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Summary: Brittany Luce, host of NPR's "It's Been A Minute," shares her experience with self-compassionate touch. She did it for 20 seconds, almost daily. to quiet her inner critic and foster self-compassion, especially during moments of stress or self-judgment.
Researcher Eli Susman also shares the fascinating science behind this practice, and how despite being short and sweet —it may still be an effective way to cultivate self compassion -- especially if you find ways to make it a habit.
How To Do This Self-Compassionate Touch Practice:
Take a moment to try these different touches and see which feels most supportive to you. Whenever you feel stressed or upset, or just need some extra support, use this compassionate touch to remind yourself that you’re here for you. Research shows the practice works best when practiced regularly.
Duration: 20 seconds, practiced daily or as often as you can.
Find a comfortable space. Sit or stand somewhere you feel relaxed and at ease. Try out these micropractices while thinking kind words to yourself, as though you were comforting a dear friend in distress.
1. Touch Your Heart: Place both hands gently over the center of your chest, one on top of the other. Apply just enough pressure to feel connected, but not uncomfortable. Focus on the warmth of your touch.
2. Feel Your Strength: If it feels right, make a gentle fist with your left hand, symbolizing strength, and place it over your heart. Rest your right hand on top of the fist to combine the feeling of strength and love.
3. Cradle Your Face: Gently cup each of your cheeks with your hands, holding your face as you would a loved one in distress. Let the touch be soft and caring.
4. Support Your Core: Place both hands over your solar plexus, just below your ribcage, and imagine you're holding and supporting your core. This can be particularly comforting if you're feeling fear or deep emotions.
5. Give Yourself a Hug: Cross your arms, resting each hand on the opposite shoulder. Gently squeeze yourself, adjusting the pressure to feel comforting but not overwhelming.
Guest: Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, cultural critic. and host of the NPR podcast “It's Been a Minute.”
Learn more about Luse: https://tinyurl.com/3bjt6v7m
Follow Luse on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmlu
Listen to the NPR podcast "It's Been A Minute": https://tinyurl.com/3uek8ey8
Guest: Eli Susman is a researcher and Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology at UC Berkeley
Read Eli Susman's study on self-compassionate touch: https://tinyurl.com/2uh783z8
Related Science of Happiness episodes:
Related Happiness Break mediations:
Transcript:
BRITTANY LUSE The past few weeks it's been travel. I've gone out of town. I have come back home. I had my parents in town. So, like, I was sleeping on my couch with my husband on a sectional and my parents were in my bedroom. I mean,I've had all sorts of feelings come up in the past couple of weeks, like, I don't know, "Am I cleaning enough? Am I helping my husband enough around the house? He's doing a lot to, like, make my parents feel really comfortable. Have I done that enough? Have I done enough? Did I do a good enough job at this panel that I was on?"
I just had a lot of big questions swirling around in my head. So I have had plenty of opportunities to, I guess, feel the kind of guilt that, that for me it has been a big barrier to self compassion. It's very easy for me to take any stressful situation in my life and turn that into like an opportunity to guilt myself into why I didn't do something better. And then it goes to like, "Oh, I messed this thing up too. I'm a failure. And, you know, so on and so forth.
I think I could have a better relationship with myself around compassion. I feel a lot of responsibility to get things right, to do things perfectly. Perfection is not real. But somehow I've brought that spirit of perfectionism upon myself when all I need to do is really show up and, um, and be curious. I don't have to show up perfectly in order to be competent.
I think we're all harder on ourselves than we are on others in many ways.
DACHER KELTNER Welcome to the Science of Happiness, I'm Dacher Keltner. We've all heard about being kind to ourselves, but have you ever tried self-compassionate touch? New research shows that something as simple as placing a gentle hand on your heart, while focusing on warmth and care for yourself, can make you feel more self-compassionate in that moment.
Our guest this week, Brittany Luse, is an award-winning journalist and cultural critic. She's also the host of the NPR podcast “It's Been a Minute.” She’s been looking for a way to ground herself amid a hectic season of travel and work, and be a little kinder to herself in the process.
So for our show, for just 20 seconds or so a day, Brittany practiced self compassionate touch —doing things like placing her hands on her heart or giving herself a hug.
Later we hear from researcher Eli Susman, about the fascinating science behind this practice. And how despite being short and sweet—it may still be an effective way to cultivate self compassion —especially if you find ways to make it a habit.
ELI SUSMAN Among those who practice self compassionate touch daily, we found greater increases in self-compassion and greater reductions in mental health problems and stress.
DACHER KELTNER More, after these messages from our sponsors.
