You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get after volunteering your time or donating to a great cause? Turns out it’s actually good for your long-term mental and physical health, not just an ‘in-the-moment’ feel-good thing. Your intuition is probably telling you ‘duh, of course giving is good for your health because it makes you feel good’ but there is science to back that gut feeling up as well. Let’s take a quick look at how the different aspects of ‘giving’ can benefit your mental and physical health (while you help others).
How giving is good for your health – physical benefits
There is a physical chemical response that occurs in the human body when we do a nice thing for someone else. Seratonin, dopamine, and oxytocin are all released when you help someone, give a gift, volunteer your time, or donate to a charity. The release of these chemicals on a consistent basis can help contribute to better physical health (as well as better mental health, but we’ll go into that more a little later on).
Just like a healthy diet and exercise can help lower blood pressure, giving and helping others has been found to do the same, potentially leading to a longer life span in the long run.
Volunteering in itself can be quite a physical task – lifting and carrying boxes of donated goods, making deliveries to recipients, cooking up a storm to give out free meals, setting up a market stall and baking to sell goodies to raise funds – so, by giving, you may end up with a physical workout that rivals an hour at the gym.
How giving is good for your health – mental benefits
Those chemicals we spoke about above are crucial to a maintaining a balanced mental state and finding true joy, fulfilment, and peace in everyday life. Seratonin helps regulate mood. Dopamine gives a sense of pleasure and joy. Oxytocin creates a sense of connection with others. It makes sense, then, that the act of giving, a thing that naturally evokes these chemical reactions, would lend itself to a beneficial mental state, combating psychological difficulties like depression, anxiety, and stress.
Giving, especially in the form of volunteering, can also foster a sense of achievement, and purpose, a reason to smile and to feel as though your time here on earth has been spent leaving the world a better place than you found it.
Having positive and meaningful connections with other human beings can make a tremendous amount of difference in the quality of a person’s mental health. Whether donating online or volunteering in-person, that moment of conscious giving – doing something to benefit a person other than yourself – and thinking about how it might benefit them, is a truly human moment. When we put ourselves in another person’s shoes and connect with their story, we are often prompted to remember that we’re all made of the same stuff.
How can I incorporate the act of giving into my day-to-day life?
There are PLENTY of ways you can incorporate the gift of giving into your everyday life, and it often won’t cost you much at all!
Of course, you can donate funds on a once-off or ongoing basis to a charity of your choice (we would be so appreciative if you choose ProjectKindness to do this for). However, most acts of giving and kindness require only your time and presence. Here are a few ideas you can probably start incorporating into your day right away…
- Cook a few freezable dinners for someone who you know is facing a tough time.
- Offer to help an elderly friend or family member with something they may not be able to manage themselves (eg. clean their gutters, teach them how to fix a tech issue they’ve been having, drive them to a doctor appointment).
- Help out a new parent by asking them what you can do to genuinely be of assistance – and if they say “nothing”, respect that answer.
- Give a little cash to someone sleeping rough without the indignity of questioning what they will spend it on.
- Pick up rubbish as you notice it and pop it in the next bin you come across.
These are just a few ideas to get you started – we’re sure you can come up with some of your own as well.
As always, thank you for reading. For more feel-good news, you can check out our ‘Stories of Impact’ page. Have a lovely day and stay kind! 😊
