Researchers say giving leads to a healthier, happier life
Benefits of altruistic love are broken down in a new book, 'Why good things happen to good people.'
from the July 25, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Research on people diagnosed with various illnesses – whether it be HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, or alcoholism – revealed that those patients involved in counseling or otherwise serving others show greater improvement in their own health.
Volunteerism studies have demonstrated such positive results that some people have called for doctors to prescribe volunteer activities.
Post emphasizes, however, that it's not just the activity itself, but the feelings behind the acts that benefit those taking part. "Some people are good to others out of a sense of duty or obligation, but ... it's the love or caring underlying the action" that affects people, he says.
One study on the brain, for instance, involved people being asked to check a box next to the charity that most excites them. "The part of the brain that is deeply emotional lights up – the part that doles out feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine," Post says. "Just when they think they are going to help that organization."
Numerous studies on the brain have provided images that confirm the "helper's high" – the warm glow that people feel from helping activities. But Post doesn't conclude that it's the selfish pursuit of that high that spurs people to be givers.
"It's not just from the chemicals. There is this neurological activity in the human body," he says, "but I think there is a spiritual presence that enlivens and elevates this kind of natural substrate."
He points to powerful examples that show much more than a selfish gene at work, such as the Holocaust rescuers – people who endangered the lives of themselves and their families to rescue Jews – as well as the helpers who rushed to the World Trade Center site after 9/11, and to the Gulf Coast after Katrina.
"When we cope with catastrophic situations, that incredible capacity for widespread kindness and compassion becomes so palpable," he adds.
The IRUL has been funded by the Templeton Foundation and has other major studies under way. Big projects in the current phase of funding focus on "Agape Love and Happiness," "Perceptions of Divine Love," and the "Epidemiology of Goodness."
The institute will then turn very practical, Post says, taking all that has been learned about love and seeing "how it can be applied in interventions to make the world a better place."
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