A recent study links the key to happiness to lending a helping hand. This finding (found on MSN Health & Fitness) is somewhat surprising because reseachers weren’t even testing the theory when the found the results. Carolyn Schwartz, a research professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School began a study to find out if receiving monthly peer-support phone calls from fellow multiple sclerosis sufferers would benefit others with the disease. Surprisingly, those doing the calling reaped the most benefit.

In another study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science participants’ brains were monitored by MRI scans while they made decisions about donating money to charity. When participants chose to donate money, the brain’s mesolimbic system was activated, the same part of the brain that’s activated in response to monetary rewards, sex, and other positive stimuli. Choosing to donate also activated the brain’s subgenual area, the part of the brain that produces feel-good chemicals, like oxytocin, that promote social bonding.

Why should we humans be programmed to respond so positively to giving?

“As Darwin noted, group selection played a strong rule in human evolution. If something like helping benefits the group, it will be associated with pleasure and happiness,” explains Stephen Post, Ph.D., a research professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University who co-authored the book Why Good Things Happen to Good Peoplewith Jill Neimark.

While evolution may have primed us to feel good from giving, it may not be the only reason helping others makes us feel better. Since depression, anxiety, and stress involve a high degree of focus on the self, focusing on the needs of others literally helps shift our thinking.

“When you’re experiencing compassion, benevolence, and kindness, they push aside the negative emotions,” says Post. “One of the best ways to overcome stress is to do something to help someone else.”

Even better, feeling good and doing good can combine to create a positive feedback loop, where doing good helps us to feel good and feeling good also makes us more likely to do good.

“Numerous studies have found that happy people are more helpful,” says Dr. David Myers, a social psychologist at Hope College and author of The Pursuit of Happiness. “Those who’ve just found money in a phone booth are more likely to help a passerby with dropped papers. Those who feel successful are more likely to volunteer as a tutor.”

The moral of this study? Go out there and do some good. The person you could help the most could be yourself!


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