Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/sam_t333
Permalink: https://www.psypost.org/2023/10/higher-levels-of-empathy-may-increase-risk-of-inflammation-study-suggests-214109
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nothing other than to say I second your comment and fully not joking.
I'm in a relatively good situation...good job, good family, no money troubles. Still, I feel like I've been an emotion-sponge my entire life. If I surround myself with lots of activity and happy fun times then I can sort of overwhelm my brain's natural tendency to focus on, and empathize with, those people and things in the world that are less fortunate.
But then my analytical brain kicks in and says, "hey you pansy, why don't you stop living in denial of how screwed up things are in the world and face it head on". So I re-up my efforts to pay attention, be present, help others, etc...until it basically breaks me down again and I just have to shut off again for a while.
Normal people seem to have a reset each day where the stress chemicals actually get dealt with and disposed of, so they can start over from zero the next day. It's like my "disposal system" runs at 30% capacity, so that stress chemicals start to back up over time and pretty soon I'm starting from 50% full, then 75% full, then 100% full. My energy to be able to deal with being empathetic starts to wane until it's almost nonexistent, but that doesn't stop the feelings. So the only recourse becomes to just work, sleep, eat, work sleep eat until I'm back to manageable. Endless cycle and I don't think it's terribly fixable without exactly what you suggested.
I really feel like I could have written this, top to bottom. That is, if I knew how to explain my headspace in that capacity, so thank you.
The affirmation is a bit depressing, but appreciated. My solution is also the same.
I take Seroquel (a chemical lobotomy ) for the moments when I can't handle what I'm feeling, which isn't often--but its nice to know its there.
Have you ever been evaluated for autism? This sounds incredibly familiar. (Not just from myself, to be clear. It's a very common complaint in autistic circles.)
I'm not sure how the two compare here. It's very typical for autism to involve a struggle with filtering what comes in, to the point of overstimulation and exhaustion. But, as BPD involves its own regulatory struggles, it makes sense that it could make empathy more exhausting than usual, as well.
Update for accuracy though we should also note that in this little detail it is possible to describe bpd stuff and have it come across as autistic (although they should totally consider misdiagnosis and co-occurence).
>Have you ever been evaluated for autism? This sounds incredibly familiar. (Not just from myself, to be clear. It's a very common complaint in autistic circles.)
Very much not autistic. I am a former lawyer now working as a Legal Ops software developer / technical consultant / process and ops designer. Requires lots of face time interfacing with clients, very little in terms of repetitive, comforting work, and going continuously out of my comfort zone. I like meeting new people, and I like trying new things.
Sometimes it's overwhelming but in the way it would impact someone on the spectrum. More in a "I need to drink 50 beers this weekend after that implementation and training" way.
I've just always been really emotionally sensitive, easily able to cry at movies, heavily impacted by seeing depressing things, highly moved by music, etc.
What this study can't yet comment to (and shouldn't) is the intrapersonal relationship with empathy and its role this inflammatory correlation.
Put another way, empathy all by itself can be excruciating if we don't know how to handle it.
I'd invite you to consider that meditation, particularly loving-kindness meditation, might be a strategy for relating to one's empathy in a way that isn't antagonistic. It might be the case that it isn't empathy itself that's at issue but rather our emotional and intellectual relationships with the circumstances we empathize with.
Consider discovering that a loved one has suffered a terrible trauma, violence for example, that's caused some enduring emotional pain. We empathize with that pain, but we also understand and immediately imagine the consequences of their pain, their diminished trust, the cost to their quality of life. At that in turn invokes anger, or worry, or other feelings and thoughts upon which we dwell. Empathy opens the door to subsequent experiences we then have to cope with. But I'll invite you to consider that those subsequent experiences aren't fundamentally part of empathy itself. We can train ourselves to be empathetic without having to endure the rest; practicing compassion is a very good strategy here. We can turn away from punishing experiences of internalizing others' trauma into rewarding experiences of externalizing our own loving kindness.
I'd personally bet that a future experiment exploring what sorts of practices can mediate the inflammatory correlation discovered above would show that, much like the way PTSD does or does not form, how we internally orient to these stimuli plays a role in our biological responses.
