Empathy Overload?

New research suggests we're hard-wired to be empathetic. Here's how to keep from getting overwhelmed by the pain of others.

By Jennifer Nelson

One spring morning, Janet White (not her real name) was having lunch on the San Francisco waterfront with her husband and her daughter Kate, when her daughter burst into tears, sobbing that she feared her recent engagement was a huge mistake. White, a 58-year-old graphic artist and the mother of six, had never seen Kate so distraught. Thinking it would help, she left with Kate to walk through the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral, atop nearby Nob Hill. But halfway up the hill, White became so dizzy and weak herself that she had to lie down in a park.

Her daughter's emotional crisis came at a time when White, who lives in Lafayette, California, was feeling dangerously depleted. Her husband, a lawyer, was bringing his stressful workload home, and another daughter, a teenager, was cutting classes.

White tried to take care of herself by doing yoga or Pilates every morning, but she was plagued by stress-related health problems—high blood pressure and painful recurring outbreaks of cracking and bleeding on her hands.

White, it seems, was suffering from an excess of empathy, a quality that recent research suggests is hard-wired into our brains and bodies. When we empathize with the physical or emotional pain of others, specialized brain cells called mirror neurons start firing much the same way they would if we were experiencing the pain directly. Researchers suspect that people who are highly empathic, like White, have higher-than average numbers of mirror neurons in their brains, and that those neurons are especially active. What's long been suspected in the mental health field—and what the physical sciences are just starting to understand—is that being overly empathic can be bad for your health.

"Feeling too much of others' pain can lead to chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia," says Judith Orloff, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of Positive Energy. Overly empathic people, she says, too often walk around feeling anxious, depressed, frightened, or as White did, just plain exhausted.

No one is suggesting that you try to rid yourself of empathy, just that you learn to use it appropriately. "Empathy is necessary for compassion," says Nischala Joy Devi, an internationally known yoga teacher in Fairfax, California, and the author of The Healing Path of Yoga. "But if you lose yourself in others' suffering, you can no longer be compassionate." Fortunately, there are several ways you can remain sensitive to the pain of others without overwhelming yourself, draining your energy—or even becoming ill.

Set Boundaries

"If you're overly empathic, you struggle when you see someone else in pain; you want to make it go away," says Bo Forbes, a clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and yoga therapist in Boston. But if your empathy extends to taking on someone else's karma by trying to take away pain, you're invading that person's boundaries. The same is true if you allow others to invade your psychic space. It may sound callous, but sometimes letting others struggle to find their own way can be the greater gift.

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