Have you been the recipient of some surprise kindness this week? Maybe you owe it to the fact that it’s Random Acts of Kindness Week. What a very nice week. In thinking about kindness and why it feels so good, I discovered that numerous scientific studies show that acts of kindness result in significant health benefits, both physical and mental. In the book The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others, Allan Luks talks about these benefits of helping other.
• A rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act is often referred to as a “helper’s high,” involving physical sensations and the release of the body’s natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.
• Stress-related health problems improve after performing kind acts. Helping reverses feelings of depression, supplies social contact, and decreases feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.
• Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation.
• A decrease in both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain can occur.
• The incidence of attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body is reduced.
• The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.
• An increased sense of self-worth, greater happiness, and optimism, as well as a decrease in feelings of helplessness and depression, is achieved.
• Once we establish an “affiliative connection” with someone–a relationship of friendship, love, or some sort of positive bonding–we feel emotions that can strengthen the immune system.
• The practice of caring for strangers translates to immense immune and healing benefits.
• Adopting an altruistic lifestyle is a critical component of mental health.
• A rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act is often referred to as a “helper’s high,” involving physical sensations and the release of the body’s natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.
• Stress-related health problems improve after performing kind acts. Helping reverses feelings of depression, supplies social contact, and decreases feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.
• Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation.
• A decrease in both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain can occur.
• The incidence of attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body is reduced.
• The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.
• An increased sense of self-worth, greater happiness, and optimism, as well as a decrease in feelings of helplessness and depression, is achieved.
• Once we establish an “affiliative connection” with someone–a relationship of friendship, love, or some sort of positive bonding–we feel emotions that can strengthen the immune system.
• The practice of caring for strangers translates to immense immune and healing benefits.
• Adopting an altruistic lifestyle is a critical component of mental health.
