{"id":1754,"date":"2015-05-07T10:16:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T10:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2021-07-26T09:21:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T09:21:32","slug":"helpers-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/helpers-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Helper&#8217;s High"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2844\" style=\"width: 262px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2844\" class=\"wp-image-2844 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-252x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-252x300.jpg 252w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-859x1024.jpg 859w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-768x916.jpg 768w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-1200x1431.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-1288x1536.jpg 1288w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238.jpg 1586w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 252px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 252\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2844\" class=\"wp-image-2844 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-252x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-252x300.jpg 252w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-859x1024.jpg 859w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-768x916.jpg 768w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-1200x1431.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238-1288x1536.jpg 1288w, https:\/\/drdavidhamilton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/kindfulness_iStock-1152829238.jpg 1586w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px\" \/><\/noscript><p id=\"caption-attachment-2844\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">image: iStock photo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The term \u2018Helper\u2019s High\u2019 was first coined by Allan Luks, in his book, \u2018The Healing Power of Doing Good\u2019. You\u2019re probably familiar with the high. It\u2019s that good feeling we get when we do something kind for someone or an animal.<\/p>\n<p>There are loads of ways we can help each other. Giving time to someone face-to-face brings on Helper\u2019s High. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guidedogs.org.uk\/news\/2014\/october\/people-who-give-to-charity-glow-with-happiness-for-24-days#.VUszdFyXFeN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A recent study commissioned by the charity \u2018Guide Dogs\u2019<\/a> found that when we give our time in helping someone the improved feeling can last up to 24 days. It\u2019s even more pronounced in the 18-24 age group, where effects were reported to last 34 days.<\/p>\n<p>Donating money also makes us feel good. The study found that donating money can make us feel positive for round about a week.<\/p>\n<p>The good feelings come because we\u2019re wired to feel good when we\u2019re kind, which I\u2019ll explain below. That\u2019s why Helper\u2019s High is pretty universal. The Guide Dogs study was of over 2,000 people and found that 95% of those who gave their time to a good cause felt happier. This is what Allan Luks\u2019 study found too. Questioning over 3,000 people on their charitable ways, he also found that 95% reported feeling good when they help others.<\/p>\n<p>I personally think it\u2019s important that kids and teens realise the importance of kindness and how it makes a difference. They\u2019re the future.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.deepdyve.com\/lp\/american-psychiatric-publishing-inc-journal\/teenage-helper-a-role-in-community-mental-health-FaGeW6P0CR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In a powerful but mostly forgotten study back in the early 1970s<\/a>, rather than be punished, teenagers with behavioural difficulties were asked to tutor younger children instead. The results were later published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. By helping younger kids, the \u2018teen tutors\u2019 made significant improvements themselves in maths, reading, and sentence completion tasks. Most of them also showed positive changes in their attitude towards themselves, others, education and the future. Quite a result, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n<p>There are hundreds of studies that show how kindness makes us happier and is healthier for our hearts and immune systems. I don\u2019t intend to list them all here. That would make this a veerrryyyy long blog. If you do want to access them, I collated a large number of them in my book \u2018Why Kindness is Good for You\u2019 and reference over 250.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, let me explain why kindness makes us happier. In short, it\u2019s because we\u2019re genetically wired that way. Helping each other is a behaviour that glues communities together. Thus, through evolutionary timespans, nature has \u2018selected\u2019 genes that a) make helping each other a quite natural behaviour and b) ensure that helping each other makes us feel good, so we\u2019ll keep doing it, thus further gluing our communities together.<\/p>\n<p>I would also say that deep in the human psyche, and this is a spiritual thing for many, is the sense that helping each other is basically the right thing to do. We have an intuitive sense of the rightness of helping.<\/p>\n<p>What I really want to get across in this blog is that helping each other is a mark of who we are. It\u2019s in our nature. It doesn\u2019t mean that you have to spend every waking moment helping, else you feel guilty, nor that you respond to every call for help. We have lives to lead, families to support, jobs to do. But if we can just be a little alert to the needs of those around us, that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d also like to address an issue some have with kindness, that it\u2019s really selfish to be kind because we benefit from it. My view is that we help because it\u2019s our nature to be kind. We don\u2019t help to make ourselves feel good. Evolution has simply built a little emotional reward into our biology.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m saying this because I\u2019ve read endless debates on whether there is really such a thing as altruism, given that we gain from an act of kindness. It\u2019s the question I\u2019m most often asked when I give a media interview on the science of kindness. My answer is always the same. \u201cI prefer to leave the arguments to academia. In meantime I\u2019m going to be kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And in case you wondered, helping animals produces the same positive effects as does helping humans. Around a month after our dog, Oscar, passed away last year, we went to a rescue center and took some dogs for a walk. In these places dogs don\u2019t always get the exercise they need and the staff are always looking for volunteers to help out. I remember feeling really good that we were able to provide some happiness for the dogs we walked.<\/p>\n<p>And to come back to the selfish issue, we walked the dogs because we loved Oscar and we knew how much he loved to walk. We took the dogs out because we knew it would bring them some pleasure. It just so happens it gave us a sense of inner warmth as well.<\/p>\n<p>I love that there\u2019s such a thing as Helper\u2019s High, that kindness benefits our health (mental and emotional health, heart, immune system, nervous system). It\u2019s like a little reward we get. We don\u2019t help <em>for<\/em> the reward, but it\u2019s kind of nice when it comes anyway.<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019ll leave you with my guiding principle in life, which you might be familiar with from some of my other blogs: Whatever you do, do it with kindness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The term \u2018Helper\u2019s High\u2019 was first coined by Allan Luks, in his book, \u2018The Healing Power of Doing Good\u2019. You\u2019re probably familiar with the high. It\u2019s that good feeling we get when we do something kind for someone or an animal. There are loads of ways we can help each other. Giving time to someone&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,56],"tags":[77,19,250,11,49,278,279,33,82],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Helper&#039;s High - David R Hamilton PHD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The term \u2018Helper\u2019s High\u2019 was first coined by Allan Luks, in his book, \u2018The Healing Power of Doing Good\u2019. You\u2019re probably familiar with the high. 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