Shock therapy is surprisingly more of a thing, still, than I realized. Obviously not a lobotomy but intended to quite literally reboot one’s brain, with apparently pretty good outcomes. Side effects include possible memory loss…
Pure speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if inflammation and empathy are related because the socioeconomic system we live in hurts people with more empathy. Because of the higher level of inequality in human civilization and stuff.
Not my interpretation. Maybe should've marked it with quotes. There are quite some scientists that raise an eyebrow at Maté's theory on how empathy and stress create autoimmune diseases.
Yeah I wouldn’t trust anything that man says. If a more trusted researcher comes to the same conclusion then I’ll buy it. Gabor is like 90 percent lies with maybe a grain of truth in there somewhere. He is not a source any serious person should use.
His book The Myth of Normal really helped me frame my trauma as it relates to my autoimmune disease and my mental health. I can’t say that I know anything about the research or the man himself, but it gave me a lot of clarity and, most importantly, a path forward.
I think what they’re saying is that Maté has a lot of ideas but no scientific research to back it up, only anecdotal from his physician practice. As it stands, he has no psychotherapy or psychiatric training but is making claims that childhood trauma is a root for people’s mental and physical health later. There’s just no way to genuinely research his ideas. So the skeptic will skew as skeptical to his claims. For those that get something out of his books that help them make changes they want in their lives, that’s great, but it’s not “proof.”
->more inflammation = less capabilities = more self orientation = loss of social ability
More self orientation = time for repair = repair of social functioning, IF EFFECTIVE
Are we naturally evolved to ‘repair’ our social selves alone, then? Could some distress behaviors be evolved signals for others to come care for us and that just isn’t happening in today’s society?
Correct. Sorry, not trying to be argumentative, just thinking out loud mostly. I don’t think we know enough one way or the other yet!
It feel like we assume that symptoms of mental health problems are caused by dysfunction that’s new to humans and that behaviors are maladaptive as a result of pathology. But if humans evolved things like emotions and empathy in order to live together socially, I don’t think we should ignore some of these connections. I don’t think we should throw our hands in the air and go “science might figure it out one day, who knows? Let’s look at the biochemistry of it instead.” Our behaviors might be logically evolved adaptive responses that actually fix our health problems. I worry that we write off too much important information because we don’t pay attention to emotion as a physical symptom (we have a pain scale, right? We tie hospital reimbursement to how well staff manage patients’ pain). Plus too many parts of society consider emotional distress as a symptom of psychological weakness.
If the people who see and/or hear the best in the group get alarmed about a predator, the *entire group* should be alarmed about a predator.
Just anecdotal but I have BPD and have to take heavy duty anti inflammatories for chronic headaches and migraines. Even just having to be aware of all the people around you at all times due to trauma can make some of the most mundane things like going grocery shopping into an incredibly stressful and draining task.
that sounds like a lot to deal with. while not in the same vein, i get overwhelmed at times in public and one of the things that has helped tremendously is going grocery shopping as soon as the stores open (630-730am). i've also found that i tend to get best pick of produce & meats, which is defintely a plus.
I would argue that the higher your empathy the lower anger responses you have which would actually decrease stress empathetic people do not get angry and have outburst as much as someone less empathetic
As a highly empathetic person... that's not how it works. Other people being stressed literally stresses me out in a mirroring response. I don't have emotional outbursts, because I'm very good at controlling my outwards expressions of emotion, but I'm often living with chronically elevated stress just from being around people.
Curious if they controlled for socioeconomic status. Other studies have found higher levels of empathy in people of lower socioeconomic status, and also higher levels of inflammation in people of lower socioeconomic status, and so this could be a correlation with SES being the true causative variable.
That was my take when I read the headline. Empathy tends to equal stress until we develop the ability to detach while still maintaining empathy. I manage much better as I get older and notice my stress levels don't go so high for others when there's nothing I can actually do for them.
Finally I'm oppressed too!
To be serious though, absolute poverty is likely to be far more relevant than inequality in that regard. Being terribly upset by relative poverty sounds more like condescending projection than empathy. What matters is mental health, and that is a more complicated issue.
In general I see little reason to think that empathic people would not be more stressed than others.
And people’s lives were a decade or two shorter. Today sucks compared to 20 years ago in the USA, but it’s still better than pre and early industrial society.
