Tag Archives: calm

Can you have too much empathy?

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“Crescendo” by Mimi Stuart ©

Can you have too much empathy?

Empathy is often considered to be the source of good behavior. The literal meaning of empathy is “the ability to share another person’s feelings.” Our culture highly values empathy and assumes you cannot have too much of it. However, when you experience other people’s feelings too strongly, you can run into problems. Paul Bloom’s book “Against Empathy” shows how empathy can often prevent a person from making sound decisions in a crisis:

“Unmitigated communion makes you suffer when faced with those who are suffering, which imposes costs on yourself and makes you less effective at helping.”

Compassion, Kindness, Empathy

There are subtle distinctions between compassion, kindness, and empathy. Compassion is the concern for the suffering of others, which is different from actually feeling or experiencing the suffering of others. Kindness means being friendly, generous, and considerate of others. Kindness creates positive other-oriented feelings and makes other people feel better, which results in positive health effects all around. Compassion and kindness promote pro-social motivation and behavior, and are not likely to get in the way of good decision-making and helpful action.

Empathy, on the other hand, often comes at a great cost. As Walt Whitman quipped: “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” Becoming the wounded person can motivate one to help the suffering person. However, it also creates distress for the empathetic person, which can overwhelm the empathetic person and cloud clear thinking.


Do people in distress benefit from empathy?

Would you want a therapist to feel depressed or anxious when dealing with a patient who is depressed or anxious? Therapy would be impossible if therapists couldn’t put aside some of their empathy. Would you want a doctor to be overwhelmed with grief when dealing with the grief-stricken family members of a sick or dying patient? Would you want a pilot to feel the fear of the passengers in an emergency situation while airborne? Would you want a fireman to feel your loss while your life and property are burning or at risk? Clearly not. You want them to do their job calmly, quickly, and rationally, free of distracting emotions.

The ability to empathize can motivate a desire to help. But too much empathy can cause feelings of distress, which can incapacitate the empathetic person and obstruct objective thinking and effective action. Therefore, you can have more positive impact on others and on your own wellbeing when you do not experience too much empathy, albeit some empathy is helpful in making a person aware that others are suffering. People can be more effective helping distressed people when they are NOT experiencing strong feelings. The suffering person benefits more from people whose strength and decision-making are not hindered by feelings of distress.

A therapist should try to understand a client’s feelings, but without matching or absorbing those feelings. It is more important to be engaged by a client’s challenges and to think creatively about possible tools, options and solutions for improving the client’s life. In a medical emergency, you would want a trauma surgeon to stop the bleeding and assess the situation quickly without pausing to feel the patient’s pain. Pilots should focus on what actions are needed while remaining emotionally separated from their passengers in order to best serve them.

How does empathy affect relationships?

Too much empathy in a relationship leads to emotional fusion, which is quite destructive to the individuals involved. If your partner feels your anger or panic to the extent that you do, that will exacerbate the situation. If, instead, your partner remains emotionally separate, objective, calm and compassionate, then he or she can be a rock for you and help you gain perspective and insight into your situation. You can get better support and advice from someone who does not freak out or become upset when you are suffering and need support. Someone who remains cool and calm in difficult times can better guide and counsel you through emotional turmoil.

Similarly, parents who demonstrate too much empathy will overreact when their children are hurt or upset. A parent’s anxiety is infectious and will only increase the fearfulness and distress of the child. If the parent habitually overreacts to the child’s distress, either by panic or extreme coaxing or placating, the child may very well become an anxious, insecure individual. Children need to sense from their parents’ demeanor that everything will be fine. Often they learn resiliency and faith in the future from the parent’s calm, solution-oriented demeanor in stressful situations.

If you want to be effective at alleviating someone’s suffering, it is best to be compassionate and kind while remaining calm and emotionally separate enough to use your reason.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Reference: “Against Empathy” by Paul Bloom. 2016.

The power of a pause against anger and impulsivity

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"Peace - Buddha" by Mimi Stuart ©

“Peace” – Buddha by Mimi Stuart ©

Anger and stress hormones

Staying calm is key to making wise decisions and essential to maintaining healthy relationships. Yet there are times when it’s impossible to stay calm. A teenager has lied to you, your spouse insults you, a co-worker yells at you. Anger or shock can trigger your fight or flight response, which activates powerful stress hormones.

