SPECIAL SECTION
Kindness in the Time of Coronavirus By Ana Veciana-Suarez
Kindness is a miracle drug, and its potent effects are especially needed in these fraught times. Perform a kind act for a friend, neighbor, or stranger, and it will boost your mood. Kindness remaps the brain. “When you’re kind,” explains Dr. Felicia Gould, a clinical neuropsychologist with the University of Miami Health System, “it’s not only the other person who feels good. You feel good too. It’s a win-win situation.” Felicia Gould, PhD
An overview of brain studies recently published in NeuroImage revealed how kindness is expressed in the brain—and it’s visually uplifting. When scientists looked at brain scans of people performing generous acts or even thinking altruistically, the “kindness”centers of the brain lit up. They also noted that there were two kinds of kindness: strategic and altruistic. As the name implies, with the first type, you expect something in return for your good behavior. In type two, the action has no reward in mind, except for wanting to do good. Both resulted in a rush of positive feelings. Still, each activates different parts of the brain: the striatal region for when you're expecting some reward, the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex when doing altruistic good. What's more, a generous act also affects the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which plays a big part in making those decisions that bond us together. So what does all this surge in brain activity mean? “Kindness has incredible health benefits,” Dr. Gould adds. “And it doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be a small act.” Years of research have shown that acting kindly releases essential brain chemicals that help us feel better. For example, kindness pumps up serotonin production. This neurotransmitter has a calming and anti-anxiety effect. Some believe it can even give your immune system a boost. Kindness also releases dopamine, a chemical messenger that, among its many duties, can make you feel good. It’'s been nicknamed “helper’s high.” Even witnessing a kind act prompts your body to
4 BRAINSTORMS | SPRING 2020
produce oxytocin. Often referred to as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is released when we're physically intimate and when mothers breastfeed. It's the chemical that makes us feel more loving, more optimistic, more trusting, and more generous. There's more evidence of the health benefits of kindness: Doing good is a natural painkiller because it produces endorphins. It tends to reduce stress. (Kind people have been shown to have 23% less cortisol, the stress hormone.) Kindness can also lower blood pressure. (Oxytocin releases nitric oxide, a chemical that dilates blood vessels.)
