So after the mindfulness training, there was greater activation in regions of the brain that help control attention, including the insula, a region of the brain that allows you to feel your emotions as they are happening, the direct experience of emotions, not the stories.

Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Your right frontal insula “lights up” when you feel all the quintessential human emotions — love, hate, disgust, gratitude, resentment, self-confidence, embarrassment, trust, distrust, empathy, contempt, approval, disdain, pride, humiliation, truthfulness, deceit, atonement, guilt. It also lights up when you feel strong sensations, from physical pain to a fluttery stomach to tingling loins.