Can helping others improve your health?
- Article
Yes, according to scientific studies. Not only does it "feel good" to be kind to others, but it can have both physical and mental benefits, including:
•Creating a rush of euphoria, known as a "helper's high," that releases the body's natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.
• Improving stress-related health problems, including overeating, ulcers, and more. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.
• Enhancing feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience and vigor.
• Supplying social contact and reducing the unhealthy sense of isolation.
• Decreasing both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain.
• Reducing bad attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body.
• Recreating a sense of well-being and the resulting health benefits for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.
• Increasing the sense of self-worth, happiness and optimism, as well as decreasing feelings of helplessness and depression.
• Creating emotions like a sense of personal bonding from kind acts that can strengthen the immune system.
Source: "The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others," by Allan Luks and Peggy Pane.
