A Little Kindness Can Go A Long Way: 17 Benefits of Kindness
Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone.
It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does.. I DO WHAT I DO BECAUSE IT’S RIGHT! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that.. Just kind.
If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all.
But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Someday.. And how will that be?
"
Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand.. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?”
-The Doctor who
The Infamous speech of the ‘Immortal’ Doctor from the series Doctor Who. It is the most defining aspect of kindness. Through the doctors changing, what remains the same is that they are kind.
In this article, you will learn why Kindness is important.
Let's dive right in..
- Table of Content
- Why Kindness Is Important?
- Are Kindness and Compassion different?
- Is Charity The Same As Kindness?
- Can Kindness Save The World?
- But How Can Kindness Change The World?
- Can Kindness Become A Disadvantage?
- 17 Reasons Why You Should Learn Kindness
- Kindness With Animals
- How To Be Kind To Others?
- Final Thoughts
Why Kindness Is Important?
The golden question, right?
Today’s world is different. Here people talk more about war. Hate spreads faster than love. Negativity spreads faster than positivity. That’sThat’s how things are today.
We live busy lives where it is difficult to find time to spend with the family. What is to say about the time to spread kindness?
Kindness is what we all need today. Everyone needs it, from the most challenging person to the weakest one. Everyone should be extended kindness.
It is like a golden light in the hour of darkness.
Kindness is “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate” in the old Oxford Dictionary of English from 2001. Interestingly, the word ” and” implies that each of those three conditions must exist for kindness. Therefore, one can be friendly but unkind or generous and considerate at the same time. The absolute pleasure of genuine kindness comes to us when we are conscious of all three conditions.
We all can experience positive mental and physical changes when we practice kindness to others or ourselves. And this happens by increasing the body’s production of feel-good hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin that can lower our stress levels.
Caring aids support the invulnerable framework, diminish pulse, and decrease pressure and nervousness.
The good news is that being kind is not difficult.
Are Kindness and Compassion different?
Let’s Understand this first,
People frequently strive for kindness and compassion, two essential virtues. Kindness and compassion are vastly different from one another, despite their apparent similarity. Being kind means helping other people without expecting anything in return. Sympathy, then again, is tied in with feeling frustrated about someone enduring and needing to help them.
Self-interest drives kindness frequently. For instance, you might do something nice for someone out of guilt or because you want them to like us. On the other hand, self-interest is not the driving force behind compassion. Instead, it comes from a longing to help others out of luck.
In addition, compassion necessitates a deeper emotional connection than kindness does. Even if you don’t know the person well and don’t have strong feelings for them, you can still be kind to them. When you care about someone else’s well-being and have compassion for them, you usually feel like you know them.
Eventually, graciousness is tied in with accomplishing something beneficial to others, while you can tie sympathy with feeling compassion for others and needing to help them. While both have significant virtues, they differ significantly in many ways.
Key Takeaway
Kindness is driven by self-interest and involves helping others without expecting anything. In contrast, compassion comes from a desire to help others out of luck and requires a deeper emotional connection.
Is Charity The Same As Kindness?
This is a common misconception,
We often make the mistake of thinking that doing charity is extending kindness. In most cases, it is not. Just donating money to various causes isn’t kindness.
The word “charity” comes from the Latin word “caritas, “which means “love.” So charity is love for God and our neighbor. It’s not just a feeling or emotion but an action. Charity means giving something of ourselves to others.
Kindness is an emotion. As we noted before, kindness has three aspects, friendly, considerate, and generous. So, charity is an aspect of kindness, but it isn’t kindness alone.
Can Kindness Save The World?
This is true,
Kindness can change a lot of things. A large part of why we all fight each other is hatred and lack of understanding.
The very base of kindness is understanding and avoiding the complex emotion of hatred. The lack of kindness makes you see the difference between you and the other living and non-living objects within this universe.
Kindness moves people from the inside and compels them to change. Acceptance and love are born from kindness.
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But How Can Kindness Change The World?
To be specific,
Kindness is the change from the inside. Instead of just tolerating that people with different ideologies exist, we learn how to accept them. That’s how kindness changes the world.
