Does Compassion Meditation Prevent Heart Disease?

Positive Emotions Protect the Heart

People with depression, anxiety or recurrent anger or hostility are more likely to die from a heart related cause than those without. And there is now evidence that cultivating positive emotions such as compassion may reduce these risks, partly by balancing the autonomic nervous system. Meditation may be practical way
to achieve this.

The Benefits of the Parasympathetic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system controls our heart rate, breathing, sweating, salivation, urination and digestion without us ever having to consciously think about it. Our emotions have a direct effect on this delicately balanced system. If we’re angry, depressed, anxious or stressed the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system becomes more active. Our hearts beat faster and more strongly, blood pressure rises, pupils dilate and breathing quickens. This is known as the fight or flight response. However it seems, when we have feelings of compassion and happiness, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and these effects are reversed.

How Does This Prevent Heart Disease?

The increase in parasympathetic activity, induced by positive emotions, slows the heart, and increases the beat to beat variation in heart rate.
Our hearts usually beat about 70 times a minute. But this is an average. Over that minute the heart may speed and slow considerably- usually becoming faster when we breathe in, and slowing when we breathe out. This speeding and slowing is known as Heart Rate Variability . When the parasympathetic nervous system is more active, Heart Rate Variability increases, while the sympathetic nervous system has the opposite effect.

And it turns out that hearts with greater rate variability, are more healthy than those with more regular rhythms.

This increase in parasympathetic activity also improves our blood pressure control, by increasing the sensitivity of something called the Baroreceptor Reflex.

So What is the Baroreceptor Reflex?

This is an automatic system which allows us to keep blood pressure at just the right level, whether we’re lying, standing or upside down! When we stand, for instance, there’s a big shift in blood to the feet, blood pressure drops driving less blood to the brain- so we may feel light-headed. Receptors in blood vessels in the neck and chest detect this drop in blood pressure, and send a signal to the heart via the autonomic nervous system. The heart beats faster and more powerfully, blood pressure rises and we start to feel less light-headed.

A more sensitive baroreceptor reflex gives us better control of blood pressure, and seems to reduce our chances of a heart related death.

Compassion Meditation Activates The Parasympathetic

It seems then that meditation, where a feeling compassion for others is generated, increases parasympathetic activity, causing our hearts to slow and increasing beat to beat variability in heart rate. This makes our hearts healthier,and reduces our risk of heart related death.

(More about the effects of compassion in later posts).

Further Reading

Compassion by Paul Gilbert

Related Posts

Does Meditation Protect Us From Stress

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