How do you practice service in your life and why does it matter?
With the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II and her lifetime of service, I’ve been thinking about how service to others impacts our own life.
Three of our high performance chemicals are oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin, also called our “feel good” chemicals. Kindness has been found to boost levels of all three of those chemicals.
In this blog, by Cedars-Sinai, according to Dr. Waguih William IsHak, a professor of psychiatry, kindness is a path to happiness and is so powerful, it is influencing the treatment for certain health conditions – but we must make kindness a habit in order to get the full benefit. To quote Dr. IsHak, “The trick you need to know: Acts of kindness have to be repeated. Biochemically, you can't live on the 3-to-4-minute oxytocin boost that comes from a single act. That's why kindness is most beneficial as a practice – something we work into our daily routine whether in the form of volunteer work, dropping coins into an expired parking meter, bringing a snack to share with your officemates, or holding the elevator for someone.”
A Harvard Business School study equated the well-being gained from donating to charity with a doubling of household income. Another showed that if you volunteer regularly, the well-being improvements equate to a salary increase of $55,000. In other studies, when students were told to spend a small amount of money on someone else, they were happier than if they were told to spend it on themselves. Research from the University of North Carolina and UCLA found that people who gained their happiness from service to others carried low levels of biological markers leading to serious illnesses. Conversely, those whose happiness came mostly from self-gratification, showed higher levels of these markers. Therefore, kindness expressed as giving back very clearly has a positive impact on our physical and emotional well being.
This video from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation highlights how kindness reduces stress, anxiety and depression, and reinforces that acts of kindness flood our system with chemicals that make us calmer, healthier and happier, more energized and confident, with fewer aches and pains and potentially a longer life span – and points out that if others see you being kind, they will be filled with those same “feel good” hormones and will be significantly more likely to pay it forward – all of which could account in part for the Queen’s remarkable good health and longevity, as well as how beloved she was. To quote Dr. IsHak: "(Acts of kindness) help us feel better and they help those who receive them. We're building better selves and better communities at the same time." Indeed – random acts of kindness can and have changed the world.
While you’re being kind to others, don’t forget to be kind to yourself. In this article for the Mayo Clinic, Steve Siegle, a counselor in Behavioral Health, says, “It is not just how you treat other people — it is how you extend those same behaviors and intentions to yourself as well. I believe you can be kinder in your own self-talk and practice gratitude.” I agree!
Let’s give the Dalai Lama the final word: "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
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