Maybe we pass a stranded motorist on the road, but drive on by because we’re on a timetable. Perhaps our instinct is to offer a helping hand to a homeless person, but we fear that more will be asked of us than we are prepared to give. We wish to bring a meal to a dy- ing relative, but are apprehensive about what to say when we visit.
Brown’s recent federally funded studies show that at least some of the calming hormones and quietness of heart often seen in habitual givers may actually precede and enable their acts
of selflessness by interrupting their potential stress response before it stalls their helping hand. “I am suggesting that when you see helping going on, something beneficial has already hap- pened to the giver’s body,” says Brown. When givers perceive a need, in- stead of fretting and fleeing, they calmly stop to help. In the end, everyone walks away feeling a little more generous.
Lisa Marshall is a freelance health writer in Boulder, CO. Connect at
LisaAnnMarshall.com.
How to Up Our Generosity Quotient F
ocus on someone else for a change, whether it’s looking a store clerk in the eye or refraining from shouting at a referee at a sporting event. “People can become more empathetic if they just practice taking someone else’s perspective,” says University of Michigan researcher Sara Konrath. “When encountering a homeless person, for example, our inclination may be to not go there psychologically, because it is painful to imagine. Allow yourself to try.”
n Do something for nothing. “This idea that everything has to be paid back hangs over our lives,” says Stephen Post, author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping. “Just be generous and expect nothing in return. Pay it forward.”
n Don’t reserve your generosity for people you know. Do something nice for someone you don’t know or will never meet.
n Be consistent. “Don’t think you can be kind in one domain and dastardly in another,” says Post.
n Do something that you feel called upon to do, or that you are good at.
n Slow down, take a deep breath and look around. Need abounds. Stop to help a stranger in some small way, even if you are in a hurry.
n Don’t help just to get healthy, impress your friends or get a tax deduction. “Mo- tivation matters,” says Konrath. “If you are volunteering just for self-interested reasons, research shows you aren’t going to live any longer than someone who doesn’t volunteer at all.”
n Volunteer for a cause you really believe in, or help a person you truly care about.
38 Collier/Lee Counties
swfl.naturalawakeningsmag.com
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