Learning kindness is something that can change how you live. A little bit of kindness goes a long way. It slowly becomes compassion. Once compassion is a part of your life, you change completely.
Compassion can solve half the problems in the world. We wouldn’t harm other humans. We will not harm the environment. We learn to extend a hand of help to others.
Wouldn’t that change half of the problems in the world?
Can Kindness Become A Disadvantage?
Remember this,
While we have been telling you that Kindness is essential and has a great capacity to change the world, also learn this.
Your hand of Kindness should know where and when to extend.
If the Courts extend Kindness in large measures in a country, then the fear of punishment will be gone, and it will become lawless.
Krishna says, “Ahimsa paramo dharma, dharma ahimsa thataiva cha,” He means it. One must extend Kindness to people who are deserving. Sometimes you must move away your hand of Kindness when the other person exploits you. In that case, you mustn’t be kind to them.
Extending Kindness to criminals is just to forgive them personally, but it is essential to punish them on a legal level to show others that crime isn’t acceptable. An institution should not be too forgiving and kind.
You must punish a criminal by law. An individual can. The judge, on a personal level, can forgive the criminal for the crime, but when he sits on the chair and makes the judgment, he has to be by the law.
Key Takeaway
While kindness is a noble virtue, it can become a disadvantage if extended to undeserving individuals, and it is essential to know when to draw the line.
17 Reasons Why You Should Learn Kindness
Now, coming to the important point,
We have listed 17 benefits that kindness can bring to you.
1. Kindness is Contagious
Happiness is contagious. It can completely catch on to others and spread rapidly. Your one act of kindness can inspire so many others to do the same and spread it over.
2. Self compassion for good life
Kindness towards others will teach you how to be kind to yourself. Now, imagine being kind to yourself; how much will you change?
It will keep you from thinking negatively about yourself. You will stop depreciating yourself. You will positively look at yourself.
This is enough to make it a great thing to be alive.
3. Romantic relationships become better
You’d be surprised how much more you can be compatible if only you become kind. You extend that to your partner. They will appreciate your being kind to them, making you a better partner.
If your partner is exhausted, make them some good food or order their favorite food. Say more encouraging and kind things to them every day. It will genuinely raise the bar for your romantic relationships.
All a person expects is kindness and consideration from their partner. People can be rude in the world outside, but if their comfort place itself isn’t kind to them, life feels terrible to them.
4. Kindness makes you a role model
You will make a great role model for others when you become kind, especially for kids. They learn from what they watch. When they see their elders being kind, they will also know kindness.
An ideal role model should teach people how to become great people. How their lives can become better and how it can become exciting. It should teach them great virtues that will build their personality.
5. Helps children understand empathy
Today, a big problem in schools is bullying. When kindness becomes more prominent, it will change.
Some consider body shaming, bullying, and being harsh as cool, but it will seem ugly when it happens to them.
So, children will become more considerate when they learn kindness, and schools won’t become horrible.
6. Creates better leaders
Being kind takes self-awareness, personal confidence, and a mindset that ensures you can see goodness in others and positivity in challenging situations. Leaders must be mindful of their initial instincts and impulses to make kinder choices in all their interactions.
People treated kindly at work repay the favor by being 278% more generous to their co-workers than a control group, one study found in 2018. Not only that, but it found kindness sparks increased well-being in the workplace, which, in turn, creates higher energy levels and an increase in positive perspectives and problem-solving.
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7. Boosts productivity
The significant consequence of kindness is that it creates a ripple effect. If you’re kind to your direct reports, they’re likely to pass on that feeling to the people they manage – and you form an energetic wave of positivity throughout your business. You have the power, as a leader, to promote this attitude. Employees know their bosses’ qualities, acts, and behaviors. There is no hiding a negative attitude or mean-spiritedness. So, be kind on purpose.
Research shows 90% of US workers say empathetic leadership leads to higher job satisfaction, and 79% agree it decreases employee turnover. So, you want happier co-workers who don’t want to jump ship at the first opportunity for a new role? Empathy is key.