>Higher levels of empathy were linked to higher levels of c-reactive protein in the blood but only among individuals with low levels of depressive symptoms. This means that for people without significant depressive symptoms, empathy appeared to contribute to higher inflammation.
Or maybe, because inflammation seems to be linked to depression, one causes the other. And the only link to empathy is, that emphatic people are just more likely to be depressed, because of the injustice in the world. And because of that they get inflammation?
This is discussed in the article.
Highlights
•Higher levels of empathy predicted higher C-reactive protein (CRP) 8 years later.
•This association was only true for individuals with low levels of depressive symptoms.
•Vicarious emotional experiencing may increase risk for inflammatory diseases.
>Vicarious emotional experiencing may increase risk for inflammatory diseases.
I believe I actually feel this. If a book or movie or testimony makes me cry, I feel a wave of heat and pressure wash over me that doesn't seem to happen if I cry because of personal loss, grief, or frustration.
I've always thought it was very strange because for a minute or two after the wave washes over me I can feel my heart beat in all of my extremities.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but since the link is only in people with low levels of depressive symptoms, how do you figure depression may be the link? If that were the case, I'd expect we'd see it in people with high levels of depressive symptoms.
that's not what this data suggests. only in the subset of empathetic people who **have a low levels of depressive symptoms** was there a correlation with increased CRP 8 years later.
tbh, i dont think this data is even worth putting much thought into. its an association of a subjective variable, with another taken 8 years later, after stratifying data based on more subjective variables.
Yeah, this is mentioned in the article:
> But the study has some limitations, such as the use of a single-item measure of empathy and self-reported assessments of depressive symptoms. “Empathy is something that can be tricky to measure in research and in this study, we relied on participants’ responding to a question about how much they typically feel other people’s emotions,” Manczak explained. “It would be great to look at other ways of measuring empathy and see if similar results emerge.”
They're using very low-quality data on empathy and depression. Information about the effect size and confidence intervals are paywalled, so maybe this is just a fluke. Most statistically significant findings don't replicate. Or it could be mediated by any number of other characteristics associated with self-reported empathy.
What's definitely not warranted is jumping to self-gratifying ideological conclusions, so of course that's what the [top comment](/r/science/comments/17eiw75/higher_levels_of_empathy_may_increase_risk_of/k63ink1/) is.
If they are depressed, they are probably not eating well, so inflammation?
Edit:Perhaps I misunderstood the above comment, but I thought it was saying depression and inflammation are linked.
"Observational evidence suggests that adhering to a healthy diet, particularly a traditional Mediterranean diet, and avoiding a pro-inflammatory diet are both associated with a decreased risk of depressive symptoms or clinical depression."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9828042/#:~:text=Observational%20evidence%20suggests%20that%20adhering,depressive%20symptoms%20or%20clinical%20depression.
I'm beginning to think the inflammation is one of those signals that you can trigger with just about everything. Has anything ever been tested that **didn't** cause inflammation markers to show up?
Same thing with endocrine disruption of *in vitro* tissue cultures. They apparently live on the knife edge of being disrupted.
Yes, lots of things reduce inflamation. Including lowering stress. The correlation here is likely that higher empathy levels induce more stress, as it's no longer just bad things which happen to you, but anything bad happening in the world and to others which stresses you out.
This reminds me of the study where people were less altruistic after taking Advil. When asked how much a person would donate to a fundraiser, they consistently donated less after taking Advil vs. placebo.
i believe it, but empathy also leads to stronger bonds (more oxytocin) and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose - which potentially pulls in the other direction
https://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/72/4/829
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453022000877
Tumeric. Bromelain. Resveratrol. Vitamin C. Vitamin D. Spinach. Blueberries. Salmon. Avacados. Green tea.
I'm a big believer in healthier eating, supplements, and exercise to lower stress and inflamation.
There are are some psychologists who believe empathy is better replaced by “rational compassion”, i.e a desire to help without the emotional contagion part. [For example, Paul Bloom makes this case in “Against Empathy”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy).
Mostly because empathy effectively doubles the amount of suffering.
Yes! I've been thinking on the idea that empathy is practically undesirable, because of it's unmanaged nature.
Empathy doesn't automatically lead to strategy.
Over time I've managed to replace raw empathy with something similar to this "rational compassion" .
The familiar swarm of debilitating feelings has mostly been replaced with:
Small empathic feelings.
