inservice M
Want to Improve Your Health? Become a Volunteer
edical researchers long have known how proper diet, regu- lar exercise, abstention from
smoking, moderate alcohol intake, and reduced stress can result in improved health and a longer life span. Now, they are empirically verifying a surprising but equally potent factor in promoting lon- ger, healthier, and happier lives: service to others. Evidence abounds of this remarkable
phenomenon. In a widely cited study published last year in the Australasian Journal on Ageing, a pair of Australian researchers concluded that older people who volunteer are much more likely to maintain signifi cantly higher levels of well being, a stronger sense of their own worth, and better functional health that those who do not volunteer. A large-scale study in Alameda
County, California found better school success when teens volunteered. The study’s authors said the cause and com- mon denominator is the positive attitude that seems to arise when one gets outside of oneself to serve another. Still another
study discovered that over 95 per- cent of people who do volunteer work experience a “helper’s high” sense of well being while serving. And 90 percent of the re- spondents rated themselves as healthier than those who do not volunteer—not just having a better sense of well being, but actually healthier, by objective mea- surement. At a recent meeting in Winston-
the board of directors of the Human Service Alliance (HSA), an all-volunteer organization dedicated to service and coop- erative group work. Speaking at Conversations of Hope, a monthly forum on inspirational topics at a restaurant staffed al- most entirely by volunteers, they offered convincing evidence from empirical studies, stories and examples from the lives of their patients, and experience from many years of work done at HSA with the terminally ill and chronically ill. HSA was formed eighteen years ago,
Service to others promotes longer, healthier and happier lives.
when two dozen people started volun- teering to do hands-on care for disabled, sick, and dying people. In the process, they found that their lives improved dra- matically and have remained that way over the years. Almost without exception, they report better health, more energy and zest for life, stronger personal and professional relationships, greater job satisfaction, and improved fi nances. The doctors cited ex-
amples among their patients who were diagnosed as ill. Some began to reverse the fl ow of attention from them- selves to others and stayed healthy and active into
their eighties and nineties. Others who remained focused on their illness, how- ever—that is to say, on themselves—often failed to improve, or worsened. During the fourteen years that HSA
Salem, North Carolina, three doctors presented their own fi ndings on how the quality of one’s life and health becomes better and more successful as a result of serving others. The doctors—Stephen Leighton,
M.D., Todd Thornburg, Ph.D., and Ben- jamin Pusser, D.O.—are members of
38 Triad
conducted a health and wellness proj- ect, dozens of people were served by volunteers at no charge. They received a variety of complementary health care services such as acupuncture and mas- sage and classes in positive attitude. All were encouraged to do volunteer work. The ones who did, Leighton said, were found to be three times more likely to have better healing. An elderly uncle of Thornburg was a
Dr. Todd Thornburg with his family ad- ministering care to a terminally ill per- son at the Human Service Alliance
lifelong grouch, critic, and cynic. Then he had a massive heart attack and a long and diffi cult recovery. Afterwards he began serving others in myriad ways. He did this for the ten years that he lived beyond his attack and actually became known for the good deeds of his later years rather than the earlier grouchiness. Pusser offered the personal example
of attending medical school while spend- ing considerable time doing volunteer work. He accomplished this monumental task by discovering reserves of energy and determination—mental and physical resources he didn’t know he had. Amaz- ingly, he graduated second in his class. ”Serving others need not be com-
plicated or hugely time-consuming,” he said. “It can as simple thinking of others before ourselves. It all starts with chang- ing a personal pattern that helps us and eventually others.”
The Human Service Alliance and its Center for Purposeful Living offers train- ing to groups and individuals seeking to increase their capacity to serve and work cooperatively with others. For informa- tion, go to
www.ufhg.org, or call, e-mail, or write Joanna White at 336-761-8745,
jwhite@ufhg.org, or 3983 Old Greens- boro Road, Winston-Salem, NC 27101
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