Explanatory Essay on the Benefits of Kindness

Kind Kids Become Successful Adults

There is a simple way for kindergarten teachers to predict which of their students, regardless of their backgrounds, are more likely to drop out of school or go to jail. According to a groundbreaking recent study, they don’t need a crystal ball. They just need to watch for kindness. 

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Skills like kindness, cooperation, and empathy are sometimes dismissed as nice to have, but not essential to success in school or in life. Developing skills like math and reading have seemed far more practical and important.

However, a recent study from the American Journal of Public Health published in 2015, turns that thinking on its head. The study used data from a long-term project that tracked 753 low-income students from the time they were in kindergarten until they turned 25. The results of the study suggest that possessing “pro-social” skills, such as kindness, is key to doing well in school and avoiding major problems afterwards. 

The data showed that students who were kinder and more cooperative with their peers in kindergarten were more likely to have graduated from high school on time and to have finished college. In fact, many universities, such as Harvard University, have added essay questions about kindness to their applications for admissions. A recent study from Georgetown University shows that over their lifetime, college graduates earn on average $1 million dollars more than high school graduates.

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In addition, researchers of the 2015 study also found that students  who were kinder than their peers as kindergarteners were less likely to be on medication for mental health problems, less likely to have drug abuse problems, and less likely to be in jail. The annual cost of drug abuse in the United States is estimated at $193 billion.

To the researchers, who are from Penn State and Duke University, the results make a convincing case for investing more in nurturing students’ social and emotional skills, such as kindness. They write, “Enhancing these skills has potential for positively affecting individuals as well as the community substantially.” 

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Perhaps it is time for more schools to reinforce kindness in the curriculum.  

Kindness is the Cure

Treating mental and physical illnesses can be costly. Being kind might be an inexpensive “medicine” to treat mental and physical ailments. 

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Happiness

Recent studies suggest that being kind to others makes us happy, even happier than when we spend money on ourselves. One study published in 2010 in the Journal of Social Psychology, showed that people who performed a daily act of kindness for someone for just 10 days reported a significant boost in happiness. 

The reason why being kind can make a person happier is that the act of giving appears to be as pleasurable, if not more so, as the act of receiving. According to research from Emory University, when one is kind to another person, the brain’s pleasure and reward centers light up, as if the giver of the good deed were the recipient! 

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When the brain’s pleasure and reward centers are stimulated, there is a strong positive effect on mental health. Research shows that depression and anxiety are linked to a state of self-focus, a preoccupation with “me, myself, and I.” However, when one does something for someone else, that state of self-focus shifts to a focus on others. The result often is reduced feelings of anxiety and depression and increased energy and positive moods. 

Longevity

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A 2013 published study conducted on 800 people demonstrated that providing tangible assistance to others lengthens one’s life Michael Poulin, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Buffalo, commented on the study's findings. “When dealing with stressful situations, those who had helped others during the previous year were less likely to die than those who had not helped others.”

According to Dr. David R. Hamilton, author of the Amazon bestseller The Five Side Effects of Kindness, acts of kindness create emotional warmth, which releases a hormone known as oxytocin. This hormone lowers blood pressure. Blood pressure is an important indicator of health because it contributes to heart disease and premature death. Heart disease is the number one cause of 

death in the United States today according to the Centers for Disease Control. 

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Kindness just might be the cure our society needs right now. 

The Ability to Change the World

The motivation that inspires people to help others is simple. If the people around us are happy, we, in turn, become happier. We may not know it, but by uplifting others, we are also helping ourselves by making the world a better place.

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Kindness Inspires Kindness

Research has proven that one random act of kindness has the power to inspire others to also be benevolent. Social scientists James Fowler from the University of California and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University have demonstrated that witnessing acts of generosity and kindness begets more generosity, creating a chain reaction of goodness. 

Take for example, a random act of kindness reported in the USA Today in 2014. A woman in St. Petersburg, Florida, drove up and paid for her own iced coffee at a Starbucks and also asked to pay for the drink of the driver behind her who did the same thing for the next customer. The chain of generosity continued for 11 hours; in total, 378 people agreed to keep it going.  

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Transforming Lives

However, random acts of kindness are not the only ones that can make a difference. Sustained altruism has the power to transform lives. This can be seen in the impact of volunteerism. 

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According to The Corporation for National and Community Service, 62.6 million adults volunteered through an organization in 2015.  Altogether, Americans volunteered nearly 7.8 billion hours in 2015, worth an estimated $184 billion. 

"When we stand shoulder to shoulder to serve with others, we gain another perspective on the lives we share, while using our time and talents to build a stronger nation," said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. 

Without the kindness of volunteers every year, a number of pressing needs would go unmet. In 2015, 18 percent of volunteers devoted their time to working with youth through tutoring and teaching youth or mentoring youth.  Nearly one-quarter of volunteers helped prevent hunger by collecting, preparing, and distributing food.

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The effect of this goodwill can be profound not only for the recipients but also for the volunteers. A growing body of research 

indicates that communities with higher levels of volunteerism have lower crime rates, improved health outcomes for aging adults, lower rates of mental illness, improved academic outcomes for children, improved employment outcomes for job seekers, and greater community resilience following a disaster.