6 benefits of being kind
This week at The Youth Group, we’ve been celebrating our week of kindness. We’ve already spoken about the little things you can do day to day to spread kindness, but why is kindness so important.
Obviously doing kind things is good for other people, it may improve their day emotionally or at least make the day easier for them. But what can kindness do for you? This may seem a selfish question to ask, but the truth is there are many ways you can benefit from being kind.
There are, in fact, 6 major ways that being kind can have a positive impact on your life.
Increased happiness
Emotions can be contagious. We have all been in a situation where someone has been crying and it made you cry, or someone’s anger makes you equally livid. But this kind of effect is also available with positive emotions.
When you perform an act of kindness, however small, you are doing something good for someone or something else. Though you may not see it, you know that you have potentially made someone very happy, and that makes you happy too.
In one study, Elizabeth Dunn from the University of British Columbia gave $50 to a group of people. Those who had spent the money on other people reported greater and longer-lasting feelings of happiness after the fact than those who had bought something for themselves.
Therefore, its reasonable to assert that consistently doing small acts of kindness will increase your day to day happiness and allow you to have a more positive outlook on your life.
Improved self-image
Being kind isn’t all about gaining a positive view of the world, but also gaining positivity about yourself.
Whenever you hear about a person performing an act of kindness, the go-to thing to think is that they are a good person. They have taken the time out of their day to do something that made another person happy or helped them, they are selfless. And so, when you are the one performing these kind acts, you know that this is the way the world will look at you. The more you practice kindness, the more you can begin to internalize that view.
In order to practice self-love, one of the main things is to not only accept your limitations, but to acknowledge and appreciate what your best traits are. Being able to recognize the kind things you do daily and say to yourself “I am a good person” will do wonders for your self-love.
Increased Mental Health
The benefits of kindness aren’t all about thinking and feeling, kindness has a significant impact on your brain chemistry which can relive certain mental health issues.
When performing an altruistic act our brain’s ‘reward circuitry’ activates, our serotonin is boosted which facilitates feelings of satisfaction. Similarly, endorphins are released, much like when we exercise. Endorphins are natural hormones that minimize discomfort, in other words, they make you relaxed.
This increase in natural pick-me-ups is what’s known as the ‘helpers high’ and is effective short-term relief from feelings of stress or some symptoms of anxiety. So, practicing small gestures of kindness every day can help to extend your natural high.
People suffering from social anxiety in particular struggle with diminished feelings of joy and concentration, known as low positive affect. Having a boost in serotonin and endorphins from specifically performing kind acts has been shown in another UBC study to help increase positive affect.
Increased physical health
It’s not just your brain that can get a boost from kindness, your whole body can benefit too.
As well as serotonin and endorphins, being kind also allows your brain to produce a hormone known as oxytocin. One of the many benefits of oxytocin is the reduction of inflammation in the body. Inflammation is linked to many different conditions, including diabetes, chronic pain and migraines. And so, the more oxytocin your body produces, the less likely you are to develop these conditions or if you already have them, their symptoms will be minimized.
Additionally, oxytocin can have a major impact on reducing heart conditions. It releases a chemical into your blood vessels known at nitric oxide, which dilutes them and lowers your blood pressure. High blood pressure is linked to many serious problems, like strokes and heart attacks, as well as heart disease later in life. And so, being kind, and producing oxytocin can be an important step in keeping yourself and your heart physically healthy in the long run.
Improved relationships
Now that we’ve got past the science stuff, what about the social side of things? The old saying goes that you should treat others as you would like to be treated, and that is particularly relevant to building and sustaining relationships with other people.
When someone does something kind for you, you start to view them in a positive light. By treating them with kindness, you are essentially giving them the impression that they matter to you, and they are worth the time it takes to help them. If you want to build a relationship with someone or strengthen an existing relationship, kindness will help them to have positive emotions towards you. Hopefully, they will also wish to repay your kindness, and build up their own image in your mind.
The impact of being kind in general on your emotions and your mental health that we have mentioned previously can also help when building on relationships. If you have an optimistic world view, you will be more optimistic about your relationship, leading to less tension. A decrease in social anxiety (more concentration and interest) will allow you to be more attentive to the relationship, you can put more into it and then get more out of it.
Pass it on
The final benefit to kindness may be the hardest to see, in fact, you may never notice it, but that shouldn’t make it less important.
Much like in a personal relationship, treating strangers as you would wish to be treated is key. Interacting with kindness will increase happiness in both you and those you are interacting with, improving their day and giving them a positive outlook on life. They can then take this positive attitude away with them and pass it on to others.
There are many people in the world, you may never interact with the same stranger twice. But the more you pass on this kindness and positivity, the more likely it will be to find its way back to you and to the people you love. Even if it doesn’t get back to you, knowing that you have started the ripple that may improve the day of someone you’ll never meet can be satisfaction enough.
And so, if you're looking to improve something in your life, be it your mental or physical health, or a relationship with a loved one, a daily act of kindness may be the first step in changing your world.
