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Kindness – A to Z of Hypnotherapy
Today’s A to Z is the letter K and although it isn’t technically about Hypnotherapy, it will give a welcome boost to your mental health.
I was at a conference recently where I heard a talk from a man called Dr David Hamilton on the Five Side Effects of Kindness. Obviously, it a nice thing to do to be kind to someone, but some of these side effects of doing a good deed may surprise you.
The 5 side effects are:
It makes you happier
There was a study done of 2 groups of people. One group just monitored their happiness day to day and the other group picked one day a week and carried out 5 acts of kindness on that day for 6 weeks. It doesn’t have to be big gestures, just things like showing appreciation for things or making a cup of tea for someone. At the end of the study, the kindness group were significantly happier than the non kindness group.
What’s also quite amazing is that separate studies have shown that you don’t even need to do physical acts of kindness to get this benefit, just wishing kind thoughts on others will produce a similar effect too.
It's good for the heart
It releases a chemical called Oxytocin, which lowers your blood pressure and helps maintain a healthy heart and healthy arteries.
It slows Aging
Improves relationships
It's Contagious
This is my favorite side effect, if you are kind to one person, it make them feel good and they will be nicer or kinder to on average five people that day, who will then each be nicer to 5 people, who will then each be nicer to another 5 people, so in just 3 degrees of separation, your one kind act, has brightened 155 peoples day – I think that is pretty impressive!
This has just skimmed the surface, but if you are interested in finding out more on the subject, you can find out more on the Ted X Video below...
