Art of Life/Donna Parker
Are There Side Effects to Kindness?
“Kindness is the basic ingredient for the happiness recipe.” - Unknown
Why does kindness make us happier and protect our mental health? There are a few reasons.
One, is that deep in the human psyche is the sense that helping others is the right thing to do. For some, it’s spiritual. Kindness aligns us with a deep sense of spiritual purpose. Secondly, helping others simply feels satisfying. For many, no explanation is necessary. It is just the way it is. Kindness feels right and it feels good.
What, exactly is an act of kindness? Kindness is the actions we take marked by acts of generosity, conservation, or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward. However, there are side effects. Usually, when we think of side effects, the first thing that springs to mind are the side effects of drugs. But who would have thought that kindness could have side effects, too? Well it does and positive ones at that, as follows:
Kindness Makes us Happier When we do something kind for someone else, we feel good. On a spiritual level, many people feel that this is because it is the right thing to do and so we are tapping into something deep and profound inside of us that says, ‘This is who I am.’ On a biochemical level, it is believed that the good feeling we get is due to elevated levels of the brain’s natural versions of morphine and heroin, which we know as endogenous opioids. They cause elevated levels of dopamine in the brain and so we get a natural high, often referred to as ‘Helper’s High’.
Kindness Is Good for the Heart
Acts of kindness are often accompanied by emotional warmth. Emotional warmth produces the hormone, oxytocin, in the brain and throughout the body. Oxytocin causes the release of a chemical which expands the blood vessels and reduces blood pressure. Therefore oxytocin is known as a ‘cardio-protective’ hormone because it protects the heart (by lowering blood pressure). The key is that acts of kindness can produce oxytocin and therefore kindness can be said to be cardio-protective.
Kindness Slows Aging
Aging on a biochemical level is a combination of many things, but two culprits that speed the process are Free Radicals and Inflammation, both of which result from making unhealthy lifestyle choices. But remarkable research now shows that oxytocin (that we produce through emotional warmth) reduces levels of free radicals and inflammation in the cardiovascular system and so slows aging 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.
Kindness Improves Relationships
We all know that we like people who show us kindness. Kindness reduces the emotional distance between two people and so we feel more connected. It is something that is so strong in us that it is actually a genetic thing. Our evolutionary ancestors had to learn to cooperate with one another. 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 today when we are kind to each other we feel a connection and new relationships are forged, or existing ones strengthened.
Kindness is Contagious
When we are kind, we inspire others to be kind and studies show that this actually creates a ripple effect that spreads outwards to our friends’ friends’. Just as a pebble creates waves when it is dropped in a pond, so acts of kindness ripple outwards touching other’ lives and inspiring kindness everywhere the wave goes.
Helping others is a universal virtue and a very affordable and economic way to benefit others and our own well-being. As the saying goes, helping others is helping yourself. So throw your kindness around like confetti.