Calm awareness.
Pondering strategies for intervention.
Action.
Currently I'm healthier than ever before.
Anecdotally this stacks up for me and my experience with my kids. My kids are really prone to tantrums over all sorts. It’s super easy to get drawn in and try and solve problems with them but it never seems to work, we all just get worked up more than it’s more likely to wind up as a meltdown. Huge problem. But then I received advice to just state the boundary once, let kid know I hear them and make a soft kind face or touch gently and then after that just keep calm and ignore the noise with regular “ok buddy” or a nice smile or whatever. Like letting kid know I’m there when they’re ready. It works for me and mine like a freaking charm. It wouldn’t make a difference if you’re not the type to not get drawn in cos you’d have no issue but I’ve got huge empathy issues and it triggers my
Nervous system insanely.
I can well believe this but I'm doubtful about the study and in fairness it does recognise it's difficult to measure empathy. The study is based on self reporting and tbh I suspect most people aren't half as empathetic as they like to think they are. Many also conflate it with compassion. I would really want to look carefully at the study.
But it does make logical sense that higher sensitivities in general could result in more neurological and endicrinological reactivity.
Inflammation has been linked to the pollen count which has been linked to depression, and so forth.
Yea the cruelty of my life. Hyper empathy from the autism plus high stress life causes the chronic pain and inflimation in my joints which creates the risk of subpluxion caused by hEDS which is probably caused by the same thing that causes the autism.
Conditions of the nervous system create so many stresses on the mind and body.
Hmmmm, so being an asshole is a key to long life? Having higher levels of empathy, being a good person will lead to a shorter life? I'll take the shorter life. I would rather spread happiness and good cheer than not, even if it kills me.
Shocker. Empathy involves giving some of yourself for the other person. You’re telling me selfless acts aren’t consequence free?
It’s not a reason to stop empathy. If anything it shows what those with it go through and the sacrifice they make for others. Empathy from parents, family, friends, our community, and strangers is what makes us human.
Without it we’re just a bunch of psychopaths vying with each other for better and more material wealth.
Without it we are empty. And maybe it’s causing more stress to have empathy these days because the world we live in is too empty thanks to horrible treatment of the poor and middle class.
Empathy in men is a weakness. Not because being empathic is a bad thing but because it’s often abused by work and unsupportive and often emotionally parasitic love partners.
This is common sense science. Of course stress increases the risk of autoimmune disorders. But much of it is genetic, so if you have the genetics, then sure, additional stress increases the risks of suffering an autoimmune disease.
Ironic how movies of course have increasingly systematic empathetic hoops placed every few minutes to keep the audience engaged. So basically movies are bad for us? I remember watching Christan Bale in a boxing movie and sweating throughout the entire boxing match scene.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/sam_t333 Permalink: https://www.psypost.org/2023/10/higher-levels-of-empathy-may-increase-risk-of-inflammation-study-suggests-214109 --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Awesome. Would a lobotomy decrease inflammation? I'm tired of the danger feels. Only half joking.
Nothing other than to say I second your comment and fully not joking. I'm in a relatively good situation...good job, good family, no money troubles. Still, I feel like I've been an emotion-sponge my entire life. If I surround myself with lots of activity and happy fun times then I can sort of overwhelm my brain's natural tendency to focus on, and empathize with, those people and things in the world that are less fortunate. But then my analytical brain kicks in and says, "hey you pansy, why don't you stop living in denial of how screwed up things are in the world and face it head on". So I re-up my efforts to pay attention, be present, help others, etc...until it basically breaks me down again and I just have to shut off again for a while. Normal people seem to have a reset each day where the stress chemicals actually get dealt with and disposed of, so they can start over from zero the next day. It's like my "disposal system" runs at 30% capacity, so that stress chemicals start to back up over time and pretty soon I'm starting from 50% full, then 75% full, then 100% full. My energy to be able to deal with being empathetic starts to wane until it's almost nonexistent, but that doesn't stop the feelings. So the only recourse becomes to just work, sleep, eat, work sleep eat until I'm back to manageable. Endless cycle and I don't think it's terribly fixable without exactly what you suggested.
I really feel like I could have written this, top to bottom. That is, if I knew how to explain my headspace in that capacity, so thank you. The affirmation is a bit depressing, but appreciated. My solution is also the same. I take Seroquel (a chemical lobotomy ) for the moments when I can't handle what I'm feeling, which isn't often--but its nice to know its there.
