Want a quick hit of happiness?
Research demonstrates the incredible power of loving-kindness meditation; in fact, this simple practice might be more effective than Prozac. Also called metta, loving-kindness meditation is the simple practice of directing well-wishes towards other people.
Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings. Over a nine week period, research showed that this type of meditation increased people’s experiences of positive emotions. The research shows compellingly that it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.” This is probably because it increases a wide range of those resources that make for a meaningful and successful life, like having an increased sense of purpose, stronger social support, and less illness. Research even shows that loving-kindness meditation “changes the way people approach life” for the better.
Research even shows that meditation 'changes the way people approach life' for the better. Share on X
I’ve blogged before about social connections and how important they are for health and happiness. Doing a simple loving-kindness meditation can make us feel less isolated and more connected to those around us: one study showed that a SINGLE SEVEN MINUTE loving-kindness meditation made people feel more connected to and positive about both loved ones and total strangers, and more accepting of themselves. Imagine what a regular practice could do!
Here’s How to Do It:
The general idea is to sit comfortably with your eyes closed and imagine what you wish for your life. Formulate your desires into three or four phrases. Traditionally they would be something like this:
May I be happy.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be filled with ease.
1. Start by directing the phrases at yourself: “May I be happy.”
2. Next, direct the metta towards someone you feel thankful for or someone who has helped you: “May you be happy.”
3. Now visualize someone you feel neutral about — people you neither like nor dislike–and direct the well-wishes towards them. This one can be harder than you’d think: It makes me realize how quick we can be to judge people as either positive or negative in our lives.
4. Ironically, the next one can be easier: Visualizing the people you don’t like or who you are having a hard time with. Someone irritating you at home? Undermining you at work? We often feel quite empowered when we send love to the people making us miserable. Send loving-kindness towards them.
5. Finally, direct the metta towards everyone universally: “May all beings everywhere be happy.”
In this 3-minute video, Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness is an Inside Job, teaches how to do this. Another good resource is Sharon Salzberg—she wrote Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. You don’t really need to read books about this: loving-kindness meditation is as simple it seems. People just write books about it because it is so powerful.
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