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“Why, in a country that consumes 25% of the world’s resources (the USA), is there an epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety? Why do so many in the West who have all of their basic needs met still feel impoverished? While some politicians might answer, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’ based on scientific evidence a better answer is, ‘It’s the lack compassion, stupid.’”

This is how James Doty began a blog he wrote recently for The Huffington Post. It’s a powerful opening because it highlights the extent to which governments misunderstand the causes of happiness, believing everlasting economic growth to be the antidote to all that ails us. Fortunately there are individuals like Doty on a mission to seismically shift the dominant paradigm.

Doty is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist whose later life trajectory belies hard and humble beginnings. Doty, who is presenting at Mind & Its Potential in October, shares here some of his personal story, including a pivotal encounter he had when he was still a young boy living in a poor and dysfunctional home with an alcoholic dad and invalid mum.

Doty describes how one day when he was 13 he walked into a magic shop and met the owner’s mother who took a liking to him and promised that if he returned she’d teach him how he could change his life. He had nothing better to do, so he went back and during a six-week period, learnt about mindfulness, visualisation and positive thinking. He says the interaction was “transformative” because it showed him that he could steer his own destiny.

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Written by Lynn E. O’Connor Ph.D.

I’m in Telluride Colorado, where I attended stellar scientific meetings, held by The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford U., while the nation has been watching the massacre in Aurora, Colorado and its aftermath. The take home message of the meetings is that we are wired for empathy, compassion and altruism, and this operates at both conscious and unconscious levels. In infants, it was described as “empathic contagion” and as children grow into toddlers and older, it takes on an additional cognitive component, and at this point, to some extent, we often know what we are feeling and why. From our own research on empathy and altruism, as well as from clinical experience, we know that some aspects of empathy and altruism remain unconscious, even as adults. One common problem I see in patients is empathy and altruism on overdrive, or the tendency to take unrealistic responsibility for another’s suffering, and this kind of empathy and altruism involves empathy-based guilt and is largely outside of conscious awareness.

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Written by Lia Steakley.

In a post today on the Huffington Post, Firdaus Dhabhar, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford, explores how practicing compassion could prove effective in reducing or eliminating chronic stress. He writes:

Self-compassion practiced wisely could help reduce your own chronic stress, while compassion toward others could reduce chronic stress for the compassion-giver as well as the compassion-receiver.

Part of self-compassion could involve making time for yourself to engage in activities that reduce chronic stress. Such activities could include, meditation, yoga, dance, music, reading, drawing, painting, gardening, walking, consistent moderate exercise, hiking, hanging out with friends, etc. It’s important to recognize that stress-reducing activities involve different strokes for different folks. You need to find what feels right and works best for yourself.

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Written by Lynn E. O’Connor Ph.D.

I’m about to take off for a meeting organized by the Stanford University-based CCare, The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, in Telluride Colorado. We’re presenting results from our current research on contemplative practices (the more heady expression for meditation) and various psychological variables, such as depression, anxiety, empathy-based guilt and compassionate altruism.

We’ve gathered data from major schools of contemplative practices, including over 2000 subjects thus far. Most of our participants identified their kind of practice: Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, Centering Prayer and secular meditation well-known as “Mindfulness Meditation” We’re comparing these practitioners to a non-Buddhist, non-meditating population we gathered some years ago.

Big picture –meditators across all groups are less prone to feeling guilty for imaginary crimes (thinking erroneously that they’re responsible for someone else’s misery), less prone to depression and anxiety and higher in openness, general agreeableness, and altruism towards strangers. The personal benefits are obvious.

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Written by Eric Nelson.

The story goes something like this:

Years ago, a man living in the Middle East made some startling discoveries having to do with compassion and its relationship to health. What he found was that to the extent he expressed compassion toward others, their health and general well-being would improve. Sick people, those who were blind and physically deformed, even a young man who had passed on – all of them experienced remarkable recoveries as a result of their brief yet obviously life-changing interactions with this man.

Although it’s difficult if not impossible to tell whether this story is true (in case you missed the veiled reference, the man I’m talking about is Jesus), there is mounting evidence that compassion – whether received or given – improves the body. It’s also possible that what this man was practicing wasn’t a hit-or-miss prospect, but a decidedly reliable, even scientific, approach to health care.

Religious types have known this for years, even millennia. But it’s only fairly recently that this notion has gotten substantive buy-in from others. This is due, in part, to the religious community’s ability to repackage its message in ways that resonate with the broader public.

To read the full article, click here.