To improve health and longevity, most people focus on eating the right food, sleeping enough hours, and getting enough exercise. But what if the secret to living longer and healthier isn’t only based on what you take in but also on what you give? Whether we are giving presents during the holidays or offering a listening ear to a friend who is struggling, giving strengthens our relationships, improves our mental health, and can even positively impact our physical health.
“We can offer acts of generosity in many ways—with our time, our resources, and our kindness and compassion. Even something as simple as offering a smile to a stranger can have a significant impact on our well-being,” says Stanford researcher Akivah Dixon Northern, DSc, who is also a chaplain and graduate of Yale Divinity School.
Giving is Good for Your Mental Health
Giving can take many forms, such as holding the door for someone, helping a friend move, or volunteering in the community. Research has shown that volunteering, in particular, offers incredible benefits for mental health and longevity. For example, this study explored the health benefits of volunteering among adults aged 50 and older. During a four-year follow-up period, researchers found that those who participated in 100 or more hours of volunteering per year had lower risks of mortality and physical functioning limitations. Their volunteering also resulted in higher psychosocial outcomes—they experienced higher optimism, greater purpose in life, and reduced depression, hopelessness, and loneliness. Another study on the “helper’s high” emphasized how giving results in feelings of happiness and promotes self-esteem and a sense of purpose.
Volunteering was also linked to mental health and longevity by centenarian researcher Dan Buettner in his Blue Zone docu-series. Blue Zones are regions of the world where people are said to live longer and healthier lives, and have the greatest number of people who have reached the age of 100 (centenarian). “Generally speaking, people who volunteer have better memories, better social connections, and report higher levels of happiness,” said Buettner in the Netflix special.
Dr. Northern also has experience with Blue Zones in that she is an alumna of Loma Linda University, and Loma Linda is the only Blue Zone in the US. “Finding joy and purpose through helping others is common among the many centenarians in Loma Linda,” says Dr. Northern.
Giving is Good for Your Physical Health
Giving also has measurable effects on physical health. One study showed a relationship between giving and lowered blood pressure. This study recorded systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, and heart rate every 30 minutes for 24 hours. Analysis revealed that when participants positively connected with others and gave social support, they recorded lower blood pressure.
This study also revealed that participants with a higher tendency to give social support reported greater self-efficacy, higher self-esteem, less depression, and less stress than participants with a lower tendency to give.
Given that giving reduces stress, it may also lower cortisol levels in the bloodstream. Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” because it’s released when the body is stressed. Elevated cortisol levels due to chronic stress can contribute to inflammation and diseases like Type 2 diabetes, arthritis, and cardiovascular conditions. Giving may also increase “feel-good” chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, promoting good physical health.
Giving is Good for Your Professional Health
At Stanford, Dr. Northern conducts research with medical students to assess what is challenging about medicine versus what brings them joy. Dr. Northern’s data shows that when students are being generous with patients—either with their time, presence, or compassion—they experience the joys of feeling connected and making a difference, and have a renewed sense of purpose and dedication.
“Doing good deeds and connecting with others not only enhances emotional and physical well-being but it can also bring joy to our work,” says Dr. Northern. “When we give, it takes our minds off ourselves and makes us more aware of the needs of others. When we are generous, we create relational harmony, purpose, and meaning, all of which are beneficial to our overall health.”
Millions of Americans share a similar experience every morning. The alarm goes off, but they’ve already been awake for hours in bed. They hit the snooze button to squeeze in a few more minutes of precious rest, not realizing they were making their sleep problems worse.
“Hitting the snooze button is one of the worst things you can do because it prolongs morning grogginess and associates the bed with being awake,” says Fiona Barwick, PhD, DBSM, Stanford Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences – Sleep Medicine. “Rather than hitting snooze, it’s important to get out of bed within 15 minutes of the alarm going off and get some natural light to stop melatonin production.”
You may not think that something you do first thing in the morning will affect your sleep that night; however, Dr. Barwick says that the behaviors we engage with throughout the day can impact the quality of our sleep at night.
“Getting a good night’s sleep is a 24-hour endeavor,” says Dr. Barwick.
How Does Sleep Work?
According to Dr. Barwick, we fall asleep when these three biological systems are in working order:
- Circadian Rhythm (CR)
- Sleep Drive (SD)
- Stress Management (SM)
Here is a list of behaviors that can negatively affect the three systems (CR, SD, SM), as well as alternative behaviors that have a more positive impact:
Since it may be difficult to change all the behaviors in this table, Dr. Barwick shares the top two behaviors that are most important for each system:
- Circadian Rhythm
- Sleeping in the right window for your body clock (e.g., 10pm – 6am, 11pm – 7am, or 12am – 8am, etc.) and staying consistent with those sleep and wake times.
- Appropriate exposure to light and darkness to sync the release of melatonin with wake and sleep times (e.g., getting morning sunlight, not looking at screens one hour before bed, and making sure the bedroom is dark).
- Sleep Drive
- Increase sleep drive by tiring the body with regular physical exercise and outdoor light exposure.
