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Helping Others is Good for Your Health
#1
Helping Others is Good for Your Health
I'd like to sincerely thank those Apnea Board members who are here, day in and day out helping other OSA patients on the forum.

This place is wonderful, because of YOU. Newbies who come here are often times frustrated, sleep-deprived, and in need of good solid advice. They might need encouragement or simply some help in answering a basic question regarding their Sleep Apnea. It is very encouraging to see the generous help that is offered to others here on a daily basis.

On that note, I was reading an article that comes to the conclusion that "helping others is actually good for your own health".

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Quote:Helping Others Is Good For Your Health: An Interview with Stephen G. Post, PhD

By Therese J. Borchard
Associate Editor

Mahatma Gandhi once said that “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” I have benefited from that advice, for sure, especially in the months that I was crawling out of a very severe depression.

An expert on the perks that come with helping others is bestselling author Stephen G. Post, author of The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get us Through Hard Times (Jossey-Bass, 2011). He is Professor of Preventive Medicine, Heard of the Division of Medicine in Society, and Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University. Visit him on his website at http://www.stephengpost.com/hiddengifts.

I have the privilege of conducting an exclusive interview with him for the readers of Psych Central.

1. What are some of the proven health benefits of giving oneself to others?

Dr. Post: In light of our experience, I was struck by the 2010 Do Good Live Well Survey of 4,500 American adults. 41 percent of Americans volunteered an average of 100 hours a year. 68 percent of those who volunteered reported that it made them feel physically healthier; 89% that it “has improved my sense of well-bring” and 73% that it “lowered my stress levels.” Not bad! It worked for us.

The therapeutic benefits of helping others have long been recognized by everyday people. This concept was first formalized in a highly cited and often reprinted article by Frank Riessman that appeared in 1965 in Social Work. Riessman defined the “helper therapy” principle on the basis of his observations of various self-help groups, where helping others is deemed absolutely essential to helping oneself. These are grassroots groups that nowadays involve tens of millions of Americans.

As the saying goes, “if you help someone up the hill, you get closer yourself.” Whether the group is focused on weight loss, smoking cessation, substance abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and recovery, or countless other needs, a defining feature of the group is that people are deeply engaged in helping one another, and are in part motivated by an explicit interest in their own healing.

2. Why does something as simple as just thinking about helping offer physical benefits?

Dr. Post:
In one famous study that has been replicated, study subjects are given a list of charities to which they might contribute. They are wearing an fMRI device that shows where the brain is active. When they decide to contribute to a particular item on the list and check a box next to it, the mesolimbic pathway lights up. This is area of the brain associated with joy and the release of feel good chemicals like dopamine.

This reward mechanism is deeply evolved, and is probably related to the fact that helping behavior is so important for the survival of groups. As Darwin pointed out, sympathy is evolutionarily advantageous because it is the basis of the altruism and prosocial helping that allows any tribe or group to flourish and survive. A lot of writing these days is on “group selection,” which explains human nature in ways that “individual selection” (the purely gladiatorial image of conflict between individuals) does not.

3. What are some ways that people can make helping others a daily practice?

Lots of things can help. Of course meditation, which deflects attention away from self . Adherence to moral principle, such as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” can be important. Being part of a community of volunteers is useful, as is being around good role models and the right friends.

But more practically, we should focus our efforts on some needful group that we feel called toward. For me this is the deeply forgetful (people with dementia), and I have been involved in providing caregiver respire for many years. Also, we should help in a way that uses our talents and skills optimally. This allows people to feel effective.

fair use applies, from:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/20...-post-phd/
SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


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#2
RE: Helping Others is Good for Your Health
Dr. Post's article brought to mind what is most likely a closely related topic. That is, the idea of how teaching someone something that you have to share increases the teacher's own knowledge and/or skill in that area. Often, that learning experienced by the person doing the teaching is accompanied by positive psychological benefits as described by Post. I'm not a psychologist, but that's what it looks like to me.
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#3
RE: Helping Others is Good for Your Health
(07-24-2012, 09:17 AM)Dawei Wrote: Dr. Post's article brought to mind what is most likely a closely related topic. That is, the idea of how teaching someone something that you have to share increases the teacher's own knowledge and/or skill in that area. Often, that learning experienced by the person doing the teaching is accompanied by positive psychological benefits as described by Post. I'm not a psychologist, but that's what it looks like to me.

Yep, sounds true to me. When folks have problems on Apnea Board, and I don't know the answer, I'll go onto Google and try to search for an answer, then post it here. It's kind of fun, really. Smile
SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com


INFORMATION ON APNEA BOARD FORUMS OR ON APNEABOARD.COM SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED AS MEDICAL ADVICE. ALWAYS SEEK THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN BEFORE SEEKING TREATMENT FOR MEDICAL CONDITIONS, INCLUDING SLEEP APNEA. INFORMATION POSTED ON THE APNEA BOARD WEB SITE AND FORUMS ARE PERSONAL OPINION ONLY AND NOT NECESSARILY A STATEMENT OF FACT.


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