Study finds helping others reduces focus on your own symptoms:
People suffering from symptoms of depression or anxiety may help heal themselves by doing good deeds for others, new research shows.
The study found that performing acts of kindness led to improvements not seen in two other therapeutic techniques used to treat depression or anxiety.
Most importantly, the acts of kindness technique was the only intervention tested that helped people feel more connected to others, said study co-author David Cregg, who led the work as part of his PhD dissertation in psychology at The Ohio State University.
[...] "We often think that people with depression have enough to deal with, so we don't want to burden them by asking them to help others. But these results run counter to that," she said.
"Doing nice things for people and focusing on the needs of others may actually help people with depression and anxiety feel better about themselves."
[...] After an introductory session, the participants were split into three groups. Two of the groups were assigned to techniques often used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression: planning social activities or cognitive reappraisal.
[...] Members of the third group were instructed to perform three acts of kindness a day for two days out of the week. Acts of kindness were defined as "big or small acts that benefit others or make others happy, typically at some cost to you in terms of time or resources."
Some of the acts of kindness that participants later said they did included baking cookies for friends, offering to give a friend a ride, and leaving sticky notes for roommates with words of encouragement.
[...] The findings showed that participants in all three groups showed an increase in life satisfaction and a reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms after the 10 weeks of the study.
"These results are encouraging because they suggest that all three study interventions are effective at reducing distress and improving satisfaction," Cregg said.
"But acts of kindness still showed an advantage over both social activities and cognitive reappraisal by making people feel more connected to other people, which is an important part of well-being," he said.
[...] "There's something specific about performing acts of kindness that makes people feel connected to others. It's not enough to just be around other people, participating in social activities," she said.
[...] "Not everyone who could benefit from psychotherapy has the opportunity to get that treatment," she said. "But we found that a relatively simple, one-time training had real effects on reducing depression and anxiety symptoms."
Journal Reference:
David R. Cregg & Jennifer S. Cheavens (2022) Healing through helping: an experimental investigation of kindness, social activities, and reappraisal as well-being interventions [open], The Journal of Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2022.2154695
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday March 01, @05:45PM (8 children)
It makes me much happier to do a good deed for myself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 01, @06:11PM
>It makes me much happier to do a good deed for myself.
That certainly is all that a lot of people ever do, and it's good enough for them. What the study seems to be pointing at are other reward circuits in the brain (that are developed to varying degrees in different people) which give very real rewards for altruism. The evolutionary advantages for in-group altruism are obvious. The benefits of the "placebo effect" are also highly abundant, it's no surprise that many people get positive benefits for themselves by doing good things for others. Many religions of the world have tapped into this truth and their followers genuinely personally benefit from helping others, or as the Dalai Lama puts it: at the very least don't hurt others along your path.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, pointy pyramid capitalism reserves spots at the top for psychopaths, they really do make the best CEOs when you measure their short term impact to the bottom line. Interestingly, long term, companies which give more weight to a set of core principles and goals beyond the simple quest for profits tend to grow more slowly but last longer and achieve more lasting successes.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday March 01, @06:41PM (6 children)
Of course -- just combine that with delusions of telepathy, and you can benefit from helping anyone, even when it's only convenient for you! The system works.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday March 01, @09:26PM
We call that self-delusion.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday March 01, @10:41PM (4 children)
That's why prayer was invented. It gives you the warm fuzzy feeling of doing something for someone while you don't have to do fuck all.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday March 02, @02:32PM (3 children)
Tough-and-independent internet guy, huh? You might want to read an intro to anthropology and sociobiology. To function as a society, we need rules: anarchy leads to the Right of the Strongest, which leads to a return to the Dark Ages. Prayers and rituals are a confirmation of these rules, with the purpose of ingraining them within the members of the society, thus strengthening the bonds which hold that society together.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday March 02, @02:48PM (2 children)
You might have noticed that most praying took place during the Dark Ages, so you might want to reevaluate that assessment.
Some of us are quite capable of functioning in a society without magical thinking. Logic and reason allow you to come to the conclusion that it's generally more beneficial for you (and everyone around you) if you don't behave like an antisocial bastard. Not supernatural CCTV required.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday March 02, @03:14PM (1 child)
The Dark Ages were somewhat between 600 and 800, if I remember correctly: so statistically speaking, your first sentence needs reevaluation itself.
Some of us, yes -- though one wonders whether being convinced that logic and reason are the way forward isn't just another form of magical thinking.
Some of us -- but what about the majority?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday March 03, @06:17PM
For the rest we have very real CCTVs. They proved to work much better as a deterrent than the supernatural one, crime rates tend to be lower in developed areas than in superstitious ones.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday March 01, @06:26PM (1 child)
I wonder if seeing people you care about succeed has a similar or related effect.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Wednesday March 01, @06:39PM
Wait a few months and tell them that hearing that, made your week (this week). I bet it'll serve double-duty for them as a pick-me-up, especially if they're staring down the barrel of a Monday afternoon after something banal like filing their taxes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 01, @07:19PM (1 child)
I can't possibly count the times that I've got out of bed, feeling like crap. Didn't feel like going to work, or, wherever I was supposed to be. The thing is, staying home and feeling sorry for yourself just sucks. So, I forced myself out the door, and got busy with whatever. Being focused on something, outside yourself, distracts you from feeling so bad. Mostly, that focus benefitted my employer. Sometimes, it was for some other person's benefit. Sometimes, it was just stuff that I had to do - like maybe shoveling snow, or mowing the lawn.
