BOSTON – Could doing daily affirmations boost your mental health? A new study out of California says yes.

A team of researchers at the University of California Berkeley taught 135 undergraduates how to do a simple finger-tapping exercise or how to perform self-compassionate touch where they put their hands on their heart and belly and said compassionate things to themselves like “How can I be friend to myself in this moment?”  

These activities were then performed 20 seconds a day for one month.  

They found that the students performing the daily self-compassion activity reported lower stress and improved mental health, comparable to more time-intensive practices such as mindfulness and therapy.  

They say learning how to do daily self-compassion could help some people who struggle to find mental health resources. In fact, more than half of people with mental health conditions go without treatment each year

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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