By Linda Broadbent

World Kindness Day is on 13th November each year, so last Sunday the media ran stories highlighting why doing good deeds is good for our health and wellbeing. Here’s a pick of the best.

David R Hamilton, author of Why Kindness is Good For You, writing in the Independent explains why ‘It’s Cool To Be Kind: the advantages of altruism’. The benefits of kindness include improvements to our emotional health as well as our cardiovascular and nervous systems.

Stephen Post, professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine writes about the phenomenon of ‘helpers high’ and the way that altruism affects our health and longevity. When a person performs an act of kindness the brain produces dopamine, associated with positive thinking releasing the hormone: oxytocin; known as the social bonding hormone. The physical effect causes the dilation of arteries and therefore a reduction in blood pressure. The same hormone is released when we receive and give positive touch. Here’s a link to the report on Stephen Post’s work - don’t be put off by the pop up ad which you can simply close.

The December issue of Psychologies magazine has published: Ten Tips for a Happier Healthier Life, and includes practising random acts of kindness because it’s good for both the receiver and the giver. Simple gestures like giving way to another motorist, giving up a seat on a train, phoning someone you’ve lost touch with can make you feel good about yourself. Another top tip is to practise the art of appreciation. Start noticing and valuing what other people do for us, focus on what we do have and less on what we don’t have and we will feel better.

The World Kindness Movement is a truly international affair, originally crystallised at a conference in Tokyo in 1997 when the small kindness movement of Japan brought together like minded kindness movements from around the world. The WKM was officially launched in Singapore on 18 November 2000 at the third WKM conference. The mission of the WKM is to inspire individuals towards greater kindness and to connect nations to create a kinder world.

The Singapore Kindness Movement have produced a short video to present the facts behind kindness and brain chemistry  and earlier this month the Australian WKM launched its 2012 Cool to be Kind awards celebrating the goodwill of a community engaged in positive initiatives.  

Back in Britain, two like-minded English campaigners, Louise Burfitt-Dons and David Jamilly, decided an umbrella organisation was needed to highlight good deeds around the nation and they launched Kindness Day UK in 2010.  Although there’s now a whole year to go until the next World Kindness Day, the campaign for kindness is constant, which is a good thing, because Kindness is Good for You.