The Link Between Self-Compassion & Physiological Health
Holistic practitioners often get called quacks for discussing the mind/body connection and the importance of mindset in the healing process. At this point, however, it is scientific fact!
The concept that health care providers or really anyone resistant to the concept would simply dismiss it is problematic.
If we think about it, we don’t really need the science to tell us that there is a connection between the mind and the physical body.
Have you ever had that feeling of needing to throw up because you were so stressed or shocked?
Have your bowels ever gone a bit crazy when you were really nervous about something?
Have you ever experienced that total energy drain that comes along with sadness & mourning?
We’re quick to dismiss things like blemishes, weight gain, and hair loss as being “just because I’ve been super stressed lately,” and yet when it comes to the discussion about how the mind affects the body we refuse to hear it?
If it sounds like I’m scolding, I’m not! In fact, I was totally in that boat! I wouldn’t even CONSIDER the concept as it related to health because I blindly considered myself to be a “science-based” practitioner… little did I know it IS science.
It wasn’t until I started working with my autoimmune clients that the connection between mind and body became SO clear. Every single one of my clients with autoimmune disease had intensely self-critical mindsets. We are all perfectionists. We hold ourselves to impossibly high standards and no matter how much we achieve or how much people tell us we’re doing great, we are never good enough… for ourselves. Self-compassion is usually next to nothing when we are down and out with autoimmune disease.
This connection became so clear to me as it came up over and over again with each of my clients and until I took some time to walk them through it and help them find self-love, they would reach roadblocks in their healing. Once we addressed the mindset, everything fell into place and it became easier for them to achieve and maintain remission.
When you have autoimmune disease, you are told that it is chronic and incurable and all you can do is manage it. Well, yes… technically I will always have Hashimoto’s. HOWEVER, I am going on 2 years in remission WITHOUT a flare, and I credit the mindset work that I eventually did for myself after putting those puzzle pieces together.
When I first started working as an autoimmune nutritionist, I believed that flaring was just part of autoimmune disease, somewhat out of our control, and we were doing well to only flare once in a while. I was doing really well with my nutritional principles but I would still flare here and there.
Since tapping into the power of the mind & self-compassion, I have not flared. If I feel like a flare might be coming (usually because I’m stressed or my mind is being mean), I double down on my self-love practice and I am able to nip it in the bud.
Hopefully, at this point you’re hearing me but I get that this is all anecdotal and if you are like I am and you need the science. Well, good news! There’s lots of it.
The Anti-Inflammatory Power of Self-Compassion
First, let’s consider this question: can physiological stress or a lack of self compassion cause inflammation?!
The science suggests it does.
In a large meta-analysis of more than 300 empirical articles describing the relationship between psychological stress and parameters of the immune system in human participants they found that even brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) could suppress cellular immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral immunity (Dickerson, Gruenewald, & Kemeny, 2004).
Another meta-analysis looked closer at the types of inflammatory immune cells that were stimulated in response to psychological stress. It concluded that stress showed robust effects for increased levels of circulating IL-6, IL-1 beta and CRP. Perhaps this is part of the reason why physiological traumas are a common trigger for autoimmune disease development.
These more recent studies follow up on the work of a collaborative study through the University of California, though the Department of Psychology and Social Behaviour and the Department of Medicine/Division of Geriatrics. Their research discussed how negative self-threatening emotions like shame may orchestrate specific patterns of biological changes. A series of studies demonstrates that acute threats to the social self increase pro-inflammatory cytokine activity and cortisol and that these changes occur in concert with self-shaming (Dickerson, Kemeny, Aziz, Kim, & Fahey, 2004).
A related study found that even simply writing about a traumatic experience of self-blame led to increases in TNF-a receptor activity, especially among those participants reporting high levels of shame (Dickerson, Gable, Irwin, Aziz, & Kemeny, 2009).
Shame has also been linked cross-sectionally to higher baseline levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 as well as to lower glucocorticoid inhibition of IL-6 (Rohleder, Chen, Wolf, & Miller, 2008).
So the science is there. Self-blame & shame lead to inflammation. So then, perhaps the bigger question is, can self compassion reduce or protect against inflammation?
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a prominent pro-inflammatory cytokine driving chronic inflammatory diseases and autoimmune disorders.
A recent study published in the scientific journal, “Brain, Behaviour & Immunity” measured plasma concentrations of interleukin-6 in participants on two consecutive days at the same time of day to control for circadian variations of stress hormones. During their laboratory sessions, participants were brought through a resting period followed by exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and blood draws at baseline, 30, and 120 minutes following the TSST. At the beginning of day 1, self-compassion, self-esteem, depressive symptoms and demographic factors were assessed.
The study demonstrated that participants who were high in self-compassion exhibited significantly lower IL-6 responses, even when controlling for self-esteem, depressive symptoms, demographic factors and distress.