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DACHER KELTNER Self-compassionate touch is an emerging area of research combining the power of soothing touch, where we make tactile contact with a part of our body in a calm and comforting way, while turning our inner dialogue to one of self-kindness. Asking ourselves questions like, “How can I be a friend to myself in this moment?” I'm Dacher Keltner. Welcome back to The Science of Happiness.
Our guest, Brittany Luse, practiced self-compassionate touch for a few weeks and is going to share how it went for her. Brittany, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day to join us on the show.
BRITTANY LUSE Thank you for having me. This is really exciting for me.
DACHER KELTNER I'm really curious, why did you choose self-compassionate touch when you think about the array of exercises you could try? What spoke to you about this exercise.
BRITTANY LUSE I wish I had like, um, like a loftier, more spiritual reason, as like my chief reason, but it's not long. It's short. It's very brief, but purportedly effective. So I am a big fan of like any type of self care, emotional release, and I go through phases where I'm really into meditation, and there's been like whole periods of my life where it's been a really wonderful constant and I've gotten so much out of it, but sometimes it's like long. And I don’t always have –
DACHER KELTNER Like 10 minutes.
BRITTANY LUSE Yeah, sometimes I'm just like, I can't even sit for three minutes. I'm just gonna, like, lose it.And I liked that this was something that was a little bit more active than meditation is. And also was so brief. I like the idea of something that like, no matter what, where I am, because I also have traveled a lot of the past couple weeks, but no matter where I am, or no matter what I've got going on in my life that I can incorporate it in.
DACHER KELTNER I've done a lot of research on touch and I think what I love about the self compassionate touch paradigm is it brings in this amazing science of touch of like, you know, there are recent discovery, there are these cells in the back of your neck where you get the loving touch from other people that go straight to oxytocin release that makes you feel oceanic and warm. I mean, that's mind blowing, the underlying neurophysiology of touch. And I'm curious, what's your kind of relationship to touch?
BRITTANY LUSE Touch is very grounding. And even though I work from home, I still have often enough for work, reason to like travel or I'm visiting family.
Oh my gosh. In the past couple of weeks, I have been to Chicago for NABJ, National Association of Black Journalists Conference,I went home to visit my parents and my niece. I did a bunch of road trips with my husband, and it was nice to be able to know that whether I was surrounded by others or in an unfamiliar place by myself, that touch was something I could still provide for me, no matter the circumstance or who else was around.
DACHER KELTNER I'm just curious how your first session went. What was it like? What'd you do?
BRITTANY LUSE The first session actually, it was a positive. It was really positive. The first thing I did is I breathed really deep, and I tried to focus or picture the thing that was like causing me distress. And whatever had been, was bothering me that day or whatever was like the guilt, I guess, theme of the day, it made me suddenly very aware of of where I was holding like tightness in my body. So, like, I felt like it increased awareness to like where I was feeling tight. For me, the first place I noticed it is like in my trapezius muscle and in my neck, like, I'll get like a little, "Ahhh." I start looking like a minion, or start feeling like how I think a minion looks. It can be if I'm sitting at my desk, driving in my car, if I'm supposedly relaxing on the phone. Or if I'm even laying down or something like that, I can like that tenseness, I don't know, it's such a running theme in my life that I don't know if I always notice it, but I don't know, at least that first time that was the first place where I would feel it. But as I continued on, sort of, I would notice tightness in different places.
Being able to place a hand on my chest and another hand on my tummy as soon as I sort of noticed that tension and relaxed, then I would just, I was trying to put, like, warm, kind energy back into myself. So I wasn't pressing, but I guess I was like, touching my body with intent with the intention of, like pressing kind, warm energy. back into myself.
DACHER KELTNER Did you feel like you calmed down body wise or what were some of the things?
BRITTANY LUSE Yeah, I did feel calmed down body wise. I guess I felt like, I thought that it would take longer. Does that make sense? In order for me to meditate, I gotta sit there. I got to have the eyes closed. I got to do the whole thing, where I'm sitting and like, you know what I mean?
For like 35 minutes or something like that, I feel like I have to do that to sort of achieve that feeling of like giving yourself, like a deep, deep warm hug. But I was able to access it a lot more quickly. There was some days, not the first time, but there were some days where like I would tear up and I'm talking like in under 30 seconds, you know, like have tears spring to my eyes.
At one point I wrote down about how it made me feel like you know, like when you're having a really bad day and someone's really kind to you, like someone you don't know, a stranger is really kind to you or someone like, holds open a door or gives you a cup of tea on the house or something like that Like right when you needed it most? I guess I felt like the warmth of that kind of serendipity But like I was able to provide it for myself instead of waiting for it to happen to me.
