It has been stated many times that survival is of the fittest, but when one reads Darwin closely this is not the case. Rather, the more accurate statement, coined by Dacher Keltner, Ph.D. and other leading social scientists, is ‘the survival of the kindest.’ Paul Ekman, Ph.D., a leading expert on emotion describes an ever expanding body of scientific evidence that being compassionate affords significant benefit to oneself and society in his recent article in JAMA. In addition to evidence that survival may be enhanced by caring for others, there are now findings suggesting that the statement made by the Dalai Lama, ‘if one wishes to make others happy be compassionate, if one wishes to be happy be compassionate,’ in fact, has great validity.” Dr. James Doty, a Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and Director of The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found in his research that compassion directly affects a person’s well being. Compassion Increases Happiness & Immunity & Decreases Stress But happiness alone is not the only benefit of being compassionate. In a number of studies using a variety of psychological and biological measures and neuroimaging techniques, compassion not only stimulates one’s pleasure (reward) centers but also leads to a decrease in biological markers of stress and an increase in indices of adaptive immune function.” Compassion Improves Survival Of The Species, Leads To Happiness & Improved Health So what’s not to like about being compassionate? It improves survival of the species, leads to happiness and results in improved health. The reality is that while science and technology have the potential to offer...
