It’s World Kindness Day, when people are encouraged to make kindness the norm and commit to being kinder all year round. But, what benefits does kindness have on our body and mind? We look into the science of kindness and why being kind makes you feel good.
Why be kind?
It seems obvious to say that being in receipt of kindness makes a person feel good. But can the benefits of a kind act compare to other pleasurable experiences? Can kindness offer as many benefits as a hearty meal or a gift on one’s birthday?
While a kind act can’t provide you with any calories, it’s not simply a throwaway experience. When someone is surprisingly kind to you – a stranger holds an elevator door open, your coffee is ‘on the house’ – the kind act triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, an area known as the brain’s pleasure centre.
One of the largest studies into kindness and its effects on a population showed that people who regularly receive kindness have higher levels of overall wellbeing. The Kindness Test, which was carried out in 2021, involved more than 60,000 participants and also showed that carrying out kind acts had benefits for wellbeing. Whether you’re giving or receiving kindness, you’re likely to feel better.
Kindness in the body
When you speak to people who regularly volunteer or donate time and money to charities, they’ll talk of the warm glow feeling they get from their good deeds. This ‘helper’s high’ corresponds to brain activity: being kind has been shown to release oxytocin and serotonin, two hormones well known for their pleasurable effects on mood. Of all the kind acts, volunteering has one of the biggest benefits for the giver (and the receivers), as one large meta-analysis of studies showed that regular volunteering reduced the risk of dying by a quarter.
But kindness doesn’t have to involve giving up your time or money. There are many ways to be kind to another, and to reap the benefits. Simply smiling at strangers can make you feel happier, as a grin has been found to give us positive feelings.
Kindness happens at home, too. One study of 59 women found that a hug with a partner has benefits for heart health, lowering blood pressure and heart rate.
Studies have also shown that simply noticing kindness and feeling gratitude has positive impacts on the body, strengthening your nervous system’s ability to lower a fast heart rate and helping to lower blood pressure in people with hypertension. People who keep gratitude journals on a weekly basis have been found to have better measures of wellbeing, exercising more often, feeling physically healthier and more optimistic than those who don’t.
How to be kinder
Kindness helps the body and the mind: people who were told by researchers to carry out nice acts for others reported feeling more confident, competent and purposeful while being kind – even though they weren’t being completely altruistic. If you decide now, then, to start spreading a little more kindness in the world, you’ll quickly reap the benefits.
If being kind can help those with a fast heart rate, high blood pressure and difficulty feeling positive emotion, then it’s clear who should prioritise taking the time to engage in kindness: people who are stressed or burned out. But the exhaustion that comes with burnout and the already overwhelming demands on time that lead many to feel stressed seem to leave little opportunity to be kind. Finding small, easy ways to be kinder without piling more onto your plate, is crucial.
Kindness in less than five minutes
If you can volunteer, donate organs or large sums of money, that’s great, but kindness doesn’t have to require a lot of time, money or effort. Here are some ways you can practice being more kind in less than five minutes a day:
- Send a thank you email to someone you’ve worked with
- Offer a compliment to a stranger
- Make a cup of tea for a colleague
- Buy a small gift for a friend or donate on their behalf
- Make a point of smiling at five people on the street
- Think about something you’re grateful for
- Text a family member to let them know you appreciate them
Kindness really is important. It builds our empathy, fosters deeper relationships, incites positive feelings and promotes good heart health. It’s contagious, too – by being kind, you’ll influence the people around you to be kinder, giving them all the aforementioned benefits, too.
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