Science playing catch up to love

In this five-minute article, I'll explore how using a loving-kindness meditation can help us feel more confident and connected to the people around us. And how at the cellular level, practices that focus on love can help us mend broken hearts, build resilience and find rich meaning in life.

I'll explain how I practise this form of meditation and then explore some of the neuroscience and psychology research that validates ancient mindfulness and visualisation exercises.

Sitting and breathing

Try sitting for a moment with your eyes closed. Spend a few minutes listening to your breath. Feel its impact on your body as you breathe in and breathe out. Give yourself a tiny holiday by focussing on how your abdomen rises and falls. And then move your attention to your rib cage and on toward your chest. Use your breath as a tool to anchor yourself in the moment.?

If your thoughts keep prodding you, perhaps deepen the breath or use a mantra such as "I breathe in. I breathe out". Continue to do this for a few minutes to help you feel grounded and steady.

Be a best friend to yourself

Slowly move your attention to your chest and feel your chest rising and falling. Then, observe how your chest feels. Does it feel tight, soft, heavy, empty, jittery, relaxed, tight,??light, calm, or anxious???

Whatever feeling you experience, sit your awareness within your chest and let the feeling settle.??If your chest feels tight, give thanks to your body for trying to protect you. Maybe your fight/flight response is working overtime.?Perhaps the area feels locked or disconnected from the rest of your body or your mind. Whatever feeling you have, give thanks to your body and mind for trying to do the right thing.?

Imagine that your best friend came to you explaining that she felt empty and hollow. How would you sit with the person? You'd listen without judgment and support and cuddle.??Now in this exercise, be a best friend to yourself. Listen with love and without judgment.

Allow your supporters into your heart

Some people find visualisation easy, others more of a challenge. I'll explain what I do and provide an alternative for people who find visualisation difficult. The following is quite a detailed visualisation. If you are a beginner, start with easy practice and add layers of complexity over time.

As I bring my attention to my chest rising and falling, I visualise white light flowing down over the crown of my head, filling my brain, my jaw, my neck and down to my chest. With every breath in, I feel energy filling me from above.?

As I breathe in, I slowly inflate with the energy of the world around me. As I breathe out, I slowly deflate, sending energy to the corners of my body and mind and out into the world around me.

My attention turns, and I imagine a helix DNA??shape descending over the crown of my head and down to my chest. Then, as the helix spirals downwards, I visualise the people and animals past and present who continue to fill my heart with love.?

I see my nan playing hide and seek with me in her semi-detached house in Wrexham in the 70s, my dog rex, my mum and brothers, my dog marty, cat tipok, and my partner, my dad and stepdad and my friends.?

There's no set order to who comes and sits with me in my heart. And sometimes I see me. A little seven-year-old boy, scared and confused about the changes happening in my life: I surround that little boy with the people and animals I have loved and love me at different times.

What happens then?

I've noticed that when I practise this exercise, much of the heaviness in my chest lifts.?And there are other benefits too.

• I breathe more slowly.?
• I feel more confident.?
• I call my friends and family more often.?
• I'm less trapped in my thoughts.?
• I'm more aware of the things I can do.?
• I feel held.??
• I feel less rushed and time-pressured.?
• I'm better able to hold tough feelings and share them with people.?
• I'm less "me" and more "we".

And then slowly through the day, some of the heaviness returns and some of the tension. I fret about all the things I need to do and fear for the future.

But with practice and over time, I've learnt that when these feelings and thoughts arise, I can soften and temper them by returning to the breath in my chest and feeling the circle of support from the people I love.

The mindfulness expert Jack Kornfield tells the story of a young Buddhist monk who was looking for enlightenment. So he sought out a wise farmer who lived on top of a mountain. He had heard that this farmer knew the secret to happiness and becoming an enlightened person.

On his trek up the mountain, he met the farmer on his way down to the village. The old farmer was carrying the produce of his farm for sale in the village.?

The monk asked the farmer what the secret of happiness and enlightenment is. The old farmer dropped his heavy package. The monks' eyes widened, and he reflected, "so all I have to do is let go of the stuff I'm carrying. That's so simple but so effective!".?

He then asked, "but what do I do then?". To which the old farmer picked up his heavy burden and continued down to the village.

We carry our past into the future. It helps shape us. Our fears often become our strengths. But we can learn to occasionally let go and appreciate the value of what we are carrying through the practice of mindfulness and loving compassion.

An easier exercise

If the idea of visualising white light, spiral helix shapes and stacking your heart with friends, family, and pets seems a bit of a stretch, start with something much more manageable.

Practise the simple breath awareness exercise I described at the start of this article. As you breathe in, silently say the words, "I breathe in", and as you breathe out, say the words, "I breathe out."

Imagine that you are breathing in the energy from the world around you. And as you breathe out, you are breathing to every corner of your body and out to the world. Breathing the outside world into you and your inner world back out into the world.

From here, if you want to explore visualisation more, then picture someone you feel unconditional love for; your child, partner, pet or sibling. Choose someone for whom love flows without condition in either direction.

The science bit – bringing love into the heart brain

Many of my clients need some convincing to practise such techniques, and therefore it is worth taking a few moments to consider the robust evidence supporting the exercises I've described.

Sitting and breathing - meditating on the breath reduces some of the adverse consequences of fight/flight, such as muscle tension, and helps us engage the rest and restore parasympathetic response. Applying techniques to our emotional triggers, such as public speaking and when we experience personality clashes, can deepen the connectivity between our middle prefrontal cortex and our limbic regions. One of the middle prefrontal cortex roles is to dampen down excessive fight/flight responses, such that we can remain calmer and more centred in the face of adversity and setback.

Practising loving kindness meditations - researcher Barbara Fredrickson has explored how this type of meditation helps us broaden and build positive emotions. Broadening and building our emotional agility leads to more confidence and consideration for other people and makes it more likely that people will connect with the people they love.?

I've experienced this myself. When I feel stressed and anxious, I often don't want to pick up the phone to friends and family - I'd rather stew in my juices. Practising these types of meditations reminds our neural circuits that there is a big, wide world of love and support out there. We need to reach out and tune into it.

Finding meaning and keeping us healthy - one element of Carol Ryff's six-factor psychological well-being model is life purpose and meaning. Multiple studies have pointed to the beneficial impact of loving-kindness meditations in helping people experience more significant meaning in their lives.??Telomeres are the caps at the end of DNA strands that control how long a cell live.??Research points to meditation increasing telomerase activity and cellular life. It's as though when we feel a greater connectivity to the people and the world around us, our cells want to hang around for longer. (1)?

Handling negative self-talk - people who practise loving-kindness meditation develop tools to handle their negative self-talk (2)

In conclusion

Remembering to fill your heart with the people and animals you love and treating yourself as you would a best friend not only feels good but is so protective, restorative and good for your body, mind and soul.