- Getting out of bed promptly (no hitting the snooze button) and making sure you spend the appropriate amount of time in bed (anywhere from 6-10 hours depending on your individual genetics and age).
- Stress Management
- Physical relaxation—Deep breathing throughout the day to relax the body.
- Mental/Emotional relaxation—mindfulness meditation or journaling to process emotions before going to bed.
Practice of the Month:
Avoid hitting snooze (i.e., get out of bed when the alarm goes off) and create morning, midday, and evening routines to optimize the three key systems for sleep.
From the table above, write two behaviors you can do in the morning, midday, and at night. Make sure that you’re addressing all three systems (CR, SD, and SM).
What to do in the morning for good sleep:
1)
2)
What to do during the day for good sleep:
1)
2)
What to do at night for good sleep:
1)
2)
Here is a sample:
What to do in the morning for good sleep:
1) Put phone out of arm’s reach and get out of bed right after alarm goes off (CR, SD).
2) Go for a walk around the block, then eat breakfast (CR, SD).
What to do during the day for good sleep:
1) Stress reduction: do a 10-minute mindfulness meditation at lunch (SM).
2) Physical exercise: do a 45-minute workout right after work (SD, SM).
What to do at night for good sleep:
1) Turn off all screens one hour before bed and write in my journal while listening to relaxing music (CR, SM).
2) Take a luxurious candle-lit bubble bath while taking deep breaths and counting my blessings (CR, SM).
“These are behaviors we can do to increase the likelihood of getting better sleep, but there may be times when we do everything right and still not sleep well,” says Dr. Barwick. “The most important thing to remember is that we will be fine the next day. We are evolutionarily adapted to deal with insufficient sleep, and we can still do what we need to get done, even without the full amount of sleep that we normally get.”
By Mary Grace Descourouez, MS, NBC-HWC
Many of us have heard that looking at our phones or iPads at night can keep us awake due to light exposure, however, research shows this may be true for children, but there is not sufficient evidence to support this claim for adults.
“Young children have a greater sensitivity to light because more light gets to the retina of a child than an adult,” says Jamie Zeitzer, PhD, Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences. “Since adults have more opacities in their eyes and smaller pupils than children, less light passes through adult eyes, so there’s less of an effect on melatonin production.”
Melatonin is a hormone that makes us feel sleepy and is released when the eyes perceive darkness. Conversely, when we see natural light in the morning, we feel more awake because light hitting our eyes stops the production of melatonin.
Given this logic, it would seem reasonable that looking at our screens (smart phones, computers, iPads, etc.) at night could delay melatonin production and inhibit our ability to fall asleep, but Dr. Zeitzer says this is not the case.
While darkness enables melatonin production, suppressing melatonin production works by the brain comparing the amount of light we receive during at night with how much we received during the day. It’s the shift from light to dark that cues the release of melatonin, which is why we start to feel sleepy after the sun goes down.
Since natural sunlight emits 10,000-100,000 lux of light and phone screens emit 25-50 lux under usual conditions at night, Dr. Zeitzer says the light from our screens doesn’t have much of an impact on the melatonin cueing process.
“There just isn’t that much light coming from your phone,” says Dr. Zeitzer. “As long as you go outside during the day and get exposed to the intensity of natural light then the amount of light from a screen in the evening most likely won’t halt the production of melatonin.”
If it’s Not Light, What Keeps us Up at Night?
Rather than light exposure, Dr. Zeitzer believes that what is keeping us awake is what we are watching on our screens. Millions of Americans stay awake at night scrolling on social media looking at page after page of emotionally activating content and writing posts that lead to likes, comments, and followers. Others stay up to play games on their phones or computers, all of which stimulate the dopamine reward system in the brain, which is the basis of addictive behaviors.
“In the past, when a television show ended, you turned off the TV and went to sleep because there was nothing else to do,” says Dr. Zeitzer. “But now you could watch Netflix, look at apps or play computer games all night because this entertainment has been commodified to engaged with it for as long as possible; it’s optimized to never stop playing and this is causing sleep deprivation.”
When watching screens before bed, Dr. Zeitzer recommends that we not only avoid content that could be distressing, but also content that could stir excitement within us.
“In order to fall asleep, we need to reduce stimuli exposure and calm our mind and body,” says Dr. Zeitzer. “Even if you’re watching something positive, if it stirs excitement, the brain will release dopamine, and over time we can develop a dopamine addiction, making staying awake playing games or on social media much more fun that going to sleep.”
Lastly, Dr. Zeitzer says that he can’t make a general statement that nighttime screen use negatively affects everyone’s sleep. For some, their addiction to games or apps could make falling asleep a challenge, while others may watch soothing nature videos on their phones to help them relax and fall asleep. Therefore, Dr. Zeitzer suggests that you take note of how screens are impacting your sleep health by asking yourself these questions:
- Is the content of your screen time making you feel distressed or excited? If yes, then you should not look at screens for about an hour before bedtime to calm the mind and body and prepare for sleep.
- Also, do you engage with screens throughout the night when you could be sleeping? If so, you may have a dopamine addiction that is making screen time activities more enjoyable than sleep.