These findings suggest that self compassion may serve as a protective factor against stress-induced inflammation and inflammation-related disease! The final conclusion in the full report states, “efforts to help people cope more effectively with acute stress and reduce disease risk should seek not only to relieve negative emotions and appraisals but also to foster positive emotional states such as self-compassion.”
Prior research had found that self-compassion interventions reduced feelings of shame and self-criticism (Gilbert & Procter, 2006) and that self-compassionate individuals were less emotionally reactive in stressful situations than those low in self-compassion (Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen, & Hancock, 2007). This was the basis for this follow up study, driven to demonstrate the physiological changes we assumed would take place if we were able to prevent those inflammatory feelings of shame & self-criticism!
Previous research has show that inflammation is influenced by psychological states that are related to but distinct from self-compassion. For example, a number of studies have linked positive mood to reduced inflammation (e.g., Brouwers et al., 2012; Sepah & Bower, 2009) and to healthy immune function more generally (for a review, see Marsland, Pressman, & Cohen, 2007).
Additionally, mindfulness meditation has been shown to reduce stress-induced inflammation in both healthy and patient populations (e.g., Creswell, et al., 2012; Rosenkranz, Davidson, MacCoon, Sheridan, Kalin, & Lutz, 2013). Meditation that focuses on increasing compassion for others has also been shown to reduce stress-induced inflammation (Pace et al., 2009).
Finally, recent research found that self-esteem was a protective factor against increases in interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) and TNF-α following acute psychosocial stress, but self-esteem was unrelated to IL-6 (O’Donnell, Brydon, Wright, & Steptoe, 2008).
Self-compassion is distinct from these related constructs in important ways. Although self-compassion may involve feelings of positive affect, these positive feelings are directed toward the self and toward the specific types of self conscious emotions likely to arise in self-threatening situations, such as shame. Self-compassion is also distinct from mindfulness. Whereas mindfulness involves non-judgemental observation of mental processes, self-compassion goes beyond non-judgement by involving the active expression of warmth and caring toward the self. Some research suggests that the development of self-compassion may in fact be a key mechanism explaining the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions (Baer, 2010).
Additionally, although self-compassion and self-esteem are both directed toward the self, they are conceptually distinct. Unlike self-esteem, self-compassion is non-evaluative: people can have compassion for themselves even if they aren’t feeling good about themselves. Self-compassion has been show to predict more balanced emotion reactions to laboratory-based stressors compared to self-esteem, including lower levels of negative affect (Leary et al., 2007). Research has also found that self-compassion is associated with greater self-worth stability (Neff & Vonk, 2009), lower narcissism (Neff, 2003b), and greater self-improvement motivation (Breines & Chen, 2012) compared to self-esteem, making it a potentially more adaptive strategy for coping with threats to the self.
Research suggests that self-compassion may impact physical health through a number of pathways. More simply, self-compassionate people may be more motivated to take care of their health by engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviors and adhering to medical regimens (Terry & Leary, 2011). However, what I am more interested in is the direct physiological response you body has to self-compassion. As I have outlined, recent research does suggest that self-compassion may act as a protective mechanism against chronic inflammation, making it a potentially powerful tool for healing, and one that is too often overlooked.
Several studies have now flagged self-compassion as an important target for intervention amongst specific conditions because of its significant impact on physical symptoms.
For example, a recent study observing diabetes-related symptoms among adults with Type 2 diabetes determined a greater symptom burden where there was negative cognitive emotion regulation and a lack of self-compassion. The conclusion of this study urges the consideration of targeted interventions (Kane, Hoogendoorn, Tanenbaum, Gonzalez, 2018).
Self-compassion was also actively associated with improved physiological performance, healing & recovery in athletes. The study suggests, “addressing athletes’ fears of self-compassion may be important in promoting optimal recovery” (Ceccarelli, Giuliano, Glazebrook, Strachan, 2019).
Discussion
The mounting evidence that not only does a lack of self-compassion cause inflammation, but the active practice of self-compassion may prevent or even reduce it’s activity is difficult to deny. We are clearly seeing a connection between the mind and physiological symptoms, and not just those perceived by the subject. This is beyond a placebo.
It is time that people (and perhaps more importantly, health care professionals) start to take this aspect of health & healing seriously.
Both my personal health and my clinical practice improved upon the introduction of self-compassion practices as part of the healing process. Those who are open-minded and willing to consider this a prescription for healing see better results than their resistant counterparts, every single time.
If you are new to the concept of self-compassion and don’t even know where to start, the easiest jumping point is to consider simple mantras. Just repeating in your head the words “I am enough” can start to reprogram your subconscious toward a state of self-compassion.
It’s true by the way… you are enough.
You will fail. You will say things you don’t mean. You will accidentally (or purposefully) break things. You will have regrets. You won’t be perfect… no one is perfect. But you, my friend, are absolutely BEYOND enough.
Please feel free to start a discussion in the comments or reach out to me personally either through the contact tab or though direct messaging on Facebook or Instagram.
I’m here for you.
Kisses & kombucha,
Meg
P.S. Seriously… you are enough.
SOURCES
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