Hey there! Want to learn more about compassion, sympathy and empathy? You’ve come to the right place!

Compassion actually means “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that rises when you are approached with someone suffering and feel motivated to relieve that person’s suffering. Compassion isn’t the same as empathy though the thoughts are related.

While empathy refers more formally to their ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of a person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Altruism is the kind and selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion, though a person can feel compassion without acting on the compassion, and altruism can’t always motivated by compassion. While people who doubt may leave compassion as touchy-feely or not logical, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary meaning.

Some research has shown that when anyone feel compassion, anyone’s heart rate slows down, anyone secretes the bonding hormone oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in their wanting to approach and care for other people. Scientific research into the measurable benefits of compassion is very young. Preliminary findings suggest that being compassionate can improve health, well-being, and relationships with people.

Many scientists believe that compassion might be vital to the survival of their species, and they’re finding that its advantages can be increased through targeted exercises and practice. Here are some of the most top exciting findings from this research so far.

Compassion makes us feel good. Compassionate action (e.g., giving to charity) activates pleasure circuits in the brain, and compassion training programs even very brief ones strengthen brain circuits for pleasure and reward and lead to lasting increases in self-reported happiness. Being compassionate—tuning in to other people in a kind and loving manner—can reduce risk of heart disease by boosting the positive effects of the Vagus Nerve, which helps to slow our heart rate.

One compassion training program has found that it makes people more resilient to stress; it lowers stress hormones in the blood and saliva and strengthens the immune response. Brain scans during loving-kindness meditation which directs compassion toward suffering, suggest that on average, compassionate people’s minds wander less about what has gone wrong in their lives, or might go wrong in the future; as a result, they’re happier.

Compassion helps make caring parents. Brain scans show that when people experience compassion, their brains activate in neural systems known to support parental nurturance and other caregiving behaviors. Compassion helps make better spouses.

Compassionate people are more optimistic and supportive when communicating with others. Compassion helps make better friends. Studies of college friendships show that when one friend sets the goal to support the other compassionately, both friends experience greater satisfaction and growth in the relationship growing compassion for one person makes us less vindictive toward others.

Restraining feelings of compassion chips away at our commitment to moral principles. Workers who receive more compassion in their workplace see themselves, their co-workers, and their organization in a more positive light, report feeling more positive emotions like joy and contentment, and are more committed to their jobs. More compassionate societies those that take care of their most vulnerable members, assist other nations in need, and have children who perform more acts of kindness—are the more happier ones.

Compassionate people are more socially adept, making them less vulnerable to loneliness; loneliness has been shown to cause stress and harm the immune system. They often talk about some people as being more compassionate than others, but research suggests compassion isn’t something you’re born with or not. Instead, it can be strengthened through targeted exercises and practice.

Here are some specific, science-based activities for cultivating compassion from their new site, Greater Good in Action: Feeling supported: Think about the people you turn to when you’re distressed and recall times when you’ve felt comforted by them, which research says can help us to feel more compassionate toward others. Compassion meditation: Cultivate compassion toward a loved one, yourself, a neutral person, and even an enemy.

Put a human face on suffering: When reading the news, look for profiles of specific individuals and try to imagine what their lives have been like if you read the news. Eliciting altruism: Create reminders of connectedness. Compassion training programs, such as those out of Emory University and Stanford University, are revealing how we can boost feelings of compassion in ourselves and others.

Here are some of the best tips to emerge out of those programs, as well as other research. Look for commonalities: Seeing yourself as similar to others increases feelings of compassion. A recent study shows that something as simple as tapping your fingers to the same rhythm with a stranger increases compassionate behavior.

Calm your inner worrier: When we let our mind run wild with fear in response to someone else’s pain (e.g., What if that happens to me?), we inhibit the biological systems that enable compassion. The practice of mindfulness can help us feel safer in these situations, facilitating compassion. Encourage cooperation, not competition, even through subtle cues: A seminal study showed that describing a game as a “Community Game” led players to cooperate and share a reward evenly; describing the same game as a “Wall Street Game” made the players more cutthroat and less honest.

This can be a valuable lesson for teachers, who can promote cooperative learning in the classroom. See people as individuals (not abstractions): When presented with an appeal from an anti-hunger charity, people were more likely to give money after reading about a starving girl than after reading statistics on starvation—even when those statistics were combined with the girl’s story. Don’t play the blame game: When we blame others for their misfortune, we feel less tenderness and concern toward them.

Respect your inner hero: When we think we’re capable of making a difference, we’re less likely to curb our compassion. Notice and savor how good it feels to be compassionate. Studies have shown that practicing compassion and engaging in compassionate action bolsters brain activity in areas that signal reward.

To cultivate compassion in kids, start by modeling kindness: Research suggests compassion is contagious, so if you want to help compassion spread in the next generation, lead by example. Curb inequality: Research suggests that as people feel a greater sense of status over others, they feel less compassion. Don’t be a sponge: When we completely take on other people’s suffering as our own, we risk feeling personally distressed, threatened, and overwhelmed; in some cases, this can even lead to burnout.

Instead, try to be receptive to other people’s feelings without adopting those feelings as your own. Empathy is at its simplest awareness of the feelings and emotions of other people. It is a key element of Emotional Intelligence, the link between self and others, because it is how we as individuals understand what others are experiencing as if we were feeling it ourselves.

Empathy goes far beyond sympathy, which might be considered feeling for someone. Empathy is feeling with that person through the use of imagination. Empathy is feeling someone else’s feelings and you understand.

Empathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is also experienced by almost everyone at 1 point in their life especially autism people. (No offence for autism people). Compassion is actually love in disguise.

If your loved one is in a hospital, war, hurt, sick, or dying. Ask a friend or parent to help you and they might show that they are compassionate for you or they might show empathy for you. They might show sympathy too.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. There might be a Emotions With Animals edition blog post of this topic!

Websites I Used:

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition

https://grammarist.com/usage/empathy-sympathy/

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