If you're busy with ANYTHING, it's going to be therapeutic. Just get your mind off your own problems, real or imagined.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday March 02, @12:32AM
Doing something that benefits *anyone* is just sort of a solid, practical exercise in doing beneficient/al work. One thinks about the person, needs, situation, resources; conceives, sequences, and executes a plan; reviews that against the observed results. Lather, rinse, repeat, improve at helping anyone's situation -- including one's own.
Heck, even if you can't help yourself, you can ask someone you helped if what you did helped them. Then say you need help with something, and don't even want help from them, just an external perspective on the logistics of assistance. That much probably provides at least something of use, if you ask people who aren't just oblivious or takers. Like you said, beats doing nothing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Wednesday March 01, @07:22PM (3 children)
A friend is an activist in a group targeted for persecution. She keeps the anger from destroying her by doing random acts of kindness - holding a door for someone, letting someone else have the parking place, little things that you can do many times a day.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Wednesday March 01, @10:24PM (1 child)
That's a good way to make yourself and others feel better. I almost always try to be nice to random people I cursory interact with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @03:36PM
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." Attributed to everybody on the internet it seems, but I've seen it attributed to Goethe.
Being nice to strangers requires almost no effort and almost always has no downside (unless you catch the attention of a salesperson or proselytizer).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02, @06:16PM
Those aren't random acts of kindness, but random acts of basic civility. People shouldn't be congratulating themselves on being polite to strangers, it should be expected.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday March 01, @07:37PM (5 children)
If you do 'random acts of kindness' all the time, people start expecting it of you, and the behaviour becomes a rod for your own back. You become the poor sap who's always ready to do the stuff that other people don't like.
So don't overdo it. Ideally, set the frequency so that people see and appreciate that you're making an effort for them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 01, @08:07PM (3 children)
Yep, back in 1996 I stopped to help a (hopelessly incapable) stranger on the side of the expressway change a flat on their car, just as the sun was going down. They offered me money, but I declined, saying: "This is my good deed for the year." That felt good for a long time after.
In 2001-2004, we helped a struggling friend and her two kids with this and that, occasionally buying them a load of groceries or whatever when they were in a bad spot. In 2003 we had moved across country, and a few months later they ended up in the same city as us again - maybe pure coincidence, her job offered her a transfer, but... one evening the battery on her car died and again we came to the rescue after a phone call showing up with jumper cables... then she asked if we could help her with the expense of the replacement battery. There has to be a limit, and that was it, she really was becoming dependent on our charity and it wasn't good for either of us.
My grandmother was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, they ran a food bank but had all sorts of qualification procedures because people would quickly become dependent on the charity.
This is why I believe in UBI: a dependable form of support that everyone receives. When your friends and neighbors are "in need" at least you know they have some minimum available resource they can depend on to solve their own problems with.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday March 02, @03:02PM (2 children)
Determining the limit ... that's where it gets hard.
A mate of mine has a serious alcolhol problem, in the sense of waking up, grabbing a beer, and continuing that process during the day. Dealing with the problem ... is like trying to get a square peg into a round hole, with both being magnetic, but polarized in the opposite sense. You can talk to him for hours, where he fully convinced claims that now he's really going into therapy, putting his life back together, etcetera ... only to end with 'but now I'm just going to say Hi to my mates at the bar, and take a couple of drinks, just for fun'. Last week he was on valium -- worked wonders, he stayed sober all week, he claimed ... only to betray himself minutes later that he went on a drinking binge on Saturday (while still on valium) ... and on Friday ... and on Thursday he had just a couple of beers.
Just been on the phone with him -- he happily announced that he was going to go out and hit it hard on Friday -- Hey, the Weekend!
So, anybody got any advice about the limit here?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 02, @03:29PM (1 child)
No real advice that you likely haven't heard many times before.
A relative used to be an air hostess in the 70s/80s, she developed the occupational hazard alcoholism and didn't really "hit bottom" for her first or 2nd DUIs, but running over her dog did it for her - she finally started acknowledging the problem as a problem she could not control in half measure, she did the court appointed group therapies but what made it stick for her was never, ever consuming anything alcoholic while actively encouraging her friends who aren't having problems with alcohol to have whatever they want around her. The mindset: "I have this problem, not everybody does, but I do, and that's o.k. because I can control it, if I don't control it it controls me and I don't want that."
