Feeling empathy is bad for your heart

Being empathetic could be bad for your heart, suggests a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania.

the researchers gave a group of more than 200 students the task of being ‘helpers’ to people who had experienced a tragic event.

Some helpers were asked to imagine how they would feel in the same situation, others to imagine how the victim themselves felt.

the volunteers’ blood pressure and heart rates were then checked: the former, more empathetic group experienced a physiological change as if they, too, were under threat.

this response is linked with raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which in the long term can lead to inflammation and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.