Big Things Little Kindness Can Do to Your Health

Amy Taylor May 07, 2014

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.

You know that being helped by someone feels good. It gives us hope and increases our self-worth to know that someone out there spared time and effort to assist us – whether it’s the customer service representative who went an extra mile to resolve our issue or that passer-by who helped us carry our grocery bags to the car. Receiving kindness from other people, even without you asking for it, has a long-term impact on your health and well-being. Surprisingly, being the one who extends kindness has much greater impact.

So what does being kind do to your health?

It makes you less anxious. Research reveals that doing good deeds, or kind acts, can make socially-anxious people feel better. In one study, researchers from the University of British Columbia assigned people with high levels of anxiety to do kind acts for other people at least six times a week. Acts of kindness practised in this study included holding the door open for someone, doing chores for other people, donating to charity, and buying lunch for a friend. The researchers found that doing nice things to others led to a significant increase in people’s positive moods. It also led to an increase in relationship satisfaction and a decrease in social avoidance already in socially anxious individuals.

It makes you happier. Even the simplest acts of kindness, such as sharing your food with an orphan, assisting an elderly cross the street, preparing coffee for your grandmother, or giving away free cookies to children in the neighbourhood, can have a strong, lasting impact on your happiness. In her research, Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studied happiness for over 20 years, found that performing other positive acts once a week led to the most happiness. In 2008, research by the Harvard Business School, headed by Professor Michael Norton, found that giving money to someone else lifted participants’ happiness more that spending it on themselves. This is despite the participants’ prediction that spending on themselves would make them happier.

Even brain scan studies support this claim. In 2006, Jorge Moll and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, creating a “warm glow” effect. Scientists also believe that altruistic behaviour stimulates the release of endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.”

It’s good for your physical health. Random acts of kindness can boost your health in different significant ways. There have been numerous studies showing how kindness or compassion lowers our risk of dying from heart disease and other illnesses. For instance, in a 1999 study carried out by the University of California, Berkeley, it was found people who volunteered for two or more organizations were 44 per cent less likely to die over a five-year period than were non-volunteers, even after controlling for their age, exercise habits, general health, and negative health habits like smoking. University of Michigan saw similar results in the research they carried out in 2003. She and her colleagues found that those individuals who provided practical help to friends, relatives, or neighbours, or gave emotional support to their spouses, had a lower risk of dying over a five-year period than those who didn’t. Interestingly, receiving help wasn’t linked to a reduced death risk.

Researchers agree that one reason why kindness promotes health is because it decreases stress. In 2006, Rachel Piferi of Johns Hopkins University and Kathleen Lawler of the University of Tennessee found that people who provided social support to others had lower blood pressure than participants who didn’t, suggesting a direct physiological benefit to those who give of themselves.

It keeps your heart healthy.

An act of kindness promotes emotional warmth which causes the brain to produce oxytocin – the hormone which has surprising benefits to your cardiovascular system. Studies found that oxytocin causes the release of a chemical called nitric oxide in blood vessels, which dilates (expands) the blood vessels. This reduces blood pressure and therefore oxytocin is known as a ‘cardioprotective’ hormone because it protects the heart (by lowering blood pressure).

It promotes cooperation and social connection. Several studies, including work by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer, have suggested that when you give to others, your generosity is likely to be rewarded by others down the line – sometimes by the person you gave to, sometimes by someone else. These exchanges promote a sense of trust and cooperation that strengthens human ties. What’s more, being kind and generous leads people to perceive others positively.

It slows the ageing process.

Research also confirms that oxytocin reduces levels of free radicals and inflammation in the cardiovascular system and so slows ageing at source. Incidentally, these two culprits also play a major role in heart disease so this is also another reason why kindness is good for the heart.

It makes your relationship better.

Kindness doesn’t only spark friendships. It also strengthens the bond between people. The stronger the emotional bonds within groups, the greater were the chances of survival and so ‘kindness genes’ were etched into the human genome.

So don’t let a day end without showing some kindness. And when someone shows kindness to you, don’t forget to give that person a big smile (a hug if possible) and say the magic word “Thank you”.