Why You Should Celebrate Self-Love Month

• Research shows that those who are more self-compassionate experience less anxiety and depression, and may be less likely to think about suicide.

• Self-compassion programs are designed to teach people how to be kinder and more compassionate to themselves.

Self-compassion programs offer one possible answer. Research on self-compassion consistently shows that those who are more self-compassionate, who treat themselves with greater kindness and less hostility, endure less anxiety, depression, and stress.

Among other things, self-compassion teaches you that you don’t need to be so hard on yourself to be happy and successful—and that when you treat yourself like you treat others with understanding, empathy, and patience, you can thrive.

Self-compassion works across the board. For adults and teens, the benefits have been confirmed in almost 4000 research studies.

To be sure, many initially have doubts about whether being kind to themselves will actually help them achieve. Being self-compassionate goes against our culture and the way we were brought up. We were raised to be kind to others, but are taught that being kind to oneself will undoubtedly lead to passivity, laziness, self-indulgence, and self-pity. Interestingly, research studies have shown the opposite—being self-compassionate actually makes us more able to take on new challenges, be more resilient, more motivated to work hard, and overcome life’s challenges.