Stress? Kindness will help
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists say that even in particularly emotionally difficult days, good deeds will help to cope with a bad mood and improve the psychological state.
A group of psychologists came to the conclusion that helping people (friends, relatives or just passers-by) also helps people to cope with stress themselves. According to experts, the more good a person does, the better his mood, the more positive he will look at the world, and the more vital energy he will have.
Such conclusions were made by specialists from the Yale University medical school after a two-week experiment.
About 80 people, who did not have mental illness, aged 18 to 44, took part in the work.
The participants were tasked to remember every night for 2 weeks unpleasant events that happened to them over the past day so that experts could assess the level of everyday stress. Also people had to remember that they did good for others on the same day, for example, they held doors, lift, helped with heavy bags or just offered their help.
All participants had to assess their mental state over the past day on a 100-point scale and provide answers to standard questions about the positive and negative emotions that they experienced during the day.
Summing up the results of the research, a group of psychologists found that helping other people reduces stress, raises mood and improves the overall psychological state. Also, scientists noted that the more good things a person did in a day, the more positive emotions he experienced in the evening, and such people looked more positively at all the unpleasant situations that happened to them.
In the event that for a whole day a person has not committed a single good deed, then the impact of daily stress on the psyche was several times stronger.
The head of the scientific project Emily Ansell noted that neither she nor her group expected such results. For all, it was surprising that the gratuitous help to other people affects psychological state so much.
As an example, Ensell led one of the participants, who for a day committed many good deeds without expecting any compensation for them, while the person had an emotionally hard day, but despite this, he had a fine mood and a positive attitude. In other cases, the negative effect of stress was felt more sharply and manifested itself in a bad mood, irritability, depression, anxiety, general despondency, etc.
Since our life is accompanied by constant stress, psychologists recommend people to become kinder and do as many good deeds as possible from the heart, and then many health problems can be avoided, because the known fact that all diseases are from the nerves.
An interesting method of fighting stress is offered by Japanese specialists. According to researchers, chewing gum will help reduce signs of stress in the body, in particular, reduce the amount of "stress hormone".
According to experts, chewing increases the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, increases the heart rate, experts also suggest that chewing gum stimulates the production of insulin, which affects certain areas of the brain responsible for memory and mood.
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