by Venkatesh Gomatam
Author’s note – This is an initiative to understand how Doing Good, practicing kindness and other prosocial and positive psychology behaviors impact us humans. So much of ‘doing good’ is intuitively understood and anecdotally validated, that we don’t stop to think too much about it. But nevertheless, there is value in trying to understand more about data and research findings around these practices because of the nuances involved. This can lead to refining how we approach our positive psychology actions.
What’s the science behind it? How do these positive psychology practices affect stress, emotional and physical health? How long should we do it?
To make reading easier, this article is broken into 3 parts. You can access other parts here – 2 of 3; 3 of 3
On a personal note, I learnt a lot from researching these topics – from what rabbits taught us, to the infectious nature of doing good, to why authenticity is important. To that end, I have highlighted a very small sampling of research from a vast body of work to drive home some of the points. In this process, for any errors of conclusions, omissions I might have committed, I apologize.
Human life journey is a complex one.
Happiness, Peace, Positive Physical and Emotional Health and Fulfillment are among some of the goal-posts we strive for as part of human journey.
However, barometers of negative emotional health globally are stark reminders of challenges we humans have to face on our journeys.
On the other hand, Doing Good (both for yourself and to others), Practicing kindness and other positive psychology habits have been proven to be critical instruments in reaching some of our goal-posts.
What does data and research say?
Barometers of Negative Emotional Health
- Social Isolation – 330 million adults globally go at least two weeks without talking to a single family member or friend
- Stress and Worry- According to Gallup’s 2023 Global Emotions Study, close to 41% of people experience high levels of daily stress (a record high)
- The effect of loneliness, social isolation and stress on physical health has been showing up in research for several years. Some of the research and meta-analyses review of data from various studies reveal the following –
- Deficient social relationships were associated with a 29% increase in risk of incident coronary heart disease and a 32% increase in risk of stroke.
- In this meta-analysis looking at health data from nearly 4 million people, findings conclude that while obesity increased risk of premature death, loneliness increased the risk for premature death by 50%.
The Role of Doing Good and Other Positive Psychology Practices
Doing Good and related practices such as kindness, gratitude, mindfulness, forgiveness, volunteerism, compassion, optimism, empathy and others are some examples of activities and habits or prosocial behavior that collectively fall under positive psychology practices.
These practices when done consistently enhances our social connections and leads to lowering the negative effects of stressors on our bodies and mind.
There is lots of fascinating research that explores how such positive psychology practices impacts human well-being. Here is a sampling of a few –
What can we learn from Rabbits?
Dr. Kelly Harding, Psychiatry Faculty member at Columbia University Irving Medical Center recounts the following story in her book “The Rabbit Effect” – a book that presents scientific evidence, anecdotes, on how social connection, kindness, love and community impact our health that is beyond a formal healthcare and doctor setting.
In late1970s, a team led by Dr. Robert Nerem which included his postdoc researcher Murina Levesque conducted a study to draw a link between high-fat diet and heart disease using rabbits. In what should have been a fairly direct correlation between high-fat and heart health – one group of rabbits did display expected fatty deposits in their arteries, but the second group had 60% lesser fatty deposits than the first group. This variance stumped the researchers.
As they investigated this further, they noticed that the second group of rabbits with the 60% less fatty deposits had been under the care of Murina Levesque, the post doc in the team. Murina Levesque brought a high-level of kindness, affection and caring as she ministered to the second group of rabbits during the experiments and this made a difference physiologically with this group of rabbits. The researchers repeated this study under even more stringent conditions with the same results as previously.
As Dr. Kelly Harding writes – “It wasn’t diet or genetics that made a difference in which rabbits got sick and which stayed healthy; it was kindness.”