After Meditation, Self-Critical People Ease Up

Lovingkindness meditation has an effect, study shows

Self-critical people were significantly kinder and more compassionate toward themselves after practicing lovingkindness meditation compared with a control group, according to a pilot study in Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy. The technique, rooted in Buddhism, may help to reduce symptoms of depression, the researchers suggest.

Lovingkindness is a form of meditation designed to cultivate feelings of warmth and kindness to all people, including oneself, the researchers said. Practicing the technique may activate a soothing-caring regulation system that is probably deficient in chronic self-critics, they suggest.

Self-critical perfectionism is implicated in a number of psychological conditions, such as eating disorders, and can interfere with treatments for depression, the study said.

From 2011 to 2012, researchers in Israel recruited 38 people, 23 women and 15 men, who had high self-criticism scores on pre-study evaluations. Half were assigned to a seven-week lovingkindness-meditation program and the rest formed a control group that was offered the program after the study.

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Source : Wall Street Journal - August 2015

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