The Healing Power of Kindness

[show open]

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: Kindness is an act, or it’s a practice. It’s something you cultivate. So being able to be intentional about when we practice kindness and asking ourselves those questions and reflect on it. The question that I like to use is you know “How can I bring kindness into my day – whether to me or another person in any small way?”, and just starting off my day with that and ending my day with that.

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Lois Paula: Whether you’re hoping to heal the world or heal yourself. This podcast is here for you to highlight how kindness moves.

Nan: Yes, how it moves you to action – you yourself. Or how it just makes you feel something so good, it’s contagious. You might have been touched by a simple act of kindness, you might want tips on how you can act now in your community or you just love the feeling of doing good.

Lois Paula: Welcome to Kindness Moves, a new podcast brought to you by the INC Giving Project. We’re your hosts LP and Nan. 

Nan: Hi.

Lois Paula: So today on Kindness Moves, we talk more in depth on how kindness heals. It’s a topic that actually resonates with many of you, especially as we’ve all gained this new perspective this past year. And some of us are even more focused on our emotional and mental health.

Nan: That’s so true, LP. We’ve all had to adjust. I’m sure we’ve all had to learn to reshift our focus and I’m sure everyone has had to pick up some broken pieces to try to make the best of our different situations.

Lois Paula: So in terms of kindness. How can it help really? You know, are good deeds truly capable of being healthy for the heart, the mind for the soul? You know, for example Nan, if you think back to, for instance, you know, a rough time in your life, what’s one thing that might have helped you?

Nan: You know, it’s no secret, 2020 was such a rough year for almost everyone right, to varying degrees, and my family and I, we were no strangers to that. Unfortunately, I lost my mom in 2020. And that was definitely the darkest moment in my life. What was interesting though was even though it was the darkest moment, you know, kindness, really was one of those beacons of light and kindness from family members from brothers and sisters in the faith, from friends – that that kindness really helped us to maintain that that positive outlook and mood, you know, so kindness really does move and help others.

Lois Paula: Absolutely and firstly I just want to thank you for sharing that Nan. Our hearts are truly with you and everyone who have grieved especially this last year alone the loss of someone or even something you know I’m sure all of us have lost something – plans or a future, you know, that we were hoping to have. But you’re right, having a community, it strengthens us, it reminds us that there’s still so much more to gain in life from all the blessings that we have and for me personally, it’s, it’s my kids, actually, you know, they remind me to take more moments to laugh and be present and to be more joyful so their kindness their natural being of you know them being kids it, it truly does help me. Yeah, so we talked about today, how can we use kindness to help, ourselves first, so that ultimately we can be of better help to other people. Actually, before we even get to that, what is this feeling anyways? That feeling of being affected, just by one simple act of kindness. Why is it so powerful?

Nan: Right. That’s the big question right and this episode is why it’s a perfect time to bring on a clinical psychologist to help us explain what that feeling is. So let’s please welcome, Dr. Sydney Fontanares.

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: Hello. Hi. Hi Nan. Hi LP. How are you guys?

Lois Paula: Thanks for joining us. 

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: I’m so excited to be here. 

Nan: How are you?

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: I’m great, well as good as you can be, right?

Nan: Yeah, you know, and we’re really excited honestly, because you know the fact that this is your field and this is something that that really fits right into, you know, this, this whole discussion fits into into your field of work and we’re really excited to hear from you and. You know, according to studies like we’ve seen that there are certain studies that are out there and they’ve described what’s been called as, quote unquote happy chemicals in our brain. Right? And when we’re a recipient of kindness or if we witness an act of kindness or something where someone does something nice for somebody, there is an actual physical reaction that happens in our bodies when we witness those things right Dr. Sydney?

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: Yeah, so those happy chemicals we call those neurotransmitters. And these are chemicals that occur in our brain that sends messages through neurons which are the building block of the brain and they send messages to one another, and it, it makes certain parts of our brains function, elicits pleasurable feelings, it motivates behavior. So, a couple of these specific happy chemicals, that is what I’ve seen in research related to, when someone is doing an act of kindness includes dopamine, which is our reward hormone. So when we do something kind for someone. We get rewarded for it. Our brain, really likes it and it will produce dopamine, and it would elicit a pleasurable feeling. 

Other happy chemicals or neurotransmitters is, it includes serotonin, which is our mood stabilizer. So for patients that we see who have clinical levels of depression, our psychiatrists and our doctors, they typically prescribe, what we call an SSRI, which targets the serotonin in our brain. So, we can see how it very much relates to feeling happy or stabilizing our mood. 

We see an increase of that when people are doing acts of kindness. And there’s this thing actually, if either of you have heard of like a runner’s high, it gives us like a, like a really happy feeling, there is this thing called like a helpers high. So, when we are doing an act of kindness, or even witnessing an act of kindness, we can get that increase of happy feeling sort of that glow that we get. And then also, there’s something I did read recently to is the neurotransmitter oxytocin. Are either one of you familiar with that one?

Nan: We have heard of oxytocin Yeah.

Lois Paula: Is that the love hormone right?

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: It is the love hormone or the cuddle hormone.

Lois Paula: Oh cuddle hormone.

Nan: Cuddle hormone.

Dr. Sydney Fontanares:  Yeah, super cute. It occurs when, where we see it in childbirth, when we’re petting a dog or hugging a loved one or a family member. It’s a way for us to build trust and comfort with one another. It builds the strong bonds with one another. And this is so essential in our society and that’s why it’s so important to help one another and create those connections.

Lois Paula: Yeah, and it’s not just a feeling, there is an actual physical reaction that’s happening in our bodies, you know, there’s no hiding that it’s not just, oh I feel good and it, you know, seeing it. It makes me feel, you know, warm and fuzzy inside. It’s an actual chemical process that’s happening. So you mentioned, you know kindness being something that we can do. What are some simple things that we can do on a day to day basis, maybe, to help elicit that response in our, in our bodies, in our minds?

Dr. Sydney Fontanares: Sure. So I would say the first thing would be, you know, not only just acts towards other people, but kindness towards yourself. There is the Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Tara Cousineau, she has done a lot of research on kindness and mental health, and she noted that the first person that’s important to receive kindness, is yourself. She talks about how sometimes we get so distracted by our own, I guess unkindness to ourself, we can’t be kind to other people. That would be a good start. 

Another thing too – I read just some research about just tracking our kindness, having like a kindness journal. I know like the big thing is like a gratitude journal. But having a kindness journal and being able to note, you know what kind of kindness, what acts of kindness you’re doing. The research was on happiness, subjective happiness and having people just write down acts of kindness that they’ve done throughout the week for one week. And what they notice was that people became more happy when they were just doing this intervention, just writing things down, of what kind of acts of kindness they were doing, and even planning for kindness, they’ve written down in they notice that people were, not only happy, but more grateful.

Lois Paula: It’s a great way of putting it, and it’s like you said, it’s a constant conscious effort. Right? And we appreciate you bringing that up because I don’t think we truly realize how impactful doing something so small can really be you know for those around us yes but like you mentioned, Dr. Sydney, but even for ourselves. And these days, you know we need as much contagious positivity as we can really get.