Related Article: 7 Ways to Overcome Perfectionism
8. Boosts self esteem
Some researchers examined the relationship between self-esteem and acts of kindness toward friends, family, and strangers through questionnaires administered to 681 adolescents.
Compared to acts of kindness toward family or friends, the results indicate that kindness toward strangers had a more significant positive effect on self-esteem.
They also discovered that self-esteem was positively impacted by all acts of kindness, regardless of how big or small they were.
Teens needing a boost in self-esteem can start by volunteering or participating in activities that help others.
According to Dr. Austerman, “Having them engage with people actually builds a sense of self-competency.” They perform better academically, typically forming a stronger peer support network, which continues into adulthood. When doing good deeds as kids, they tend to do better as adults.
Acts of kindness have also been found to reduce anxiety and depression in previous studies.
9. Kindness Lowers stress
Kindness boosts mood, empathy, and self-esteem. It can lower blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol, directly affecting stress levels.
Kindness and compassion are prosocial behaviors that can benefit both the giver and the receiver by fostering positive interpersonal relationships. The neuropsychology of kindness is activated by observing kindness and caring, elevating the viewer, and encouraging generosity, interpersonal connection, and inclusion.
The possibility of enhancing resilience in high-stress settings like healthcare arises from the realization that seeing kindness can increase positive emotions, improve interpersonal connection, and elicit change in prosocial behavior.
According to a recent study, self-reported happiness, calmness, gratitude, and inspiration rose rapidly when people watched kindness media in a healthcare setting. Watchers were fundamentally more liberal.
Kindnesses media can be a valuable, low-cost addition to enhancing the healthcare environment by providing staff and patients with a nonjudgmental lift to enhance caring interactions.
10. Enhances Well being
It isn’t much of a secret that when you extend kindness, you will experience development in your social wellbeing and mental wellbeing. Even if it only increases by one level in your social and mental wellbeing, it will drastically change your feelings about life.
Kindness can reduce feelings of depression and suicide. According to research, you can link acts of kindness to higher levels of wellbeing. Hence, they are incredibly significant.
Assisting others can strengthen our support networks and inspire us to become more active. Thus, they can work with more confidence.
11. Kindness Makes You Feel Good
The exact mechanism also makes us feel sorry for other people when they’re down, which can make us feel down, which is especially true for close friends and family because our brains’ representations of them physically overlap with our own.
Being kind and helping a sad person feel better can also make us feel good, partly because we feel the same relief as them and somewhat because we are making amends. Even though this effect is vital for people, we are close to solving humanitarian issues like poverty and climate change.
Engaging with charities that deal with these issues gives you a chance to make a difference, which makes you feel better.
12. Binds People Together
Kindness opens up many opportunities to establish or grow a social connection with someone. One can strengthen friendships when you show kindness to someone by buying them a thoughtful present or a cup of coffee, which can help you to improve their mood.
In a similar vein, charitable organizations give donors a chance to make a difference in the lives of people all over the world by connecting with them. Additionally, volunteering lets you connect with new groups of people, including other volunteers and those you are assisting.
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13. Comes back to you
Work on the brain science of graciousness shows that one out of a few potential inspirations is correspondence, the return of some help which could occur either directly or indirectly. Someone may be more likely to assist you if they remember that you assisted them last time.
One person’s kindness inspires others in the group to be more kind, which makes everyone happier. Imagine you bake cakes for the workplace, and the idea spreads, prompting someone to do it monthly. That is significantly more days you receive cakes than you provide them.
The story doesn’t end there. Although research has demonstrated that being in a good mood can make you more kind, being kind can also improve your mood. As a result, it’s a wonderful partnership that keeps giving.
14. Good for heart
According to Dr. Bhawani Ballamudi, a child psychiatrist at SSM Health, “research has shown that when we think about kind acts, witnessing kind acts, or engaging in acts of kindness to other people, there are several biochemical changes that happen in our brain.” Oxytocin, an extensively studied neurotransmitter, is one of the most significant outcomes. The most important aspect is that it fosters a sense of community.
