How Giving Increases Your Wellbeing – World Kindness Day

Your Wellbeing has been forefront on your mind over the last few months. With countries and cities at various stages of Covid 19, some of us on lockdown again, some of us social distancing and remaining in outdoor spaces with little contact with friends and family, and some of us quaratinining as we recover from having the virus. This plays havoc on our mental health, happiness and wellbeing. Experts and health professionals keep telling us to take care of our wellbeing but how the heck can we do that. And what is wellbeing anyway? Many of us are not really sure what our wellbeing is, so finding ways to maintaining or even increasing our wellbeing can be a challenge. COVID and our new normal is challenging our wellbeing and happiness and some of us are finding it hard to isolate how to truly understand how it has been affected.

Understanding Wellbeing

Wellbeing comes down to three things, our personal happiness, control and purpose. If we feel that any of these items are not where we feel they should be, and that differs for everyone, then we will experience a decrease in wellbeing. How do we know it has decreased? We feel unmotivated, challenged to do tasks, unfocused, not smiling as much, just listless. The new normal we have had to adjust too during the pandemic has changed routines, changed how we do things, changed how we can do our favorite activities, and changed where we do things. The happiness, control and purpose we felt previously has shifted, and finding our wellbeing groove has been hard to find. Some of us have adapted in some areas of our lives, some of us have not. Where ever you are today, you can recalibrate your wellbeing with a few simple actions that are completed each and every day.

It is all about giving and kindness each and every day.

Giving Makes You Happy

Science explains how giving make  you happy. We call it your Daily DOSE of Happiness. By completing one simple act of giving and kindness you can increase your serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin (your happiness hormones) and decrease your stress hormone cortisol. Yup, a five minute give, helping a friend or neighbour, smiling at people you may know or not know, sending a message of thanks and gratitude,  picking up garbage in a local park, will do all of this in your body. Your happiness will increase and you have knocked the happiness part of wellbeing out of the ball park.

Giving Provides Purpose and Meaning

When I sit down and make my giving list for the week, I do feel purposeful. Yes I have many other things to do, as we all do, but setting my giving intention makes me feel more purposeful with my day knowing that I am doing something intentional to increase my own happiness and the happiness of people, the planet and animals. I actually do my giving list before I do my daily must complete list for my home, my family and my work. This feeling of purpose and meaning in my giving list makes the other lists so much easier to complete!

Knowing that each day I have a greater meaning and purpose than just to put food on the table, pay bills, do my grocery shopping, and clean the house just makes all tasks so much easier to complete as we navigate a different world each and every day during the pandemic.

Giving Allows You To Take Control

I know this for a fact. I am not in control of the things that happen during the day. My kids may need something, my work may pull me somewhere I was not expecting to go that day, the weather puts a glitch in my activities, I may have to reschedule items due to lock downs, line ups, busy traffic, or just plain old time constraints. What I do know is this. I am in control of my daily giving. If I have little time, I can do a quick but effective give online. If I know that the only time I have to give during the day is on a quick morning walk, I can pick up garbage in the park where I choose to walk. I could decide to walk to a meeting to give back to the planet instead of drive. My giving is within my control and I can change my gives as my day unfolds to suit the time and place of my kindness that day.

One Give Hits All the Components of Wellbeing

If one action could increase your wellbeing, all facets of your wellbeing, why not try it out. Giving is one of those things that will affectively touch on the three components of wellbeing – happiness, control and purpose. Nice thing is giving does not eat into your day, and can be done on the go or while at home. Check out the resources we share at 365give that will make giving every day easy, meaningful, effective and most of all, increase your happiness and wellbeing starting today.