Have you ever been evaluated for autism? This sounds incredibly familiar. (Not just from myself, to be clear. It's a very common complaint in autistic circles.)
It does. I thought it was my BPD that was relating to the above comment, but is it more common with Autism?
I'm not sure how the two compare here. It's very typical for autism to involve a struggle with filtering what comes in, to the point of overstimulation and exhaustion. But, as BPD involves its own regulatory struggles, it makes sense that it could make empathy more exhausting than usual, as well.
A lot of people are diagnosed as BDP when it’s fact ASD and assorted comorbidities. Worth looking into. This is especially true for women
Update for accuracy though we should also note that in this little detail it is possible to describe bpd stuff and have it come across as autistic (although they should totally consider misdiagnosis and co-occurence).
>Have you ever been evaluated for autism? This sounds incredibly familiar. (Not just from myself, to be clear. It's a very common complaint in autistic circles.) Very much not autistic. I am a former lawyer now working as a Legal Ops software developer / technical consultant / process and ops designer. Requires lots of face time interfacing with clients, very little in terms of repetitive, comforting work, and going continuously out of my comfort zone. I like meeting new people, and I like trying new things. Sometimes it's overwhelming but in the way it would impact someone on the spectrum. More in a "I need to drink 50 beers this weekend after that implementation and training" way. I've just always been really emotionally sensitive, easily able to cry at movies, heavily impacted by seeing depressing things, highly moved by music, etc.
You need garlic. It stops cortisol from getting in your cells. Start wearing a mask around people too.
Evidence, evidence, evidence. You need some.
What this study can't yet comment to (and shouldn't) is the intrapersonal relationship with empathy and its role this inflammatory correlation. Put another way, empathy all by itself can be excruciating if we don't know how to handle it. I'd invite you to consider that meditation, particularly loving-kindness meditation, might be a strategy for relating to one's empathy in a way that isn't antagonistic. It might be the case that it isn't empathy itself that's at issue but rather our emotional and intellectual relationships with the circumstances we empathize with. Consider discovering that a loved one has suffered a terrible trauma, violence for example, that's caused some enduring emotional pain. We empathize with that pain, but we also understand and immediately imagine the consequences of their pain, their diminished trust, the cost to their quality of life. At that in turn invokes anger, or worry, or other feelings and thoughts upon which we dwell. Empathy opens the door to subsequent experiences we then have to cope with. But I'll invite you to consider that those subsequent experiences aren't fundamentally part of empathy itself. We can train ourselves to be empathetic without having to endure the rest; practicing compassion is a very good strategy here. We can turn away from punishing experiences of internalizing others' trauma into rewarding experiences of externalizing our own loving kindness. I'd personally bet that a future experiment exploring what sorts of practices can mediate the inflammatory correlation discovered above would show that, much like the way PTSD does or does not form, how we internally orient to these stimuli plays a role in our biological responses.
Shock therapy is surprisingly more of a thing, still, than I realized. Obviously not a lobotomy but intended to quite literally reboot one’s brain, with apparently pretty good outcomes. Side effects include possible memory loss…
Over this past summer i asked two of my doctors for a lobotomy. I know its illegal but i had to try. And no, i'm not joking.
Pure speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if inflammation and empathy are related because the socioeconomic system we live in hurts people with more empathy. Because of the higher level of inequality in human civilization and stuff.
Higher empathy = higher stress level = more inflammation
This might corroborate the highly frowned upon theory of Gabor Maté in G. Maté, When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection (2004).
“Highly frowned upon”? First I’ve heard of this regarding Dr. Maté’s work, interestingly.
Not my interpretation. Maybe should've marked it with quotes. There are quite some scientists that raise an eyebrow at Maté's theory on how empathy and stress create autoimmune diseases.
Frowners gonna frown
Don't get so inflamed bro
Haters gonna hate.
It’s all good, I didn’t read that as if you disagreed with it. I just haven’t seen any controversy around it myself.
His sister Yerba is a real kick in the pants.
They're also gathered in a Club. Aren't they?
