Can mental training in compassion lead to altruistic behavior and better health?

The first time I ever tried a lov­ing-kind­­ness med­i­ta­tion, I was over­come by a feel­ing of com­plete… futil­i­ty. Men­tal­ly extend­ing com­pas­sion to oth­ers and wish­ing them free from suf­fer­ing seemed nice enough, but I had a hard time believ­ing that my idle thoughts could increase kind­ness in the real world. Turns out I was wrong.

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