#Science shows that to get the #health and #wellbeing benefits of serving others, there’s a threshold effect at 100 hours/year
But we don’t prescribe therapies once a year, we prescribe them daily. So that’s (on average) 16 minutes/day of serving others
#Daily16
#PsychTwitter
Researchers studied hierarchies of #values across 6 continents and 60 nations and found that #giving to others was #1, “a universal,” more precious than power, achievement, or pleasure.
Agree? Disagree?
#AcademicTwitter #PsychTwitter #Compassion #Empathy https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022022101032003002
Research in >100 nations (200,000 people) found that those who give to #charity are (on average) #happier than those who don’t, regardless of #income. Giving to charity made about the same difference for #happiness as having *twice* as much income.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23421360/
A UCLA/Yale study found that kindness to others buffers stress about one’s own worries and mitigates the negative effects of stress in daily life. Other-focus doesn’t change your circumstances, but can help you forget your own worries, at least temporarily https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27500075/
On #MLKDay - a national day of #service - we must see that #serving others is integral to what it means to be human. #Neuroscience supports that the most potent activator of the areas of the brain involved in the experience of human #happiness is this: #compassion for others.