You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you do something nice?
Well, guess what? There is science behind that sensation. More and more research is showing that kindness is good for more than your karma. It’s good for your health, too.
Ten years ago, attorney Allan Luks wrote The Healing Power of Doing Good, in which he coined the phrase “helper’s high” to describe that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you do something nice for someone. In the book, he described the many benefits of benevolence, from decreased stomach acid to increased longevity and myriad others. He worked closely with the Institute for the Advancement of Health during his research for this book, which has been used in volunteer organizations ever since.
Much of his information came from talking to people about their health and service experiences.
Psychologists and scientists are also taking a closer look at this natural high to see if they can distill its essence. One study in Japan asked a group of people simply to count their own acts of kindness for one week. They weren’t asked to perform more kindnesses or told how to be kind. They just paid attention to what they were doing. The participants rated themselves on a happiness scale before and after the “counting kindnesses” period. Result? They were happier after a week of noticing their own kindness than before, and happier than the control group that didn’t count their kindnesses.
Positive reinforcement usually results in an increase in the rewarded behavior. Every lab rat knows that. So now that those people know that simply being aware of their own acts of kindness improves their own mental state, wouldn’t it naturally follow that they would try to increase their acts of kindness and thus their own happiness?
Imagine the ripples.
In a Buddhist meditation practice called loving-kindness meditation, the meditator wishes happiness for themselves, for those close to them, for those distant, and finally for the entire world. It is seen as a powerful way to bring peace to the spirit of the meditator and the world at large. Recently this practice has been moved from the meditation cushion to the laboratory.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill studied the emotional effects of loving-kindness meditation. They found that people who did loving-kindness meditation felt more positive emotions on a day-to-day basis. They also experienced improvement in a wide range of what were called “personal resources.”
These included increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms. In turn, this escalation in personal resources led to increased life satisfaction and reduced symptoms of depression. Wow. That makes me want to hit the cushion right now! Maybe Chapel Hill will change their mascot from the butting Rams to the gentle sheep.
The Blue Devils at Duke University took this question down another track. They got volunteers with chronic back pain to do loving-kindness meditation. Compared to their control group, the compassion group had less physical pain in addition to less psychological distress, including anger.
Not to be outdone by the Rams and Blue Devils to the East, Stanford did its own study on loving-kindness meditation. The university reported that even just a few minutes of loving-kindness meditation increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward others. All good things.
I tried to find the mascot for Stanford University, to complete my little trilogy. The guy at the games dresses up like a tree, but it turns out that is just the band’s mascot, and the official school mascot is Cardinal. The color, not the bird. I think those brainiacs did it on purpose to confuse us.
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The natural next scientific step is figuring out how this happens on a chemical level. A hormone called oxytocin is looking like a major player.
Oxytocin is high in women during childbirth and breastfeeding. Breastfeeding women have lower blood pressure, an observation that led to the discovery that oxytocin is good for your heart and blood vessels. You’ve heard the phrase “the milk of human kindness”? Shakespeare — a man before his time in so many ways.
Never mind that Lady Macbeth, the character who coined the phrase when she told her husband, “Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way,” was actually dissing him for being too cowardly to kill the king and grab the crown.
Oxytocin also works in the brain as a neurotransmitter and facilitates social bonding. It has been found to help children and adults with autism better recognize emotions. Having quality relationships increases its levels. One experiment showed that those with higher oxytocin (they snorted it to be sure) had higher levels of trust.
There is science behind the sensation. Doing good for others does good for you. This is national kindness week. So go do some good. If you need ideas for ways to spread kindness this week and beyond, visit RandomActsofKindness.org or PayItForwardMovement.org.
Dr. Peggy Spencer has been a UNM Student Health physician for 17 years and a Daily Lobo contributing columnist for three years. E-mail your questions to her at Pspencer@unm.edu. All questions will be considered, and all questioners will remain anonymous. This column has general health information only and cannot replace a visit to a health provider.
