Charitable Giving – A Healthy Choice
If you are thinking of donating your time or money to help others, you might be surprise to learn that you are actually helping yourself. Charitable giving and volunteering has been shown to increase longevity, decrease stress and to make you happy.
A study conducted by the University of Michigan followed 423 older couples over a five year period It found that the elderly who are helpful to others reduced their risk of dying by nearly 60% compared to those who did not offer practical or emotional support to friends, neighbors and family during the same period of time.
A 2006 study by the National Institute of Health found that charitable giving creates a “helper’s high”; it activates the regions of the brain associated with trust, pleasure and social connection. The Harvard Business School conducted a study that found that “very minor alterations in spending allocations—as little as $5 in our final study—may be sufficient to produce non-trivial gains in happiness on a given day.”
A study published in Psychology and Aging found that volunteering 200 hours a year (4 hours a week) can reduce the risk of developing hypertension by 40%. There was a 22% decrease in those who volunteered 100 to 199 hours a year (2 hours a week).
Next time someone asks you for help, do yourself a favor and say yes.