Altruism Can Save Your Life

In his book, Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil talks about how our helping others can make us happier, relieve depression and even extend our lives. This doesn't have to entail any significant livestyle changes such as joining the Peace Corps or the giving of large sums of money to charity. It can be as simple as putting the needs of others before our own as an effective method to enhance emotional wellness.

Putting others first doesn't mean that we ignore our own needs or that attending to ourselves is selfish. I think that it embraces the concept that consideration for how the other person is feeling as a result of either our own actions or the consequences of outside forces is of utmost importance. Thinking of others, first, reduces social isolation and changes our worldview from the inward, depressive, self rumination to the outward, empathetic, compassionate.

Neuroscientists have demonstrated that helping others activates the same centers of the brain that are involved in our pleasure responses to food and sex. In one study, these same centers lit up when the participants simply thought about giving money to charity. Additionally, Christine L. Carter, PhD, writes that, “...giving help to others protects overall health twice as much as aspirin protects against heart disease.” I love that. I don't know how many times I've told patients that our Creator didn't forget to give us enough aspirin in order to avoid heart disease....that is our idea. Dr. Carter, continues:

People fifty-five and older who volunteer for two or more organizations have an impressive 44% lower likelihood of dying-- and that's after sifting out every other contributing factor, including physical health, exercise, gender, habits like smoking, marital status and many more. This is a stronger effect than exercising four times a week or going to church; it means that volunteering is nearly as beneficial to our health as quitting smoking!

People who help others are also less likely to be depressed and more likely to be happy or content. In 2000, a survey of almost thirty thousand people in the landmark Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey showed that those who give contributions of time OR money are 42% more likely to be happy than those who give nothing. Let's think about how many times a day we are offered the opportunity to show kindness, courtesy or consideration to others: in our interactions with our spouse/partner, our children, our boss, our co-workers or our fellow drivers.

Remember how we can change our way of looking at others, ourselves and the world? Also, remember how we can become stuck in the emotional when trying to develop new ways of thinking? We talked about that in last week's blog. According to these studies, we really don't need meds for ourselves or our kids if we are seeing signs of sadness or depression. We can change our focus from inward to outward for our whole family and live longer, happier and healthier lives.

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