By: David R. Hamilton
Rating: 3.5 /5
In essence this Book Will Make You Feel Better, Be Happier & Live Longe. Hamilton here talk the reader through the notion that Scientific evidence has proven that kindness changes the brain, impacts the heart and immune system, and may even be an antidote to depression. The idea is that we’re actually genetically wired to be kind. In this book, the reader is shown that the effects of kindness are felt daily throughout our nervous systems. When we’re kind, our bodies are healthiest. this is because:
- Kindness makes us happier
- Kindness improves relationships
- Kindness is good for the heart
- Kindness slows ageing
- Kindness is contagious
This book fuses scientific research around being kind with inspirational real life examples of kindness from ordinary people. Reading these stories will nourish your soul and leave you with renewed optimism for the future, and this book will help you see the many ways in which giving your time, energy and love to another could transform your health – and your whole world.
ACT OF KINDNESS Join a charity as a regular volunteer.
And we can substitute any feeling or method of producing oxytocin, like warm emotional contact, compassion, love, affection, sharing, sex, hugs, bonding with each other or animals, etc. Now you can see why the residents of Roseto weren’t getting heart disease.
As we get older, experience teaches us that altruism leads to happiness. We learn time and time again how good it feels, how right it feels, to help others, and so we learn to do more of it. For many, helping others is what gives their life meaning. It gives them a sense of purpose.
Being kind to ourselves is much more than just buying ourselves presents or treating ourselves in some other way. Kindness to ourselves can be declaring that we’ve had enough of a certain set of circumstances and determining to change things. It can be acknowledging that we deserve something better and we value ourselves enough to do something about it. Kindness to ourselves is also shown in standing up for ourselves, in deciding that we deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. It can be shown, too, in the decision to be ourselves and not the person everyone expects us to be.
Kindness can bring a smile to a person’s face. But it also brings a smile to the face of the giver. It makes us all happier. Children feel happy when they’re kind. Adults feel happy when they’re kind. Older adults who volunteer to help others feel happier and have a greater sense of purpose and a greater will to live. Kindness can help relieve depression. It can boost self-esteem. It can reduce social anxiety. Kindness physically changes the brain. It produces serotonin, which is exactly what some antidepressants seek to boost. It also alters the structure of the brain if we practise it consistently, essentially ‘wiring in’ a kind nature and the happiness that comes with it. Compassion and gratitude, both aspects of kindness in a broad sense, also improve happiness.
Compassion is like going into someone’s suffering, sharing it with them and wishing them relief from it. It comes just before kindness. I think of the evolution of empathy into compassion and then kindness as like a seed growing into a flower: Empathy is ‘I feel with you’: I see your pain and share it with you. Empathy is a seed that grows into the stem of compassion. Compassion feels bigger. It encompasses empathy, but adds the conscious wish that you be free of your suffering: ‘I feel your pain, I’m with you, but I want you to be free of it.’ It even adds a willingness to help. The stem then grows into a full flower of kindness, which is the heartfelt approach that grows out of compassion.
Get Rich Quick One of the wisest things my partner, Elizabeth, has ever said to me is: ‘Being kind will make you rich – in happiness.’ It’s true! It’s a side effect.
How does it work? Oxytocin causes cells along the walls of our arteries to relax. Then the arteries widen, or dilate, in what is known as vasodilation. This means three things: 1) that more blood can flow through the arteries; 2) that more blood flow can be delivered to the heart and other organs, and 3) that blood pressure is reduced. And reduced blood pressure ultimately means protection against heart attack and stroke.
In a University of Connecticut study, psychologists found that heart attack patients who saw benefits from their heart attack, which might include appreciating life more or seeing it as a gift, for example, were much less likely to have another heart attack over the next eight years than those who blamed their heart attack on others.
Kindness uplifts us. Whether we witness it, receive it or show it, it produces a feeling of elevation. This feeling causes the release of oxytocin, which is a molecule of kindness, in our body. This, in turn, triggers the release of nitric oxide and ANP. The result is the dilation of our arteries and a reduction in blood pressure. Kindness is Viagra for our arteries. Nitric oxide also helps protect against the formation of the plaques that can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Oxytocin also counters two processes that lead to hardening of the arteries: oxidative stress (free radicals) and inflammation. So kindness protects the heart – it is cardioprotective. Being kind to animals is also good for the heart. It helps reduce blood pressure and having a dog significantly reduces the chances of a heart attack (by 400 per cent). Kindness is also an antidote to stress, so it can offset the risk that stress poses to our cardiovascular health. Hugs are good for the heart. A hug a day keeps the cardiologist away.
Participants who treated themselves on purpose, as a declaration that they mattered or they were good enough, reported feeling happier and raising their self-esteem.
So important is oxytocin that it is on the World Health Organization’s ‘List of Essential Medicines’, which are medicines considered of most importance in a basic health system. It was
The Seven Big Agers In this chapter, I’ll discuss seven different processes of ageing and how kindness can slow them down. The processes are: 1) muscle degeneration, 2) reduced vagal tone, 3) inflammation, 4) oxidative stress, 5) depleted nitric oxide, 6) shortening telomeres and 7) immunosenescence. So, let’s start with muscle degeneration.
When they count their kindnesses, many people arrive at the conclusion that they are much kinder people than they thought they were, and they suddenly realize that they make more of a contribution to other people’s lives than they previously imagined. For some, this is just the boost their self-esteem needs and they have a greater sense of value and purpose as a result.
When we think of acts of kindness, we may imagine we have to do something big, something significant and noticeable, perhaps something that even requires some planning, but for this man it was the realization that each day is filled with dozens of small kindnesses – holding a door open, listening, picking up a dropped pen, smiling at someone, nodding in agreement to make someone feel validated – that made the big difference. For him, these were the kindnesses that counted most.