Kirby James N, Doty James R, Petrocchi Nicola, Gilbert Paul
The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA; School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University , Palo Alto, CA , USA.
Front Public Health. 2017 Mar 8;5:40. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00040. eCollection 2017.
The evolution of mammalian caregiving involving hormones, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and the myelinated vagal nerve as part of the ventral parasympathetic system, enables humans to connect, co-regulate each other's emotions and create prosociality. Compassion-based interventions draw upon a number of specific exercises and strategies to stimulate these physiological processes and create conditions of "interpersonal safeness," thereby helping people engage with, alleviate, and prevent suffering. Hence, compassion-based approaches are connected with our evolved caring motivation and attachment and our general affiliative systems that help regulate distress. Physiologically, they are connected to activity of the vagus nerve and corresponding adaptive heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is an important physiological marker for overall health, and the body-mind connection. Therefore, there is significant value of training compassion to increase HRV and training HRV to facilitate compassion. Despite the significance of compassion in alleviating and preventing suffering, there remain difficulties in its precise assessment. HRV offers a useful form of measurement to assess and train compassion. Specific examples of what exercises can facilitate HRV and how to measure HRV will be described. This paper argues that the field of compassion science needs to move toward including HRV as a primary outcome measure in its future assessment and training, due to its connection to vagal regulatory activity, and its link to overall health and well-being.
哺乳动物养育行为的演变涉及多种激素，如催产素、加压素，以及作为腹侧副交感神经系统一部分的有髓迷走神经，这使人类能够建立联系、共同调节彼此的情绪并产生亲社会行为。基于同情心的干预措施运用了一些特定的练习和策略来刺激这些生理过程，并创造“人际安全感”的条件，从而帮助人们应对、减轻和预防痛苦。因此，基于同情心的方法与我们进化而来的关爱动机、依恋以及有助于调节痛苦的一般社交系统相关联。从生理角度来看，它们与迷走神经的活动以及相应的适应性心率变异性（HRV）有关。HRV是整体健康和身心联系的重要生理指标。因此，训练同情心以提高HRV以及训练HRV以促进同情心都具有重要价值。尽管同情心在减轻和预防痛苦方面具有重要意义，但其精确评估仍存在困难。HRV为评估和训练同情心提供了一种有用的测量方式。本文将描述哪些练习可以促进HRV以及如何测量HRV的具体示例。本文认为，由于同情心科学与迷走神经调节活动相关联，且与整体健康和幸福存在联系，该领域在未来的评估和训练中需要将HRV作为主要的结果指标。
