has been hailed by poets, philosophers, and spiritual leaders as a gift, a religion, a language audible to the deaf and visible to the blind, a weapon to fight evil, and mankind’s greatest delight. A smile, a touch born of kindness can crack open the most rugged of hearts, unclench the tightest of fists. It nourishes and heals strengthens and uplifts. We remember kindness, too, its trail of goodwill echoing through our memory banks like sweet perfume, long after the moment has passed. We spend our days giving and receiving kindness. As children and as adults, we seek kindness from our friends and our mates. According to one hypothesis, pro-social traits like kindness may have even primed our species for the evolution of language. The third is to be kind.”Īs one of humankind’s cardinal virtues and most cherished social currencies, kindness-no doubt-is important. “Three things in human life are important,” wrote novelist Henry James in the early 20th century. ![]()
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