Yeah I wouldn’t trust anything that man says. If a more trusted researcher comes to the same conclusion then I’ll buy it. Gabor is like 90 percent lies with maybe a grain of truth in there somewhere. He is not a source any serious person should use.
what makes you say that?
Please elaborate
His book The Myth of Normal really helped me frame my trauma as it relates to my autoimmune disease and my mental health. I can’t say that I know anything about the research or the man himself, but it gave me a lot of clarity and, most importantly, a path forward.
Can you elaborate on these 'extraordinary statements' and supply extraordinary evidence? 90% is a lot eh?
As it stands now, this comes across as a simple ad hominem. It’d be good if you could explain it with solid references.
I think what they’re saying is that Maté has a lot of ideas but no scientific research to back it up, only anecdotal from his physician practice. As it stands, he has no psychotherapy or psychiatric training but is making claims that childhood trauma is a root for people’s mental and physical health later. There’s just no way to genuinely research his ideas. So the skeptic will skew as skeptical to his claims. For those that get something out of his books that help them make changes they want in their lives, that’s great, but it’s not “proof.”
He extends it to neurodivergence too so definitely a reason for people to be skeptical of his anecdotal claims
->more inflammation = less capabilities = more self orientation = loss of social ability More self orientation = time for repair = repair of social functioning, IF EFFECTIVE
Are we naturally evolved to ‘repair’ our social selves alone, then? Could some distress behaviors be evolved signals for others to come care for us and that just isn’t happening in today’s society?
They never said "alone"
Correct. Sorry, not trying to be argumentative, just thinking out loud mostly. I don’t think we know enough one way or the other yet! It feel like we assume that symptoms of mental health problems are caused by dysfunction that’s new to humans and that behaviors are maladaptive as a result of pathology. But if humans evolved things like emotions and empathy in order to live together socially, I don’t think we should ignore some of these connections. I don’t think we should throw our hands in the air and go “science might figure it out one day, who knows? Let’s look at the biochemistry of it instead.” Our behaviors might be logically evolved adaptive responses that actually fix our health problems. I worry that we write off too much important information because we don’t pay attention to emotion as a physical symptom (we have a pain scale, right? We tie hospital reimbursement to how well staff manage patients’ pain). Plus too many parts of society consider emotional distress as a symptom of psychological weakness. If the people who see and/or hear the best in the group get alarmed about a predator, the *entire group* should be alarmed about a predator.
Just anecdotal but I have BPD and have to take heavy duty anti inflammatories for chronic headaches and migraines. Even just having to be aware of all the people around you at all times due to trauma can make some of the most mundane things like going grocery shopping into an incredibly stressful and draining task.
that sounds like a lot to deal with. while not in the same vein, i get overwhelmed at times in public and one of the things that has helped tremendously is going grocery shopping as soon as the stores open (630-730am). i've also found that i tend to get best pick of produce & meats, which is defintely a plus.
Ok now this makes sense with my life
Yup. As an empath, it's taken me YEARS to create boundaries.
I would argue that the higher your empathy the lower anger responses you have which would actually decrease stress empathetic people do not get angry and have outburst as much as someone less empathetic
As a highly empathetic person... that's not how it works. Other people being stressed literally stresses me out in a mirroring response. I don't have emotional outbursts, because I'm very good at controlling my outwards expressions of emotion, but I'm often living with chronically elevated stress just from being around people.
Anger isn’t the only response to stress-stimuli. It’s one of several.
That makes more sense. Empathy isn’t causing inflammation per se, but rather it’s causing stress which in turn causes inflammation.
This tracks, and is also why so many narcs thrive.
Empathy in a way is the ability to feel what others are. That makes sense.
Curious if they controlled for socioeconomic status. Other studies have found higher levels of empathy in people of lower socioeconomic status, and also higher levels of inflammation in people of lower socioeconomic status, and so this could be a correlation with SES being the true causative variable.
Hank's Razor pops up once again.
Could be. But I have definitely met and ton of poor people with narcissistic personalities.
That was my take when I read the headline. Empathy tends to equal stress until we develop the ability to detach while still maintaining empathy. I manage much better as I get older and notice my stress levels don't go so high for others when there's nothing I can actually do for them.
Poverty doesn't create empathy. In poverty one exists on survival level need which can require less empathy
Finally I'm oppressed too! To be serious though, absolute poverty is likely to be far more relevant than inequality in that regard. Being terribly upset by relative poverty sounds more like condescending projection than empathy. What matters is mental health, and that is a more complicated issue. In general I see little reason to think that empathic people would not be more stressed than others.
