Stay Healthy in Kindness

Have you ever heard a movie called “Pay it forward”? A movie about a kid played by Haley Joel Osment with his brilliant idea of giving and doing kind things and have people who receive the kindness to pay it forward to the next three stranger they met. It’s like multi-level marketing, but the trade is anything that we have that will help others.

Well, many researches have concluded that doing good deeds, not only will improve your relationship with your friends and families, create new network, or making you feel happy, but it also will keep you healthy and prolong your life.

Professor Stephen Post, author of Why Good Things Happen to Good People, has examined the evidence that being kind is good for your health, he reports kindness can help regulate emotions which has a positive impact to our health. Alan Luks, in his book, The Healing Power of Doing Good, reported that kindness give a distinct physical sensation when being kind, a feeling of more energetic, warm, calmer and greater self-worth, a phenomenon he like to call “helper’s high”. This report were backed by a 2005 study conducted in Hebrew University in Israel, where they found a link between doing good and a gene that releases dopamine, a feel-good neurotransmitter in the brain. Other studies have found that those who regularly helped others have a better mental health and lower rates of depression. They are less likely to fall ill because of chronic disease and tended to have better immune system. Since it influents our emotion too, it will also help our cardiovascular system, because it’s hard to be angry, resentful or fearful when we show our love towards others.

But don’t get it wrong, it’s not that easy doing good to others. R. Allan Allday, PhD, an assistant professor of special education at Oklahoma State University explains that as we aged, the more task-oriented we become. As we acquire more life experience we began to develop a sense of mistrust to others, in example; we speak when we need to. Its part of our defense system and it’s a habit that is hard to break.

I myself do it for the sheer pleasure that it gave. For me, doing good deeds is an addiction, one of my selfish acts of finding pleasure. I’m doing good not just because to help people, but because it also makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel that I could be of use to others and that everyone is just like us. Besides, if someone there to help you when you’re in need, would you treat them bad and make them feel sorry for it? Being kind makes us feels at home, wherever we are.