As for the group therapies, it's not like her, or another family member who had harder drug problems, didn't have counseling and support from family and friends, they just also had plenty of negative counseling from other friends / acquaintances, etc. which kept returning them to trouble. The other family member managed their problem by moving 1000 miles away from it along with family doing the same move about 20 years ago. He has stayed clean - enough - in the new location to not be hitting any kind of rock bottom there. He could still stand to improve, family (self included) tries to help, but he doesn't want to interact much because he's not proud of his current state. Still, it's obvious he's 10x better off where he is than where he was with his previous "mates."
Then there's a near stranger we knew 20 years ago when all our kids were toddlers. She drifted away from our "mommy group" to the "other mommy group" where the moms would meet up with the kids in the park and smoke grass three times a week. So, 20 years later, her daughter ends up dead, and we invite her to visit for a couple of weeks the "help get her head together" in the aftermath. Of course she and her baby daddy have been "split up" but co-dependent ever since their daughter was born. Both have drug addictions, mom more than dad, neither would accept that their daughter would do drugs so their daughter hid her drug use from her parents as best she could and ended up basically overdosing one night in her bedroom at dad's house. Mom flew commercial to us, carrying maybe 1/8 oz of weed on the plane, which she burned through in less than a week. She had a near total dependence on nicotine gum, which did keep her off the tobacco, but... moderate alcohol also was pretty much a necessity for her at least every 24 hours, but she only hit it hard about twice a week. We weren't trying to "fix" any of those problems, just be there for her to help her get past the death of her daughter, which she just opened up and unloaded all the details of about 36 hours after arriving. All considered, it was a good visit for her - she was clearly more "together" later in the trip, and we had fun even if we did end up coming down with COVID (the only time so far) the day after she left. After she left us she bounced around a bit and ended up with some of her family for a while, after three weeks there she vented on social media about their "toxic, controlling, etc. etc." and how she was never going back there... I'm sure they had good intentions, but clearly that's not all it takes.
You know your mate far better than I ever could, use your judgement what works for them, but more importantly: what works for you, and know that you can't "fix" most people, they have to do that for themselves - but if they're trying you certainly can support them.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday March 03, @07:50AM
Thanks for the advice.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday March 02, @08:34AM
The friend I mentioned does random acts of kindness for strangers she'll never see again, which addresses the problem.
(Score: 1) by nostyle on Wednesday March 01, @08:56PM (5 children)
When raising my boys, I explained to them often that the only sure way to make yourself happy was to focus on making other people happy.
Now everyone across three generations competes in making one another happy. You wish you could be in my family.
--
-Bobby McFerrin, Don’t Worry, Be Happy
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 01, @09:52PM (4 children)
Little bit of a double edged sword there... yes: children are a great source of satisfaction and happiness because when you make them happy, you are making yourself happy.
On the other hand, when you're stuck, when there's nothing you can do for your child no matter what you try, that can be a strong source of depression through helplessness.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nostyle on Wednesday March 01, @11:55PM (3 children)
You seem to have missed the core idea:
...the core corollary being, "if you, child, are unhappy it is your own damned fault."
Sure there were countless instances when I had nothing to offer them to uplift their spirits - no ice cream today - no meat with dinner tonight - you sleep on the floor while Uncle Ray is visiting - we're going to live in grandma's basement for a while - yes, we'll be living in this hospital room for a few months... etc. But by training them to try to make each other happy there was always enough laughter and sufficient joy. There was consequently less of a load on me. But beyond that, it was simply educating them about how the world works. You get what you give.
In the end, we are all pretty helpless. Pay that no mind. Do what you can.
--
-New Radicals
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 02, @12:20AM (2 children)
>simply educating them about how the world works. You get what you give.
In the world of children with profound autism you face expensive therapies that you can't access due to limited availability, expensive therapies that do little to help or sometimes make matters worse, near zero school choice: public or DIY home schooling, lists of programs to apply for with 50 page applications, $50 application fees and 1 to 10 openings for 100 to 1000 applicants, opaque rejection letters that say nothing about why your children have not been chosen, referrals to even more hopeless programs to apply to....
Don't get me wrong, we have raised happy kids, and here around age 20 they still make us happy, but all else being equal they will outlive us by 30-40 years and most days I can't see a happy future for them after we are gone, despite 20 years of struggling to help make that possible.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Thursday March 02, @03:28AM (1 child)
Full disclosure: My grandson is on the spectrum. It is too early to know if he will be functionally disabled - odds so far are about 50/50.
Clearly life is too rich and varied for a one-line rule of thumb to cover every circumstance. What is certain is that if an autistic person is to be assisted it will be by someone who derives some happiness in caring for them and spending time trying to make them happy. Hopefully someone will have been raised to understand how this works. Disability is one reason why it takes a village to rear adult humans. The world seems to be configured in such a way that we all need each other.
There is no life devoid of tragedy, nor any heart that never mourns. AFAICT the trick is learning how to maintain a balance. My best wishes to you. Hang in there.
--
-Sting, I'll Be Watching You
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 02, @10:56AM
Thanks, and there is a village out there, some days. Other days it just feels like the promises of community and support are all hollow. Too often we find our children are "not a good fit" for the limited access programs and at their age pretty much all of the programs are limited access.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end