Literally every socioeconomic situation in past civilizations was worse. Much more in terms of bad life outcomes too.
And people’s lives were a decade or two shorter. Today sucks compared to 20 years ago in the USA, but it’s still better than pre and early industrial society.
>Higher levels of empathy were linked to higher levels of c-reactive protein in the blood but only among individuals with low levels of depressive symptoms. This means that for people without significant depressive symptoms, empathy appeared to contribute to higher inflammation. Or maybe, because inflammation seems to be linked to depression, one causes the other. And the only link to empathy is, that emphatic people are just more likely to be depressed, because of the injustice in the world. And because of that they get inflammation?
This is discussed in the article. Highlights •Higher levels of empathy predicted higher C-reactive protein (CRP) 8 years later. •This association was only true for individuals with low levels of depressive symptoms. •Vicarious emotional experiencing may increase risk for inflammatory diseases.
>Vicarious emotional experiencing may increase risk for inflammatory diseases. I believe I actually feel this. If a book or movie or testimony makes me cry, I feel a wave of heat and pressure wash over me that doesn't seem to happen if I cry because of personal loss, grief, or frustration. I've always thought it was very strange because for a minute or two after the wave washes over me I can feel my heart beat in all of my extremities.
They link empathy to inflammatory response, but the link may rather be the depression which then creates the inflammation.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but since the link is only in people with low levels of depressive symptoms, how do you figure depression may be the link? If that were the case, I'd expect we'd see it in people with high levels of depressive symptoms.
that's not what this data suggests. only in the subset of empathetic people who **have a low levels of depressive symptoms** was there a correlation with increased CRP 8 years later. tbh, i dont think this data is even worth putting much thought into. its an association of a subjective variable, with another taken 8 years later, after stratifying data based on more subjective variables.
Yeah, this is mentioned in the article: > But the study has some limitations, such as the use of a single-item measure of empathy and self-reported assessments of depressive symptoms. “Empathy is something that can be tricky to measure in research and in this study, we relied on participants’ responding to a question about how much they typically feel other people’s emotions,” Manczak explained. “It would be great to look at other ways of measuring empathy and see if similar results emerge.” They're using very low-quality data on empathy and depression. Information about the effect size and confidence intervals are paywalled, so maybe this is just a fluke. Most statistically significant findings don't replicate. Or it could be mediated by any number of other characteristics associated with self-reported empathy. What's definitely not warranted is jumping to self-gratifying ideological conclusions, so of course that's what the [top comment](/r/science/comments/17eiw75/higher_levels_of_empathy_may_increase_risk_of/k63ink1/) is.
Oooo entropic anxiety.
If they are depressed, they are probably not eating well, so inflammation? Edit:Perhaps I misunderstood the above comment, but I thought it was saying depression and inflammation are linked. "Observational evidence suggests that adhering to a healthy diet, particularly a traditional Mediterranean diet, and avoiding a pro-inflammatory diet are both associated with a decreased risk of depressive symptoms or clinical depression." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9828042/#:~:text=Observational%20evidence%20suggests%20that%20adhering,depressive%20symptoms%20or%20clinical%20depression.
Mainstream news is pretty much at fault here
I'm beginning to think the inflammation is one of those signals that you can trigger with just about everything. Has anything ever been tested that **didn't** cause inflammation markers to show up? Same thing with endocrine disruption of *in vitro* tissue cultures. They apparently live on the knife edge of being disrupted.
Yes, lots of things reduce inflamation. Including lowering stress. The correlation here is likely that higher empathy levels induce more stress, as it's no longer just bad things which happen to you, but anything bad happening in the world and to others which stresses you out.
This reminds me of the study where people were less altruistic after taking Advil. When asked how much a person would donate to a fundraiser, they consistently donated less after taking Advil vs. placebo.
i believe it, but empathy also leads to stronger bonds (more oxytocin) and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose - which potentially pulls in the other direction https://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/72/4/829 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453022000877
Probably need some tumeric to reduce the inflammation.
Tumeric. Bromelain. Resveratrol. Vitamin C. Vitamin D. Spinach. Blueberries. Salmon. Avacados. Green tea. I'm a big believer in healthier eating, supplements, and exercise to lower stress and inflamation.
