Photo via www.Power-of-Giving.com

“Sympathy and compassion always end up proving beneficial.”  -Dalai Lama

Indeed,  Dr. Allan Luks states that people who help others have better health and live longer.  Sixty percent of all doctor’s office visits are related to stress.  Helping others cuts off messages of stress and their accompanying negative impact on the body.  Focusing on another person offers benefits which are similar to meditation or other relaxation techniques. Neuro-scientists have shown that people who engage in kind acts or simply think about them, without intending it, Benefit Emotionally and Physically from what they do. The Health Benefits of Kindness also extend to mere onlookers of kindness.

The compassionate act is always beneficial.  Helping others contributes to the maintenance of good health, and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders serious and minor, psychological and physical.

· A rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act is often referred to as a “helper’s high,” involving physical sensations and the release of the body’s natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well- being.

· Stress-related health problems improve after performing kind acts. Helping reverses feelings of depression, supplies social contact, and decreases feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.

· Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation.

· A decrease in both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain can occur.

· The incidence of attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body is reduced.

· The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.

· An increased sense of self-worth, greater happiness, and optimism, as well as a decrease in feelings of helplessness and depression, is achieved.

· Once we establish an “affiliative connection” with someone – a relationship of friendship, love, or some sort of positive bonding – we feel emotions that can strengthen the immune system.

· The practice of caring for strangers translates to immense immune and healing benefits.

· Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or faith group attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income.

Auguste Comte, the French  philosopher, coined the term ‘altruism’ to refer to the moral obligation of individuals to serve others and place their interests above one’s own.  For Buddhists, however, altruism is a part of enlightened self-interest as well, because it is necessary for ultimate happiness.  It is the outward expression of compassion. Shakespeare’s words about mercy also apply to kindness,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

-William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

The Dalai Lama writes,

Anyone who is only concerned with his own well-being will suffer eventually.  Anyone who is concerned with the well-being of others takes care of himself without even thinking about it… Let us be intelligently selfish- let us help others!”

-Dalai Lama Advice From the Heart

The Dalai Lama is dedicated to the eradication of suffering throughout the world.