In periods of stress, when you are sociable and you take care of doing activities, whether to seek support or to help others, you release more oxytocin. In this way, your response to stress becomes healthier and you recover faster from the possible negative effects of long-term stress.
And is that oxytocin, among other effects, lowers blood pressure and heart rate, reduces muscle tension and inhibits the release of the hormones of the adrenal cortex (ACTH and Cortisol), the main stress hormones.
It seems that we are then biologically prepared to resort to mutual help and social support to counteract the effects of stress.
However, in some occasions, we are not able to attend to this social impulse toward which oxytocin directs us. In stressful situations, it will have happened more than once that all you want is to lock yourself in or even attack others. When this happens, you are actually acting against your own nature and you miss a great opportunity to contribute to your own physical and emotional well-being.
Compassion or kindness towards oneself also requires awareness of one's own suffering. If we find ourselves in a stressful or difficult situation, we rarely take the trouble to stop and recognize how difficult things are for us at that moment. And if we do not do it with us, we will hardly do it with others.
As Kristin Neff says in her book "Be kind to yourself", if you judge and criticize continuously while trying to be kind to others, you are setting artificial limits that only cause feelings of separation and isolation in you.
According to Neff, compassion implies recognizing and clearly seeing the suffering of others.
It also means feeling kindness towards those who suffer and thus the desire to help arises.
In addition, compassion is to recognize that the human being is imperfect and fragile.