DACHER KELTNER How did you build it into your days? I mean, it's so hard for people You're busy, you're flying, you're flying around, hosting family, how did you find the moments
BRITTANY LUSE So lot of times it would be after my husband who wakes up and embraces the morning,like a marathon runner. He just wakes up in the morning, like, greets the day. It's so beautiful. I admire him so much for that. But, it would be after he had gotten out of bed, but before I was going to start my day. And then there were a couple of times where I would realize like, "Ah, crap, I didn't do it. And I'm feeling a little froggy." And so then I would have to kind of like incorporate that in.
DACHER KELTNER How often did you do it?
DACHER KELTNER Seriously?
BRITTANY LUSE Yes. And I think if it had taken even two minutes, I think I probably would have been like, "Screw this."
I guess I was kind of skeptical at first that touch, such a short amount of it, like such a small amount of touch was going to really change that much in my life. Twenty seconds, you know what I mean? I was skeptical that 20 seconds of touching my chest was gonna do anything for me.
DACHER KELTNER And there's research on that, that maybe these briefer exercises, given how busy we all are, maybe they're more effective. And –
BRITTANY LUSE Because you can stick with it. I mean, yeah, my hypothesis, scientific me, science me is saying that, you know, yeah, you can stick with it.
DACHER KELTNER You know, one of the things we know, Brittany, about, uh, self compassionate touch practices and a lot of other happiness practices, if you will, is that if you can associate them with cues that are regular part of your day, it gets easier to do the practice. It becomes habit, if you will. And I'm really curious, as you experimented with the self compassionate touch practice, were there cues that triggered you to try to do the practice? And how did that help you?
BRITTANY LUSE Okay. So something that also has worked for me is like pairing. I think there's research about this too. They call it habit stacking or something like that. Stacking habits on top of each other. Flossing, I love it. Like when I wake up in the morning, it's like the second thing that I do. If everything else went wrong, I'm like, "I'm going to floss. I'm going to brush my teeth." I actually think that it would work really well as like something that would come after like flossing, like, I think it's actually made the cut in my life as something that can be part of like the very small amount of morning mental tasks that I can handle. Because it just is that short and it just is that effective.
DACHER KELTNER What were the shifts in your self compassionate thinking this relationship to yourself you've talked about? What do you notice in your thinking about yourself as you did the practice over time?
BRITTANY LUSE Well, I think because I was having to like actually. Sometimes talk to myself and, you know, ask myself, like, how can I be a friend to me right now?
Sometimes I would ask myself, "If I choose to believe this negative thing about myself, what am I saying to me about myself? What am I signaling to myself in believing sort of my inner critic?" I guess hearing my own voice be loving toward me made me a lot more aware of the times when I was not loving toward me. And also made me aware of how much that is just like, constantly running in the background, you know, like, "Why did you say that? Why did you do that? They don't like you."
One thing that I did recently was, like, call someone on the phone that I hadn't talked to in a while, because I, what I would tell myself is like, if things got busy and I meant to call them and I didn't, or I missed a call from them and I didn't get back to them, I would just be like, well, "You can't call them now, you know, it's been a couple months, they probably hate you and they don't want to be friends with you anymore. So you should probably not try your little pathetic, you know, attempts at closeness again. She doesn't need someone flaky like you around." But the thing that I said back to myself was like, "Okay, does that sound true? Does that sound, does that sound true? Does it sound like it makes sense?"
So I think first, I guess my compassionate voice first investigated my inner critic's claim, like, "Does that sound like it makes sense? You think that's true? Does that make sense to you?" And then also kind of minimized. the thing that I was stressing myself out about.
I think that was the thing that surprised me the most. That like brief engagement with my physical body could change so much to my like mental and emotional experience of my life.
DACHER KELTNER: That’s powerful. Thank you. I really appreciate your deep inquiry into this and sort of opening up your mind. And it's been wonderful to just hear how this shifted your thinking about your thoughts towards yourself. and it's been wonderful to talk to you.
BRITTANY LUSE Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. This has been so much fun.
DACHER KELTNER: Up next: we hear from researcher UC Berkeley researcher Eli Susman about the proven benefits of this practice.
ELI SUSMAN When they actually did the exercise, we measured how much compassion they were feeling towards themselves in the moment. And they experienced greater in the moment increases in self compassion.
DACHER KELTNER If you want to try out this practice for yourself, tune in for next week's Happiness Break, where we'll be led in a short guided meditation by self compassion expert Kristen Neff. More, up next.
