Can You Have Too Much Empathy?

When you walk a mile in someone else's shoes during a difficult time, you can deeply comprehend and share their pain. However, if this happens too often, you may face the consequences of excessive empathy. Over time, feeling another's distress can drain you emotionally, make you indifferent, or even lead to mental health challenges.

While some individuals display indifference or even heartlessness towards others' struggles, others experience excessive empathy. These individuals intensely feel the hardships that others are enduring, which can negatively impact their own well-being.

What is Empathy?

Empathy lacks a single, universally accepted definition among scientists and psychologists. Some suggest it's simply showing concern for someone else, while others perceive it as a profound connection with fellow human souls or a moral issue.

A recent study brought scientists closer to a consensus on the nature of empathy. They analyzed literature from 1980 to 2019 and concluded that empathy encompasses four main themes: understanding, feeling, sharing the emotions of someone else, and maintaining a distinction between the self and the other.

This can aid in measuring and developing future research on empathy.

How Can Too Much Empathy Be Harmful?

Empathy enables us to connect with others and has positive attributes. However, maintaining the distinction between oneself and the other can be challenging.

Carrying the emotions of those who are hurting can also harm us. That's why we need to regulate our emotions and develop and practice emotional regulation. If we don't, we can be negatively impacted in various ways.

Suffering Alongside Others

Consider comforting a friend who has lost a child. You don't have to experience your friend's intense sorrow to empathize with them and want to alleviate their suffering. You don't need to completely merge with their emotions to provide support. If you do, you'll also share their emotional anguish.

If you had too much empathy, you would likely suffer alongside your friend. As a result, you may feel exhausted or depressed. You may then avoid seeing your friend due to your own emotional burden. However, if you have compassion, you are more likely to maintain contact and offer support.

More people have experienced empathic distress since the pandemic. With so much overwhelmingly negative news, it was hard to remain unaffected. Having empathy can be seen as a sign of care, but emotional overloading can result in feelings of exhaustion and helplessness.

Reduced Action-Taking

In the example of the friend whose child died, having too much empathy could prevent you from being able to help her in a positive way. You may feel so devastated that you turn away and withdraw. As a result, you might not take the necessary steps to assist her, like offering practical support or buying her groceries.

Caregivers, including doctors, nurses, and psychologists, have admitted to feeling emotionally overwhelmed after treating an excessive number of patients and dealing with staff shortages during the pandemic. While they admirably kept performing their duties, health care workers were known to develop empathy fatigue (also called compassion fatigue) and burnout.

Moral Swaying

Having too much empathy can influence your moral decision-making. It may encourage prosocial behavior, but scientists discovered in one study that it can also result in prejudice.

Promoters know that we will be moved by one sick child, for example, to convince people to donate money to charities. Our empathy will, therefore, affect our decision-making rather than our reason.

We are unable to have empathy for large numbers of people who are in danger. In other words, we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of thousands of people, which affects who we will help.

Empathy can also sway us morally without our knowledge. We might, for instance, be manipulated by politicians to feel empathy for one group and not another. That can result in cruelty and violence.

Symptoms of Empathy Fatigue

According to the Cleveland Clinic, when you are worn down by your concern for others, you can end up feeling numb or overwhelmed. Maybe you replay TV footage of a serious car accident or civilian casualties in a war in your mind after seeing bad news.

You may also feel hopeless and depressed as a result. Empathy fatigue manifests itself physically as stress-related headaches, insomnia, and changes in appetite. Additionally, empathy fatigue can cause you to shut down and no longer care.

Compassion vs. Empathy

Compassion and empathy are often used interchangeably. Although they are connected, there is a distinction. When people feel compassion, their heart rate slows down, and they release oxytocin, the hormone that fosters bonding. You will be concerned about what someone else is going through and want to offer kindness or take action to assist them.

You take on their viewpoint and emotions when you empathize. You feel anxious if someone else is anxious. You also experience pain if the other person is in pain.

As previously mentioned, taking on too much of someone else's pain can cause apathy, depression, anxiety, and a reduced desire to help the other person in need.

How to Avoid Having Too Much Empathy

There are several things you can do to prevent the overload that comes with having too much empathy or being an empath.

By taking these actions in your life, you can better maintain balance and protect your well-being.

• Recognize the root of your anxiety
• Meditate to find balance
• Practice mindfulness
• Eat a healthy diet
• Get enough sleep
• Exercise frequently
• Engage in nature therapy
• Write about your emotions in a journal
• Communicate with friends and family members
• Select creative outlets

It's also crucial to remind yourself that you can't help everyone. It's okay to have boundaries and limits on how much you can emotionally invest in others. Self-care is important, and you need to make sure you're taking care of yourself before you can take care of others.

Managing empathy can be challenging, but with awareness and effort, you can avoid the negative consequences of excessive empathy and maintain your own emotional health.