Kindness pays off

My coworker was getting ready to go on a two-week vacation to Toronto. She looked exhausted and needed a break, so I offered to help her out by taking his place in his last meeting of the day, a weekly project update, and to sit in on a few important meetings for her while she was out. 

You would have thought that I had offered her a million dollars. She was excited to get an early start on her vacation. The project update dragged on and was a bit more than I expected, but I couldn’t stop thinking about a study on kindness that I had read about last fall. 

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Feel good mood

The study reported that spreading kindness not only helps others feel better about themselves — it can also boost the giver’s health and happiness and be a win-win for all. I had a few additional tasks added to my list, which I could’ve done without and, yes, I did my share of whining, but I felt good that I was able to help my team member. 

According to the study, when you put the well-being of others before our own without expecting anything in return, it stimulates the reward centers of the brain. Those feel-good chemicals flood our system, producing a sort of “helper’s high.” Now I joked with my coworker that I expected him to bring me back some good Canadian beer or whiskey, but I can’t say that I expected anything in return. 

Image by Greta Hoffman via Pexels.

A feeling that builds

Besides the helper’s high, the report cited that volunteering has been shown to minimize stress and improve depression. The kindness contributes to our overall health and sense of community and belonging, including lowering our blood pressure and leading to higher rates of happiness. 

A few years my oldest son and I helped out with a United Way Day of Caring project. We helped with some basic yard work, raking and cleaning up some fallen branches, and painting an out-building for an older couple who couldn’t get around much anymore. When we drove away, I couldn’t help but think that it was all pretty simple stuff, but that was the point.

Yes, kindness goes both ways.