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Stress? Kindness will help
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
Scientists say that even on particularly emotionally difficult days, good deeds can help you cope with a bad mood and improve your psychological state.
A group of psychologists came to the conclusion that by helping people (acquaintances, relatives or just passers-by) a person also helps himself to cope with stress. According to experts, the more good a person does, the better his mood will be, the more positively he will look at the world, and the more vital energy he will have.
These conclusions were made by specialists from the Yale University School of Medicine after a two-week experiment.
About 80 people who did not have mental illnesses, aged from 18 to 44 years, took part in the study.
The participants were asked to recall unpleasant events that had happened to them during the previous day every evening for two weeks, so that experts could assess their level of daily stress. People also had to remember what good they had done for others that day, for example, holding doors, holding an elevator, helping with heavy bags, or simply offering their help.
All participants were asked to rate their mental state over the past day on a 100-point scale and answer standard questions regarding the positive and negative emotions they experienced during the day.
Having summed up the results of the study, a group of psychologists found that helping other people reduces the manifestations of stress, lifts the mood and improves the overall psychological state. The scientists also noted that the more good deeds a person did during the day, the more positive emotions he experienced in the evening, and such people also looked more positively at all the unpleasant situations that happened to them.
If a person has not done a single good deed all day, then the impact of daily stress on the psyche is many times stronger.
The head of the scientific project Emily Ansell noted that neither she nor her group expected such results. For everyone, the fact that free help to other people has such an impact on psychological state was surprising.
As an example, Ansell cited one participant who had done many good deeds during the day without expecting any reward for them, while the person had had an emotionally difficult day, but despite this, he was in a great mood and positive attitude. In other cases, the negative effects of stress were felt more acutely and manifested themselves in a bad mood, irritability, depression, anxiety, general despondency, etc.
Since our life is accompanied by constant stress, psychologists recommend that people become kinder and do as many good deeds as possible from the heart, and then many health problems can be avoided, because it is a well-known fact that all diseases come from nerves.
Japanese experts also offer an interesting method of combating stress. According to researchers, chewing gum will help reduce signs of stress in the body, in particular, reduce the amount of the "stress hormone".
According to experts, chewing increases the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, increases the heart rate, and 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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