This year, 'Random Acts of Kindness Day' falls on a Monday, but the idea behind it is trying to get people to be kind to others every day, writes CNN.
In fact, it wants to get people to be 'random acts of kindness activists'. Here's why: Spreading kindness not only helps others feel better, it can also improve the health and happiness of the person doing the act of kindness, research has found. It seems like everyone wins in that situation.
A study has shown that putting the well-being of others before our own without expecting anything in return, what we commonly call altruism, stimulates the brain's reward centers.
Substances that make us feel good flood our body and produce a feeling of satisfaction.
Volunteering, for example, minimizes stress and alleviates depression.
And that's not all: the same activity can also reduce the risk of losing mental abilities and help us live longer.
According to experts, one of the reasons for this is that kindness contributes to our sense of community. In addition, studies have shown that it is an important contribution to a healthy and long life.
Giving to others or 'pro-social spending' reduces blood pressure and improves heart health. For one the study asked a group of people with high blood pressure to spend $40 on themselves, while another group with high blood pressure was told to spend the money on others.
They found that those who spent money on others had lower blood pressure at the end of the six-week study. In fact, the benefits were as great as those of good nutrition and exercise.
Giving seems to lessen our pain. Recent study showed that those people who said they would donate money to help orphans were less sensitive to an electric shock than those who refused to give money. In addition, the more people believed their donations would be helpful, the less pain they felt.
How could this happen? The study showed that the parts of the brain that respond to pain become inactive immediately after the experience of giving.
In the United Kingdom, researchers found that doing good deeds can cause feelings of happiness in just three days. Study divided people into three groups: the first group had to do a good deed every day, the second group tried a new activity, and the third group did nothing. Groups that did good deeds and did new things showed a large increase in feelings of happiness.
You will feel even more satisfaction if you are creative in doing good deeds. Researchers of happiness Sonya Lyubomirsky and Kennon Sheldon have discovered that people who did various good deeds throughout the week showed a greater increase in feelings of happiness than those who repeated the same activity over and over again.
This is the good news: It seems that acts of kindness can be anonymous or visible, spontaneous or planned, and can be as simple as paying a compliment or opening a door for someone, writes CNN.
Now it seems to you that you want to start doing good deeds right away. There are literally hundreds of ideas online, but here are a few to get you started:
– while driving, leave space for a car that wants to enter your lane
- let the person who is behind you in the line at the supermarket take their turn first
- give a sincere compliment to someone who is in the elevator with you
– do the same thing to your boss, he probably never gets compliments!
- tell the person you offended that you forgive them
– help a friend who is going through a difficult period, don't try to fix the situation, just listen to him
– leave a note of thanks to your postman
AUTHOR:
Damir Krajač / CROPIX