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DACHER KELTNER Hi everybody, this is Dacher Keltner. Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. We've been exploring how placing a hand on your heart or giving yourself a reassuring hug, may foster greater self-compassion.
That's according to research by Eli Susman, a PhD candidate in clinical science at UC Berkeley. Eli shares why he combined self-compassionate touch and self soothing touch into one powerful practice. He also talks about the best way to create cues so you don't miss a day.
The seed of the idea for Eli’s research on self compassionate touch was planted when he came across a study from researcher Aljoscha Dreisoerner. The study found that just 20 seconds of soothing self-touch can lower stress hormones just as much as getting a hug from a stranger.
ELI SUSMAN I was like, "Wow, like doing this for 20 seconds, like something you can do that's right at your fingertips can reduce your cortisol levels?" You know, something that is associated with, you know, better immune responses. The reduction of mental health problems.
DACHER KELTNER We actually covered self-soothing touch practice in a previous episode of The Science of Happiness. We'll add the link to that in our show notes.
ELI SUSMAN So I thought, "Well, what if people did this, you know, every day. Kind of like brushing your teeth or flossing?" And that’s really what inspired me to do this study.
DACHER KELTNER Eli recruited 135 Berkeley undergrads. About half were instructed to place their hands over their heart or belly, or give themselves a hug, and contemplate warmth and self-compassionate thoughts at least once a day for 20 seconds. The rest were instructed to do a finger-tapping exercise where they touched their middle finger to their thumb, pointer finger to their thumb, and so on
ELI SUSMAN So, the self-compassionate touch group had greater in the moment increases in self-compassion relative to the finger tapping group.
DACHER KELTNER Eli also noticed something intriguing about a subset of participants who actually managed to practice self compassionate touch every day.
ELI SUSMAN Among those who practice self compassionate touch daily, we found greater increases in self-compassion and greater reductions in mental health problems and stress relative to daily practice of the finger tapping active control group.
DACHER KELTNER Since the effects of self-compassionate touch were so dependent on consistent practice, Eli is now studying how to make self-compassionate touch a habit.
ELI SUSMAN One of the most important things about building habits is that when our habits and our goals conflict, most of the time, habits win. So, let's say you made a mistake, or you did something that made you feel unworthy, unloved, not enough. If you have a strong habit of practicing self compassionate touch, then you might be more likely to practice it and experience self compassion in your life. Even when you don't necessarily feel like doing so, which is often the times when we need it most.
DACHER KELTNER His new study gives participants evidence-based tools for forming habits. Advice like: make it specific; remember what’s rewarding about the habit; and perhaps most importantly, pick a cue.
ELI SUSMAN What's often recommended is that the cue is something that is noticeable to you. Whether it's an alarm, whether it's, you know, you walk out of the shower. It's something that is very much, like, I noticed this as my cue versus like, "Oh, it's 9am. So I'm going to practice self compassionate touch." You know, you might not always be looking at the time.
It's also important, you know, if your cue is actually related to what you're doing. People do it after getting dressed in the morning, after their morning coffee. A great time to do it, you know, sitting at a stoplight, or you just parked your car. Find a time in your day where you're not going to feel rushed, where it's going to be very obvious that, you know, now is the time to practice and that you can actually get yourself to do that.
I feel proud when I practice self compassionate touch in public. I think me doing it gives other people permission to do it as well. You know, my hope is that one day it won't be something that, you know, people might feel embarrassed about. It might just be like, you know, scratching your head or tying your shoes. It's just something that you do, like brushing your teeth.
DACHER KELTNER Hey everybody. As summer winds down, vacations come to an end, and students head back to school -- it's important to remember to take a moment to breathe.
In the next two episodes of The Science of Happiness, we're diving into ways to breathe away anxiety. Each episode will be followed by a Happiness Break meditation that will guide you through these research-backed techniques.
First up, join us as we explore cyclic sighing with pro surfer Sarah Gerhardt. Tune in and discover how this breathing technique can help you find calm and clarity.
SARAH GERHARDT The first step for me, that was so important was the acknowledgment of my body and just the awareness of, "Oh, my shoulders are in my ears and I'm not breathing." So I set a timer and my timer got off an hour later and I'm like, "Oh, what's the timer for? Oh yeah, I'm going to breathe right now."
DACHER KELTNER Thanks for joining us on The Science of Happiness. This episode was produced by Kate Parkinson-Morgan. Our research assistants are Dasha Zerboni and Selina Bilal. Our sound designer is Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our executive producer is Shuka Kalantari. I'm Dacher Keltner. Have a great day.
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