Your opinion can help us make it better. We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. Did you know that helping others lowers your stress and anxiety levels? Or that low-carb diets are not that great? DW brings you this week's health news, all in one handy guide! Providing support to others activates a neural pathway in the brain that boosts our wellbeing, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in the US have found.
Helping others directly activates a brain region that has previously been linked to parental care behaviors. At the same time, activity in the amygdala — a brain structure associated with fear and stress responses — is lowered. The researchers asked 45 volunteers to perform a task that involved "giving support" in some way. During the task, they had the chance to win rewards for someone close to them, for charity or for themselves.
Participants felt better and more socially connected if their support resulted in a reward for someone else. Afterwards, the participants were asked to undergo an emotional ratings task in an MRI scanner, which shows active brain areas. The act of supporting literally anyone was linked to an activation of specific brain areas. However, only direct support was linked to a decreased activity in the fear center of the brain. A second study with participants, who underwent a different emotional ratings task, supported the first result — helping others directly lowers fear and stress levels, and boosts your overall wellbeing.
Crash diets can help you lose weight quickly, but most of it comprises water and muscle mass. Crash diets also have side-effects such as headaches, nausea and bad breath. For a long-term solution, the only way is to completely reform your eating habits. People determined to keep their weight low after shedding the pounds should have fruit and vegetables dominating their daily intake.
Most varieties contain a lot of minerals and vitamins, are largely comprised of water, and have a very low calorie content. You should also drink plenty of water to stimulate digestion.
The same applies for spicy food. The worst culprits include not only fat but also refined carbohydrates such as processed flour products, instant meals, and all foods with a high level of regular supermarket sugar or fructose — not forgetting sweet drinks and fast food. Plus: avoid alcohol, because it has twice as many calories as protein or sugar. There are various steps of action that will help your dieting … Eat three regular meals a day, with breakfast optionally the biggest.
The slower you eat, the faster you will feel sated. Sometimes these mean as much, if not more, than financial gifts. Scientific studies show that helping others boosts happiness. It can help to take our minds off our own troubles too. Kindness towards others is be the glue which conncts individual happiness with wider community and societal wellbeing. Giving to others helps us connect with people and meets one of our basic human needs - relatedness. Kindness and caring also seem to be contagious.
When we see someone do something kind or thoughtful, or we are on the receiving end of kindness, it inspires us to be kinder ourselves.
Kindness really is the key to creating a happier, more trusting local community. Science shows there are strong associations between happiness and helping others. Firstly, happiness helps helping. Happy people are more likely to be interested in or be inclined towards helping others. They are more likely to have recently performed acts of kindness or spent a greater percentage of their time or money helping others.
Volunteering is also related to increased happiness irrespective of the socio-economic situation of the volunteer. While it has long been assumed that giving also leads to greater happiness this has only recently started to be scientifically proven.
For example, when participants in a study did five new acts of kindness on one day per week over a six-week period even if each act was small they experienced an increase in well-being, compared to control groups. Interestingly the amount of money did not effect the level of happiness generated. And there is now evidence that this leads to a virtuous circle - happiness makes us give more, and giving makes us happier, which leads to a greater tendency to give and so on. This effect is consistent across different cultures.
It makes sense that helping others contributes to our own happiness. Scientists are reconsidering the idea of the 'selfish gene' and are exploring the evolution of altruism, cooperation, compassion and kindness.
If people are altruistic, they are more likely to be liked and so build social connections and stronger and more supportive social networks, which leads to increased feelings of happiness and wellbeing. Giving literally feels good.
In a study of over 1, women volunteers, scientists described the experience of a 'helpers' high'. This was the euphoric feeling, followed by a longer period of calm, experienced by many of the volunteers after helping. These sensations result from the release of endorphins, and is followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being and sense of self-worth, feelings that in turn reduce stress and improve the health of the helper. It used to be thought that human beings only did things when they got something in return.
How then could we explain people who did kind acts or donated money anonymously? Studies of the brain now show that when we give money to good causes, the same parts of the brain light up as if we were receiving money ourselves or responding to other pleasurable stimuli such as: food, money or sex!
Giving to others activates the reward centres of our brains which make us feel good and so encourage us to do more of the same. Giving money to a good cause literally feels as good as receiving it, especially if the donations are voluntary. Giving help has a stronger association with mental health than receiving it.
Studies have shown that volunteers have fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety and they feel more hopeful. It is also related to feeling good about oneself. It can serve to distract people from dwelling on their own problems and be grateful for what they have.
Giving may increase how long we live. Studies of older people show that those who give support to others live longer than those who don't. This included support to friends, relatives, and neighbours and emotional support to their spouse. Volunteering also appeared to predict maintenance of cognitive functioning in a study of 2, people in their 70's who were followed in a study lasting 8 years.
Others studies have shown that amongst teenagers, volunteering has been associated with improved self-esteem, reduction in anti-social or problem behaviours and school truancy, improved attitudes to school and increased educational achievement. Whilst unpicking the benefits of volunteering from other factors can be hard, such as volunteers being more healthy in the first place and so more able to volunteer.
The wealth of evidence does suggest some relationship and it may be that volunteering is one intentional activity that people can engage in as a strategy to increase wellbeing and maintain optimal cognitive functioning in old age.
Helping is associated with increased happiness and health, but feelng burdened by it can be detrimental, such as in the case of long-term carers. However as a general rule we should try to match our giving activities to things that we find inherently enjoyable, in line with our own goals and feel are worthwhile for ourselves as well as the recipient. If we are happy givers, the recipients will likely benefit more and we are more likely to continue to give.
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12 2 , Helping as coping. Check them out below, and perhaps you'll feel inspired to go out and lend a helping hand. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. A young business team is ready for new adventures full of speed and accomplishment. Giving back has an effect on your body.
Studies show that when people donated to charity, the mesolimbic system, the portion of the brain responsible for. The brain also releases feel-good chemicals and spurs you to perform more kind acts -- something psychologists call "helper's high.
0コメント