Non-verbal communication of compassion: measuring psychophysiologic effects.
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine December 20, 2011 Kathi J Kemper, Hossam A Shaltout
A preliminary study tested whether the psychophysiologic benefits of non-verbal communication of compassion (NVCC) could be detected even when subjects were blinded to the intervention. Healthy women (mean age 43.6 years) were told the study examined time and touch on the autonomic nervous system. A practitioner with over 10 years of loving-kindness meditation (LKM) experience delivered both non-tactile and tactile LKM. Blinding was maintained. Despite this, subjects reported significant improvements in stress (5.5 vs. 2.2), relaxation (3.8 vs. 8.8), and peacefulness (3.8 vs. 9.0) on visual analog scales, and showed significant reductions in respiratory rate and improved heart rate variability during both tactile and non-tactile LKM. Extending compassion may be good medicine.