The Neuroscience of Embodiment, Empathy, and Gratitude

This post is part of the three-week Grounded in Gratitude series — Week Two: Gratitude for Relationships.

I’d like to highlight an area of the brain that sits at the intersection of embodiment, emotion, and empathy, which has helped me understand the physical basis for the relationship of gratitude practice in yoga. It’s the insula, which you’ll find by resting your fingertips on your temples, then imagine you were able to press them in about an inch deep into your head, on each side. The insula is involved in interoception, translating signals from inside the body, like heartbeat, breath and gut sensations, into an overall felt sense of how we are.

But that’s not all… the insula is versatile! It’s a key part of the brain’s salience network, which decides what is relevant and meaningful by promoting those signals to the forefront of awareness. This includes events within the body, as well as what we witness around us, such as an expression on another’s face or the sound of a child crying. Essentially, it decides what we should be giving our attention to in a given moment. Given the overlap among the insula’s roles in embodiment, emotion, and attention, it’s no coincidence that when we feel something is important, it’s not just a mental pursuit but a visceral response with emotional tone.

Studies of empathy have shown that the same neural circuits involved in sensing and integrating our own feelings, particularly in the insula, help us mirror others’ feelings in ourselves. Empathy activates the same pathways that inform us of our own internal state.  Furthermore, it’s been found that mindfulness practice changes the structure and function of the brain’s interoceptive network, including the insula. This supports longer-term changes in our capacity to be naturally empathetic, as a trait instead of a temporary state.

On the flip side, it should be mentioned that increased interoceptive sensitivity is not always a good thing; highly sensitive interoception awareness is also linked to higher anxiety and mood disorders. However, the regulatory powers of mindfulness practice help us frame our interoceptive sensations within a broader and steadier representation of ourselves and our world. In other words, mindfulness and yoga help us feel more, without becoming overwhelmed by what we feel.

Specific to gratitude, now. When gratitude is incorporated into inner practice, it can help bring resonance between our body, our feelings, and our mind. In a study on gratitude meditation, researchers found that the rise and fall of the heartbeat were synchronized with shifts in brain connectivity across emotional and motivational networks. Interestingly, the researchers had people practice “resentment meditation” (… imagine yourself doing that!…) and no such coupling was found.

So neuroscience, even from its cool, objective viewpoint, seems to support what we intuit about contemplative practices, including empathy and gratitude: it’s not just a mental exercise; it’s a body-mind state of coherence that narrows the gap between what we perceive in ourselves and in others.