Feelings can seem so overwhelming at times it is difficult to think that we can change them.
But we can. Many studies have shown that just spending five minutes a day thinking about something positive can shift the neural circuits in the brain.
Daily practice of compassion can increase our feelings of love and compassion for ourselves and others. Brain scans have shown that brain circuits involved in empathy, positive emotion, and emotional regulation are dramatically changed in subjects who’d extensively practiced compassion meditation.
A 2013 study from a University of Wisconsin research team, published in Psychological Science, showed that focusing daily on the intention to be loving and compassionate not only strengthened feelings of compassion and related neural underpinnings, but also increased the concrete altruistic behavior of subjects. A study from Emory University recently also found that compassion meditation boosted “empathic accuracy,” a person’s ability to read the facial expressions of others.
These studies suggest that simply dwelling on the intention to develop a specific feeling activates the neural circuits responsible for producing that feeling. In focusing on the intention to be compassionate, meditators primed their brains for compassion.
Even if you spend five minutes a day thinking about things you’re grateful for, you’re likely to energize and create more connection with brain circuits that produce feelings of gratitude.
If you spend five minutes a day vividly remembering times when you felt happy (or playful, affectionate, sexual etc), you’ll energize and strengthen brain circuits that can produce these feelings. As neuroscientists explain, anything you consistently give attention to teaches the brain to produce more of it, and this is true with negative thoughts.
Good News for Couples Too!
When couples regularly spend five minutes a cay doing nothing but thinking about the things they like about their partner and things they like to do with them, it actually strengthens the neural circuits that generate feelings of connection. There is an old saying…”our energy goes where our thoughts go.”
