This type of compassion brings us the most benefit, new study shows

Studies have long suggested that helping others can make us feel happier, and this extends to caring about animals too — as anyone who volunteers can attest.

But a new study about compassion offers a window into how it relates to mental health, and it turns out that one type of compassion has more impact than you might think: How we care about and treat ourselves.

“What came out of the study is that if someone reported high compassion for others but low compassion for themselves, they tended to have anxiety, depression and low well-being,” said Bassam Khoury, lead researcher in the study and clinical psychologist and professor at McGill University in Canada.

People who struggle with self-compassion, Khoury said, tend to describe themselves in harsh terms.

“I have many patients saying, ‘I hate myself,’” he said.

He offered an example of a daughter who takes her aging parent to every appointment but tells herself she’s not doing enough. Or a nurse who covers others’ shifts but misses her own doctor’s appointment.

“It’s inhuman to care for everyone and not yourself,” Khoury said. “It will fail at some point.”

Khoury said he sees this pattern often in his practice — and his latest study suggests that having compassion for others while having low compassion for yourself can harm your mental health.

In the study, published last month in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Khoury and colleagues surveyed more than 1,200 Canadians online. Participants answered detailed questionnaires about their sense of compassion — how considerate and caring they are toward themselves, toward others and toward animals — as well as their stress, anxiety and depression, emotional regulation, and overall well-being.

A group of about 200 participants repeated the self-reported survey a few months later, so researchers could determine whether people’s compassion levels remained consistent over time.

Khoury said self-compassion has four main components: thinking about yourself without judgment, actively taking care of yourself, feeling love and respect for yourself, and accepting comfort or help from others when you need it.

Paul Gilbert, a clinical psychologist who created the Compassion Focused Therapy method, said compassion is about being considerate of someone’s suffering — including your own — and hoping to ease it. Gilbert was not a part of Khoury’s study.

“Compassion really is the courage and wisdom to address suffering, whether it’s within you or other people,” Gilbert said. “Compassion is the way we deal with the mutual suffering of all of us.”

On difficult days, Khoury said, someone with low self-compassion is far more likely to do something harmful to themselves than something kind.

“This is a population that is much more at risk for mental health challenges,” he said.

In Khoury’s study, the researchers sorted respondents into six groups based on their answers. Some groups had high compassion for people and animals, or only for animals, but also had low self-compassion. Despite their kindness and consideration toward others, these two groups reported more stress, anxiety and depression than the other groups.

“If you do things for others but you still don’t take care of yourself, it doesn’t protect you,” Khoury said, noting that those who don’t practice self-compassion are more susceptible to compassion fatigue or burnout. “You can be the best caregiver, but at the end of the day, if you don’t love yourself, you will start resenting others.”

Another group that had both high self-compassion and high compassion for others and animals reported the least anxiety and depression and the highest sense of well-being of any of the six groups.

“It’s about balancing; being able to have self-compassion while having compassion for others,” Khoury said.

Christopher Germer, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in Khoury’s study, said the pattern Khoury found is in line with other research on self-compassion. Germer, who studies self-compassion, recently wrote the book Self-Compassion for Shame.

“Self-compassion is associated with just about every measure of psychological well-being that’s been studied so far,” Germer said. “To grow our compassion for others, it’s important to grow our compassion for ourselves.”

Khoury cautioned that his study has several limitations, including that the sample skewed heavily female, and most participants were English-speaking Canadians. Khoury said he hopes to expand his research to larger, more diverse samples across different countries. Still, he said he’s confident the core findings will remain.

One obstacle to self-compassion, he said, is the misconception that it is selfish or self-indulgent.

“It’s actually the opposite,” he said. “There’s no ego in it. You’re taking care of yourself so you can be an even more loving person.”

Germer said the simplest way to practice self-compassion is to actually put a hand over your heart (some research suggests it may help reduce the stress hormone cortisol) “as a reminder that we, too, matter; we, too, are in the room; and we, too are suffering,” he said.

He recommended asking yourself: “What do I need right now? That could be physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually,” he said. “Then do it for yourself.”

For those looking to build self-compassion, Khoury suggested a few starting points:

Carve out time each day that belongs to only you. Take a walk, watch television, have a bath — anything that is done for you and not for someone else.

Try meditation. Khoury said loving-kindness meditation is one of the most effective tools for cultivating self-compassion.

Accept help from others. This is what people struggle with the most, Khoury said, but letting others take care of you is part of taking care of yourself.

Consider therapy. If someone is holding negative beliefs about themselves, talking things through with a professional, Khoury said, is itself an act of self-compassion.

“Anyone can get better at it,” Khoury said. “You just need to put some work in.”

Building self-compassion doesn’t require you to sacrifice compassion for others. If anything, Khoury said, they are connected.

“If you take more time for yourself, you are also helping others in a way,” he said.

But self-compassion isn’t a quick fix. It takes practice.

“We are all like a flower,” Khoury said. “If you water it every day, it will be much better than if you do nothing and hope it survives.”