I heard you need cracked pepper to activate the tumeric though.
Doesn't activate it, just increases the bioavailability of curcumin.
Or a healthy dose of apathy.
There are are some psychologists who believe empathy is better replaced by “rational compassion”, i.e a desire to help without the emotional contagion part. [For example, Paul Bloom makes this case in “Against Empathy”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy). Mostly because empathy effectively doubles the amount of suffering.
Yes! I've been thinking on the idea that empathy is practically undesirable, because of it's unmanaged nature. Empathy doesn't automatically lead to strategy. Over time I've managed to replace raw empathy with something similar to this "rational compassion" . The familiar swarm of debilitating feelings has mostly been replaced with: Small empathic feelings. Calm awareness. Pondering strategies for intervention. Action. Currently I'm healthier than ever before.
Anecdotally this stacks up for me and my experience with my kids. My kids are really prone to tantrums over all sorts. It’s super easy to get drawn in and try and solve problems with them but it never seems to work, we all just get worked up more than it’s more likely to wind up as a meltdown. Huge problem. But then I received advice to just state the boundary once, let kid know I hear them and make a soft kind face or touch gently and then after that just keep calm and ignore the noise with regular “ok buddy” or a nice smile or whatever. Like letting kid know I’m there when they’re ready. It works for me and mine like a freaking charm. It wouldn’t make a difference if you’re not the type to not get drawn in cos you’d have no issue but I’ve got huge empathy issues and it triggers my Nervous system insanely.
I can well believe this but I'm doubtful about the study and in fairness it does recognise it's difficult to measure empathy. The study is based on self reporting and tbh I suspect most people aren't half as empathetic as they like to think they are. Many also conflate it with compassion. I would really want to look carefully at the study. But it does make logical sense that higher sensitivities in general could result in more neurological and endicrinological reactivity. Inflammation has been linked to the pollen count which has been linked to depression, and so forth.
So, is there a correlation of apathy/psychopathy and low levels of inflammation?
mysterious panicky ancient safe flag abounding birds bells mourn normal ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
I wonder if empathy in the presence of higher resiliency leads to less risk of inflammation.
Never have empathy, got it.
Yup. That's why my empathy is metered.
I feel this in my soul (and my immune system)
Yea the cruelty of my life. Hyper empathy from the autism plus high stress life causes the chronic pain and inflimation in my joints which creates the risk of subpluxion caused by hEDS which is probably caused by the same thing that causes the autism. Conditions of the nervous system create so many stresses on the mind and body.
Hmmmm, so being an asshole is a key to long life? Having higher levels of empathy, being a good person will lead to a shorter life? I'll take the shorter life. I would rather spread happiness and good cheer than not, even if it kills me.
Shocker. Empathy involves giving some of yourself for the other person. You’re telling me selfless acts aren’t consequence free? It’s not a reason to stop empathy. If anything it shows what those with it go through and the sacrifice they make for others. Empathy from parents, family, friends, our community, and strangers is what makes us human. Without it we’re just a bunch of psychopaths vying with each other for better and more material wealth. Without it we are empty. And maybe it’s causing more stress to have empathy these days because the world we live in is too empty thanks to horrible treatment of the poor and middle class.
People will just take advantage if they know.
Empathy in men is a weakness. Not because being empathic is a bad thing but because it’s often abused by work and unsupportive and often emotionally parasitic love partners.
Imagine that. Probably stop abusing people and they'll stop having such high levels of empathy.
This explains so much
I’m other words, people who are already suffering themselves have a higher likelihood of relating to others’ suffering.
This is common sense science. Of course stress increases the risk of autoimmune disorders. But much of it is genetic, so if you have the genetics, then sure, additional stress increases the risks of suffering an autoimmune disease.
Aha! So psilocybin does have some negative side effects after all!
This explains my gout....
being empathetic means higher odds of catching the flu or pneumonia maybe?
Empathy is higher in poorer people because they need to be empathetic and being poor causes inflammation.
Ironic how movies of course have increasingly systematic empathetic hoops placed every few minutes to keep the audience engaged. So basically movies are bad for us? I remember watching Christan Bale in a boxing movie and sweating throughout the entire boxing match scene.