Random Acts of Kindness Week

Random acts of kindness week runs from Feb 15-21st. This is your opportunity to share love and kindness with the environment, your friends, neighbours, family, colleagues and complete strangers.

There are so many things you can do, from surprising your neighbours with home baking, taking flowers to work for your colleagues to enjoy, calling or visiting a housebound person, writing a thank you note to someone who has influenced you in a positive way to helping a person cross the road, you are only limited by your imagination.

The great thing is, performing random acts of kindness is good for you!

A number of scientific studies show that Acts of Kindness result in significant health benefits, both physical and mental, for those who perform them.[amazon-product align=”right” small=”1″]0595175910[/amazon-product]

Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation. If you’re mildly depressed then going out and helping others can help alleviate your own suffering.

According to Allan Luks, author of ‘The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others’, “Helping contributes to the maintenance of good health, and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders both serious and minor, psychological and physical.” The volunteers in Luks’ study testified to feeling a rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act.

This feeling involves physical sensations that strongly indicate a sharp reduction in stress 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.

If you’re a teacher or home educator, there are numerous free downloads to help you promote empathy and kindness to the children you take care of. Have a read of a fantastic article called “teaching kindness and empathy to children” ; it’s a wonderful article.

Do a random act of kindness for yourself too – take an hour for yourself every day and treat yourself as your best friend.

What will you do to celebrate Random Acts of Kindness week?