Why Self-Care Isn’t Enough
Four lessons on the science of compassion and self-mastery
Four years ago when I moved to an unfamiliar city, not knowing anyone, I faced the usual hardships of relocation. What I didn’t consider was the benefits of being, initially, anonymous.
Suddenly I had the ability to completely reset how I present and relate to the world. I felt free to go any direction I wanted, even though I had no clear destination in mind.
Facing the stress of moving, self-care was a priority, but so was being a good member in my new community.
I’m a researcher by trade, so I treated this like any other opportunity: I started reviewing published studies on how to transform one’s habits, identity, and health. I wanted to know how to be a better person, and not just for my own welfare.
The more I looked into it, I found that the brain, and even our genetics, are malleable. I found four powerful insights, which I apply myself to this day:
1. You are not a prisoner to your current biology
This was the foundation of everything and truly inspired me to challenge my own assumed limits.
I dove into new research in epigenetics, aka — the study of how genes are expressed in organisms. There’s a revolution occurring in scientific thought and this research is the bedrock.
Amazingly, studies are showing that when we treat our bodies with care — for example: doing yoga, eating right, reducing our stressors — we can not only prevent negative effects on our DNA (such as halting DNA methylation), we can even reverse it.
For decades, genetic determinism — or the idea that my life is an expression of a pattern of genes unfolding and I am a victim of this pattern — became an easy way to overstate the science and find excuses for our current predicaments.
But as Michael Skinner, professor at the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University insists,
“The age of genetic determinism needs to end.”
2. Your own individual health & wellness is tied to how compassionate you are
Some of the most profound findings from this research in epigenetics is how other-care, or simply ‘kindness’ or ‘compassion,’ affects our individual DNA.
A 2017 study revealed that acts of prosocial behavior towards specific others (i.e., acts of kindness) are associated with reductions in leukocyte expression of CTRA indicator gene. This is associated with reduction in disease development and resistance.
Practicing kindness literally makes you healthier.
So even while self-care is important, we need to look beyond our own welfare to truly thrive.
Our society is suffering from individualism and self-absorption run rampant. But at the core we are social creatures dealing with deadly social isolation and increasing dis-ease despite hundreds of billions spent on prescription drugs every year in the United States alone.
Understanding the power we have to master our own future can save us from a bleak collective future. Internationally recognized cell biologist and lecturer, Dr. Bruce Lipton PhD lays it out well in this interview excerpt:
“Epigenetics changes the entire game, because it says that genetic expression is directly due to the environment and our perception of the environment.
We are capable of changing the environment we live in and we are capable of changing our perceptions. Therefore, we are not victims, but we are actually masters of our genetic activity. We have to recognize that the belief of being a victim is a perception. If that is what you believe, then you can be a victim because you are going to translate your perception into biology. This is why your work becomes important in this case, Craig, because knowledge is power. A lack of knowledge is by definition a lack of power.”
Any blaming, judgmental, or divisive behavior ultimately is a form of self-harm. All the more reason we as a society are in dire need of practicing kindness.
3. You can train yourself into being more compassionate
A shift is beginning to take place in how we even understand compassion.
Rather that dividing the world into kind and unkind individuals, we are learning that we can literally cultivate compassion as a practice, as one would learn to play piano.
For example, Tibeaten monks who meditate on compassion and kindness are shown to strengthen the parts of the brain associated with empathy.
These findings support the working assumption that through training, people can develop skills that promote happiness and compassion.
Study director Richard Davidson (professor of psychiatry and psychology at UW–Madison and an expert on imaging the effects of meditation) notes:
“People are not just stuck at their respective set points. We can take advantage of our brain’s plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities.”
There are additional benefits as well. When meditating on compassion, long-time practitioners quickly transition to high-frequency brain-waves called Gamma waves, a state associated with moments of insight, peak performance, and quick mental processing.
Companies are even developing tools to enable people to be proactive over their internal state. Many new products and services are designed specifically to help us master our brain waves.
4. You have the power to make our whole world more compassionate, just by your own acts of kindness
By being compassionate, we not only help our own health and encourage social unity, we also make others kinder as a by-product.
Just one person practicing kindness can create a domino effect where individual actions drive larger change.
Studies show that just witnessing others perform compassionate acts often induce a state of moral elevation which, in turn, puts us into a state where we are more apt to be compassionate.
We have the power to shape our own health and a healthy society, and it starts with being kind. As the pre-eminent thinker on kindness as a daily practice, the Dali Lama, said,
“Be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible.”
