{"id":16893,"date":"2026-01-18T16:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=16893"},"modified":"2026-01-30T16:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:56:35","slug":"may-you-give-and-live-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/winter-2026\/may-you-give-and-live-better\/","title":{"rendered":"May You Give and Live Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Rx: It\u2019s Good to Be Good<\/em><\/p>\n<p><p class=\"author-credit\">By Stephen G. Post, Ph.D.<\/p><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">V<\/span>olunteering is a powerful way to expand the canvas of our lives\u2014turning hard times into good times, heartache into inner peace, and disappointment into life satisfaction. When we help others with kindness, our minds and hearts are freed from preoccupation with life\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t take much. Even a few hours a week can make a meaningful difference. Small acts of kindness are just as beneficial to the giver as grand gestures because it\u2019s not how much we give, but how much heart we pour into it.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does kind giving really look like?<\/p>\n<h3>The Glow Within: How Kindness Changes the Brain<\/h3>\n<p>Human beings are a bit like glow sticks\u2014those translucent tubes you find at a fair or circus that light up when you bend them. Inside each of us is that same potential for illumination. When we give with kindness, something chemical happens in the brain.<\/p>\n<p>Neuroscience shows that helping others activates the mesolimbic reward pathway, the brain\u2019s \u201cfeel-good\u201d center, while quieting pathways linked to negative emotions. People who practice kindness often feel a deep inner calm and are more resilient against destructive emotions such as bitterness and hostility.<\/p>\n<h3>The Benefits of Kind Giving<\/h3>\n<p>Kind giving doesn\u2019t wear us out unless we overdo it. With balance, it actually enlivens us. Those who give freely often radiate joy and energy\u2014a true \u201chelper\u2019s glow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even people who start giving out of obligation often find that the act of helping transforms them. As one researcher put it, \u201cIn the giving of self lies the paradoxical discovery of a deeper self.\u201d Studies consistently show that volunteering can reduce depression and enhance well-being.<\/p>\n<h3>Survey Says: Volunteering Boosts Well-Being<\/h3>\n<p>As a consultant for the United Healthcare\/VolunteerMatch \u201cDo Good. Live Well.\u201d survey (2010), I reviewed responses from 4,582 American adults. The survey indicated that 41 percent of Americans volunteered in the year 2009 for an average of 100 hours per year; 69 percent of the participants reported donating money in addition to volunteering.<\/p>\n<p>The results of the survey are telling:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>73% said that volunteering \u201clowered my stress levels\u201d (serenity). Many of us are completely caught up in the pressures of making ends meet, paying the bills, running from point A to point B, or just handling challenging relationships and responsibilities to families and at work. Helpers are free of self-centered chronological time. By focusing on the needs of others, they move into the Now of helping.<\/li>\n<li>89% agreed that \u201cvolunteering improved my sense of well-being.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>92% felt an \u201cenriched sense of purpose in life.<\/li>\n<li>68% said volunteering \u201cmade me feel physically healthier.\u201d This is a robust finding. Many of these volunteers are doing work that requires ambulation or other forms of activity that frees them from a more sedentary culture.<\/li>\n<li>77% said that volunteering \u201cimproves emotional health.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>78% said that volunteering \u201chelps recovery from loss and disappointment.\u201d A few weeks after the December 2012 shootings, I drove up to the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, to reflect on the scene. The people in Starbucks were still in tears. I noticed a bumper sticker on a glass door and on some cars: \u201cWE ARE SANDY HOOK. WE CHOSE LOVE.\u201d The people of Newtown found resilience and hope in compassionate love, even in the depths of loss and anguish. Medical evidence now confirms that helping others consistently predicts resilience, especially in hard times.<\/li>\n<li>96% of participants felt happier. Because so many Americans struggle with unhappiness and depression, any activity that makes 96% of participants feel happier is worth taking seriously. The association between giving and happiness has become so widely accepted that the 2016 <em>World Happiness Report<\/em> includes generosity as one of six categories measured.<\/li>\n<li>Volunteering: a majority of respondents reported improved sleeping and deeper friendships; reduced anxiety &amp; helplessness.<\/li>\n<li>25% volunteer through their workplace, and 76% of them feel better about their employer as a result. Many companies can and do encourage employee volunteerism. Over the course of about six weeks, the volunteerism is associated with positive relationships, better attitudes toward companies and employers, greater job satisfaction, strengthened work teams, greater competency and creativity, lower need for mental health care, easier employee recruitment, employee retention, and elevated interactions with customers, leading to a better bottom line.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Two-Hour Shift Effect<\/h3>\n<p>All the research, including my own, has given us something like a reasonable dosage for volunteering: <em>100 hours per year, spread out to about two hours per week.<\/em> This is enough time to get fully immersed in an activity on a regular and sustainable basis. Individuals differ psychologically and physically, and they must balance their varying commitments.<\/p>\n<p>There is no particular dose of volunteering that should be prescribed for every individual, other than to state that a couple of hours per week seems to make an impact on well-being. I refer to this as the \u201ctwo-hour shift effect,\u201d but this is a composite figure. Adolescents may just need one hour a week, while older adults in retirement may benefit most from four. Exceeding this threshold does not increase benefits. Simply prescribed, <em>Rx: It\u2019s good to be good. Kind giving reduces destructive and anti-social behaviors, is a source of hope, and creates dignity and worth.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Kindness as Public Health<\/h3>\n<p>Since 2000, robust research has shown that giving promotes well-being, reduces antisocial behaviors, and fosters dignity and hope.<\/p>\n<p>Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, \u201c<em>No man can sincerely help another without helping himself.<\/em>\u201d Oscar Wilde echoed this, saying, \u201cT<em>o be good is to be in harmony with oneself.<\/em>\u201d And Thoreau called goodness \u201c<em>the only investment that never fails.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The wisdom is timeless\u2014and now science agrees. It\u2019s good to be kind, and kindness is good for your health.<\/p>\n<h3>Tips for Meaningful Volunteering<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Draw on your strengths.<\/strong> Choose activities that align with your talents\u2014you\u2019ll be more likely to stick with them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Try something new<\/strong>. Volunteering can also be a way to explore fresh interests or develop new skills.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Connect with like-minded groups.<\/strong> You\u2019re not alone in your passions\u2014find organizations that share your values.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Create a helping network.<\/strong> Invite friends to join you. Volunteering together deepens community bonds.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Celebrate your impact.<\/strong> Cultivate new and deeper friendships with fellow helpers and acknowledge and celebrate what you are all doing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Stephen G. Post, Ph.D., is the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/winter-2026\/bookshelf-winter-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>PURE UNLIMITED LOVE: Science and the Seven Paths to Inner Peace<\/em> <\/a>(Morehouse Publishing). He is Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He founded the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Institute for Research on Pure Unlimited Love<\/a> with initial support from his mentor Sir John Templeton. He is an elected member of the Philadelphia College of Physicians, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Royal Society of Medicine, as well as a Founding Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rx: It\u2019s Good to Be Good<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2026","category-winter-2026-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17122,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16893\/revisions\/17122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}