Those hormones trigger many physiological, biochemical, and psychological changes. They increase alertness, and generate fear, aggressiveness, and anger. Such biologically-driven changes may be helpful when you are physically threatened. Yet they can be harmful to your relationships and social and work-related interactions. When too much of the primary stress hormone cortisol is rushing through your body, you are much more likely to say or do something that you will later regret.

Delay your response – time for a pause

You need to find a way to delay responding until your stress level has subsided to normal levels.

Exercise: The quickest way to decrease the levels of cortisol and related stress chemicals in your body is to do five minutes of strenuous exercise allowing you to sweat lightly. For instance, you can go for a run or do push-ups, sit-ups or jumping jacks.

Meditation: Another way to forestall harmful reactivity in emotionally-heated situations is to meditate for at least fifteen to twenty minutes. Focus on breathing deeply while relaxing and letting go of any thoughts or emotions that pass through your mind.

Distraction: At a minimum, pursue other activities and wait until you feel calm before dealing with a particularly heated emotional situation.

Once calm, you will be able to ask questions and find out the how and why of the situation. You want to avoid simply jumping to conclusions and striking out against the people involved.

Impulsiveness

A pause is also a powerful defense against making impulsive decisions. The desires for pleasure, food, sex, and approval from others have their bases in biology and can thus easily become excessive. Uncontrolled pleasure-seeking and impulsive decision-making can end up being more harmful than beneficial.

Thus, pausing before taking action is a key in preventing bad impulsive decision-making. Here are some examples of impulses that may be wise to forestall:

• Eating too much: You’ve just eaten a big plate of delicious pasta and you want to have seconds although you know you shouldn’t.

• Drinking too much: You crave that third or forth glass of wine regardless of the consequences.

• Buying too much: You want to buy an expensive jacket although you can’t afford it and you don’t need it.

• Pleasing others too much: You feel pressured into saying “yes” to a request to volunteer, although you are already over-burdened with other obligations.

• Wasting too much time: You feel like going on social media rather than doing something productive or spending time with family or friends.

• Slipping into inappropriate relationships: You can’t resist responding to a married person’s inappropriately-flirtatious text with a suggestive text of your own.

By simply delaying taking action or making a decision, the impulse to act immediately tends to diminish. Forestalling taking action is easier than resisting an impulse, because you’re not saying “no” to yourself or to others. You are simply saying, “I’m going to wait for five minutes/15 minutes/a day before making the decision.” With a little time and distance, other priorities and desires will tend to decrease your overwhelming urge to act impulsively.

Impulsive behavior becomes stronger when a person is bored. So taking the time to engage in another activity and gain distance from the temptation will also help the impulse fade away.

Prepare yourself

If you know what kind of situations present temptation or tend to make you angry, try to imagine the situation likely to occur and imagine how you are going to respond.

Example: If my teenager does something terrible, I will say, “Let’s talk tonight/tomorrow.” Then I will go for a run. I may try to get the situation in perspective by talking to a friend. I will put myself in his/her shoes and imagine how I can be most effective in a conversation. I will have a calm tone of voice and allow him or her to explain before interrupting or making any assumptions.

Example: If there is a buffet tonight, I will pace myself during the meal, and take a fifteen-minute break before deciding if and how much seconds I’ll have.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD Psychology

Read “Live in the now, not in the future!”

Read “Anger: ‘I have a right to be angry.’”

Read “Impulsivity: ‘I knew the negative consequences, but couldn’t resist.’”

“Whenever my sister comes over, she stirs up the kids, gives them candy, and then they’re impossible to calm down for bed.”

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"Sweet Dreams" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire

Candy is the quintessential instant gratification for a child. Someone who plays with kids and gives them sweets is someone who wants to be liked.

To motivate someone who wants to be liked, it’s best not to be disapproving. Rather than getting mad at your sister, enlist her help.

Tell her how hard it is when the kids get roused before bedtime. Talk to her about the candy before she comes over. “Hey, it’s thoughtful of you to think of the kids and bring them something they like. But sweets make them hyperactive. If you really want to bring something, please make sure it doesn’t have sugar in it.”

Ask if she would help you keep the atmosphere calm when she comes over in the evening. You could let her know that it would be helpful to play tranquil games or read to the kids to quiet them down before getting a good night sleep and sweet dreams. (Better than diabetic nightmares!)

If that doesn’t work, limit her visits to the daytime. You can be honest if you are kind-hearted about it. “You are so much fun that it gets the kids too excited before bedtime. It makes it really difficult for us to get them to bed. So afternoon visits would work better.”

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read “Helpful vs. Intrusive.”