Thinking kind thoughts about yourself and your loved ones can prove beneficial for your overall wellbeing, empirical evidence has shown. Researchers carried out an investigation to explore the【C1】________between having kind thoughts and a person’s psychological state.

For the study, five groups of participants were presented with a different set of audio instructions, some of which encouraged the participants to think【C2】_____about themselves and others which persuaded them to think in a self-critical manner. After listening to the audio instructions, the participants were asked to answer a series of questions. These included whether they felt agitated, how likely they were to show kindness to themselves and how【C3】_____they felt to other individuals.

The participants who were instructed to think kindly about themselves were more likely to exhibit a bodily response associated with being relaxed and feeling safe. Their heart rates also dropped, which is a healthy sign of a heart that can respond flexibly to situations. Yet,【C4】_____, those who listened to the critical audio clips were noted as having a higher heart rate and sweat response afterwards, both of which【C5】_____feelings of threat and distress.

Having the ability to switch off the body’s natural threat response can【C6】_____a person’s immune system. This, in turn, gives them a greater likelihood of recovering quickly from illness. These findings help us to further understand some of our clinical trials research findings, where we show that individuals with【C7】__depression benefit particularly from self-awareness-based【C8】_____therapy. They essentially learn to become more sympathetic to themselves.

The sense is that for people【C9】_____to depression, meeting their negative thoughts and feelings with【C10】_____is a radically different way; that these thoughts are not facts. It introduces a different way of being and knowing that is quite transformative for many people.

A) adversely I) indignantly

B) amiably J) insulation

C) boost K) lavish

D) cognitive L) prone

E) compassion M) recurrent

F) connected N) signify

G) correlation O) surpass

H) fascinated

【C4】