“Research indicates that kindness can protect the heart by releasing oxytocin, which releases nitric oxide. According to Dr. Ballamudi, nitric oxide dilates blood vessels, which lowers blood pressure and improves heart health. There’s exploration taking a gander at some of the synapses, particularly concerning oxytocin and how it can decrease irritation. In some ways, reducing inflammation also protects you from chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, and obesity, resulting in improved overall health and longevity.
15. Kindness is virtue that builds identity
Acts of kindness help us demonstrate that positive identity and make us feel proud of ourselves because most people would like to believe that they are kind. According to a recent study, even first-year secondary school students understood that being kind can make you feel “better as a person… more complete,” which can lead to feelings of happiness.
This impact is considerably more impressive when the thoughtful demonstration joins with different parts of our character, maybe making a more intentional inclination. A few examples are a bird rescue, an art donation to a gallery, or a retired teacher volunteering at an after-school group.
According to research, people are more satisfied when they identify with the organization they volunteer for.
16. Make you live longer
Acts of kindness and altruism reduce body inflammation through hormone production. nOne can link inflammation with chronic pain, migraines, obesity, and cancer.
You reduce inflammation and the risks it poses to your health each time the hormone that makes you feel good is released. The effectiveness of these acts’ anti-inflammatory properties increases with kindness.
Interesting.
Things being what they are, does generosity assist you with living longer? Yes, according to many experts!
Consider all of these potential outcomes to determine that acts of kindness and the feelings they engender positively impact one’s overall health and well-being in significant ways that can directly correlate with longevity and life expectancy.
Want to live longer? Be caring to everyone around you; act kindly at random this can be the key to living a longer and more satisfying life.
17. Gives new perspective
Kindness and empathy, or the capacity to comprehend and share another person’s feelings, are closely linked. Being kind teaches you more about yourself and other people.
Kindness teaches compassion, generosity, consideration, gratitude, and positive behavior. When you perform a straightforward act of kindness that improves someone else’s situation, you enhance your perspective and learn essential life lessons. When you treat others with kindness, you see them as human beings like yourself.
A sense of community can be created by carrying groceries or working for an elderly neighbor.
Kindness With Animals
Now, coming to this,
While we have been learning that we should extend Kindness to other people, we must also extend Kindness to other creatures. Animals and birds.
Every living thing on this planet can roam freely in the wild. However, in today’s world, many animals are suffering due to human cruelty. Individuals don’t simply kill creatures for their meat but also skins, tusks, horns, teeth, quills, and fur. Numerous animals are kept in captivity, subjected to torture, and forced to perform in front of large crowds.
They all over the world test new chemical formulations on harmless lab animals. We ought to be kind to animals and all other living things.
One must never harm an Animal. We all are equal; we ought to care for animals and deal with them with more acts of Kindness. Compassion for others, after all, is what makes us truly human.
How To Be Kind To Others?
When we have understood the importance of kindness,
Let us learn how to be kind to others.
Offering grace to others doesn’t need to mean accomplishing something important or extraordinary. Even small acts of kindness frequently have the most significant impact.
A snapshot of help in a period of scarcity, a tranquil expression of consolation, some assistance to convey a weighty burden, or simply a grin that says ‘I see you’ can improve things significantly. Regardless of the act itself, four guiding principles will guide it:
1. Be Aware
We must be aware of the opportunity to be kind. Awareness: If we are entirely absorbed in our thoughts, world, or online alter egos, we will not be able to recognize the need.
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2. Be Non-judgemental
To be genuinely compassionate, we must be ready to let go of our judgment. We are not responsible for determining whether a situation is favorable or detrimental, righteous or wrong. We only need to realize that there is a chance for us to be kind.
3. Do Activity That Spreads Kindness
We should act in a friendly, liberal, and cautious way to the individual before us. Mindfulness without activity can’t be thoughtful.
4. Make It Unconditional
Unrestricted kindness refers to doing so without any expectations of compensation or conditions. Rather than receiving any external recognition or reward, the valid bonus for service is inner positivity.
Final Thoughts
At the end,
Kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate, as stated several times throughout this article.
I’ll end this article with Maya Angelou’s words,
"
Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
– Maya Angelou
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