Loving-Kindness Meditation and
Change
Huffington Post Angela Wilson
2013-10-03
October 2-- One
increasingly popular form of meditation is
loving-kindness meditation
(LKM), the practice of
wishing oneself and others to be happy, content and at ease. In the
yoga tradition, loving-kindness is seen as an opportunity to
cultivate the opposite.
Where many meditation techniques encourage
students to explore difficult feelings or emotions directly, in
loving-kindness the invitation is to send well wishes to oneself
(who is in distress) as well as the other (who we feel distress
toward). This isn't meant to suppress the feelings as they arise,
but instead it can be thought of as a soothing balm, something
gently placed on a wound for healing.
Over the past several years, as meditation
research has become more prevalent, science has become interested
in the effects of loving-kindness practice on the mind and the
body. Under the guidance of such well-known contemplatives as the
Dalai Lama, researchers believed that LKM would offer similar
benefits to other forms of meditation, such as breath meditation or
open-awareness meditation.
As it turns out, LKM offers unique benefits
that are subtly different from other kinds of meditation. What are
those differences? Some just might surprise you.
LKM is a key tool for an optimal
life.
One benefit of LKM is that loving-kindness
reduces the stress response. Those who practice even a short course
of LKM (say over the course of eight weeks) experience less
distress than those who do not by the end of those eight weeks,
according to this
study.
Probably no huge surprise there, right?
However, further exploration into this
practice may intrigue you. The study on the effect of compassion
meditation also investigated the impact of LKM on the body's
inflammatory and neuroendocrine system. At first preliminary
results revealed that LKM showed no discernable differences in
inflammation compared to the control group.
However, when divided into high-practice
group verses low-practice group (i.e., those who practiced LKM each
day compared to those with minimal practice) the results became
more striking. The high-practice group saw a significant decrease
in inflammation compared to the low-practice and no-practice
groups. This research highlights two important findings. First,
that not only can LKM subjectively reduce distress, but it can
impact the body's physiology as well (in this case, LKM reduced
inflammation). The second, equally noteworthy finding is that this
only happened for those who activity engaged in the practice of
LKM. Simply attending a meditation class once a week was not enough
to produce a change. Students had to practice at least a little
each day.
Another pivotal study
in the investigation of LKM was
conducted by positive psychology researcher Barbara Fredrickson.
Dr. Fredrickson and her team investigated the impact of LKM not
only on emotions, but also on how this practice could actually
build personal resources (cognitive, emotional and physical). Her
research team invited a group of people to practice LKM over the
course of nine weeks. Participants in the LKM group had to practice
at least a little every day, and researchers measured subjects on a
variety of outcomes -- including their experiences of positive
emotions, their immunity to illness and their relationships to
others. Her question: Could LKM actually build a person's personal
resources?
It did. In their seminal research paper,
Dr. Fredrickson and her team write,
The practice of LKM led to shifts in
people's daily experiences of a wide range of positive emotions,
including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest,
amusement and awe. These shifts in positive emotions took time to
appear and were not large in magnitude, but over the course of nine
weeks, they were linked to increases in a variety of personal
resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive
relationships with others and good physical health... They enabled
people to become more satisfied with their lives and to experience
fewer symptoms of depression.
These findings are
powerful.
The Brain on LKM.
So we know that LKM positively impacts our
emotions, our physical health, our sense of connection. But does
that translate to an impact on the brain?
Neuroscientific meditation researcher
Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin became interested
in just that question. He has extensively
studied the effect of meditation, including
LKM, on the brain. He had a simple question. Would LKM
change the brain? To investigate the exact implication of this
practice on the brain he invited two groups of subjects into his
lab: those who had at least 10,000 hours of LKM under their
meditative belt and those who were interested, but new to
meditation. He invited both these groups into the fMRI scanner to
see how LKM would impact the brain.
The results were clear. The practice of LKM
changed several important brain regions: both the insula and the
temporal parietal junction (TPJ) lit up as a result of LKM.
The
insula
is the part of the brain
responsible for our ability to empathize with others, and to make
oneself aware of emotional and physical present-moment experiences.
While both groups saw an increase in insula activity, the group
with 10,000 hours of experience showed significantly more
activation than the other group. This group was experiencing higher
levels of compassion than the non-practicing
group.
A similar finding appeared for the TPJ. The
TPJ, like the insula, is also related to our ability to process
empathy and our ability to attune to the emotional
states of others. Again, compared to short-term meditators, those
with a long-term meditation practice showed significant activation
of this brain region.
Loving-kindness creates feelings of social
connection.
Given this research, it is no surprise that
LKM has been shown to increase social connectedness, even for
strangers. A
study conducted by a group of researchers from
Stanford University found that in just seven minutes of LKM,
subjects reported greater social connection toward others.
Other studies
have shown that the feeling of
social connection can predict changes in a person's
vagal tone
(a physiological measurement of
resilience and overall well-being).
As a yoga teacher for
Kripalu's Frontline Providers
Program, I have the opportunity to teach the
Loving-Kindness practice to members of a workforce who are at high
risk for compassion fatigue -- health-care providers. In just the
10 minutes that I invite participants to practice LKM toward
themselves and others, something powerful emerges. Some students
begin to cry. Some bring their hand softly to their heart. Some
physically relax. Afterward, when I invite the group to look around
at each other, the sense of connection is
palpable.
What is striking about the research and
about the experience teaching is that these changes can happen in a
short amount of time. Concentrated practice is essential. Even a
few minutes creates a shift, and that shift is
marked.
The Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying,
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need
for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our
temple; the philosophy is kindness. And indeed, it seems that in
fact, with a little practice, LKM has the potential not only to
improve our connection with ourselves, but to foster deeper
connection and care for others as well.