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Helping others feels good!
For one week every May, the Mental Health Foundation highlights a specific theme for Mental Health Awareness Week. This year, it comes with no surprise that the theme selected is kindness.
When reading the previous blog posts, it's evident that there's an underlying theme of kindness and mental wellbeing in all of them. We even have a dedicated Padlet to showcase opportunities to #BeKind.
It's not my intention to repeat the previous words of my colleagues in this post, but to focus on the benefits that kindness can have on our own mental wellbeing.
As a school, we've seen incredible acts of kindness occurring during the lockdown, such as letters and care packages sent to individuals in the community with dementia. Browsing the school’s Twitter feed or Community Diary Padlet will open your eyes to the generosity, creativity and compassion within our student body. These small acts of kindness will have a profound impact on family members, friends and the wider community. But how does kindness affect you?
Helping others feels good!
Acts of kindness not only help others, but can lead to chemical changes in the brain that consequently make us feel happier. There's lots of research evidence to suggest that being kind has a positive impact on our own mental wellbeing. As a Psychology teacher, I'm fascinated by brain functioning and the complex relationship between our brain and our behaviours.
When we engage in acts of kindness, our brain releases a hormone called oxytocin which can raise our self-esteem and feelings of optimism. It's sometimes affectionately known as the cuddle hormone or love hormone as it's usually released when we hug and even by mothers when they breastfeed, helping us create bonds with others. In a time when we are unable to embrace our loved ones, we can recreate the effects in our brain just by being kind!
Kindness also increases our levels of dopamine and serotonin, which are chemical messengers in the brain that improve our mood and combat feelings of stress. High levels of these neurotransmitters have also been linked to memory, learning and motivation – so being kind could even help with completing schoolwork at home!
Therefore, this Mental Health Awareness Week, I encourage you to be kind to others and be kind to your own mental health – concepts that go hand in hand.
