The case for volunteering
If you do one thing this year to boost your wellbeing, make it volunteering.
National Volunteer Week is an opportunity to celebrate and thank people all around the world who dedicate their precious time and efforts to voluntary service. It’s also a great opportunity to remind you that volunteering can have a huge impact on your happiness levels!
According to Dr Dawn Carr, author of 5 reasons why you should volunteer, volunteering has been shown to:
- Connect you to others
- Be good for your mind and body
- Advance your career
- Bring meaning and fulfilment to your life
- Be good for society (of course!)
Not only that but finding the right volunteering activity can also give you the benefits of other proven positive psychology activities such as finding purpose, being social, being generous and practicing kindness – which have all been shown to also improve mood, mental wellbeing, resilience, physical health and even longevity.
So, kick back and celebrate National Volunteer Week with us by exploring the science behind volunteering, and find out how you can achieve a happier, healthier life. Read on!
Related reading: Volunteering and Happiness: Why Volunteering is The Superfood of The Positive Psychology Movement
What the science says about volunteering
It’s what we do… we look at the science, so here are a bunch of studies about the benefits of volunteering that we think are pretty cool. Read on!
A quick rundown of the major benefits
It’s scientifically proven that you can find your own happiness by helping others. Studies suggest that helping others can increase your happiness and improve your health. A growing body of research indicates that volunteering provides not just social benefits but individual health benefits as well. Research from the UK found that volunteering was associated with a positive change in mental wellbeing, showing that people who volunteer become happier over time and those who volunteer more attract greater benefits from the experience. Additionally, economists Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer released a study in 2004 which concluded that, “volunteering constitutes one of the most important pro-social activities and helping others is the way to higher individual wellbeing.” They found robust evidence that volunteers are more satisfied with their life than non-volunteers.
Volunteering is the new black
Released in March 2022, The World Happiness Report 2022 showed us that more than ever, people around the world are prioritising benevolence. This annual global study found remarkable worldwide growth during 2021 in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll: helping strangers, volunteering and donations. All three measures were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25 per cent more than at pre-pandemic times. “This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves,” says report co-author, John Helliwell.
Volunteering brings us closer to others
A study published in the Journal of Individual Differences, called “Selflessness and Feeling in Harmony with Others Coincides with Greater Happiness,” suggests there’s more to happiness than feeling satisfied with one’s life. The study found that experiencing the self as interdependent coincided with increased happiness through feeling greater harmony with others.
Cause and effect –aren’t happier people just more likely to volunteer
For decades there has been a lot of cynicism around positive psychology research. When the many benefits of volunteering started being reported upon, many people asked (and rightly so) whether volunteering really makes people happier, or was it simply a case of happier people being more likely to volunteer? Thankfully a study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies and aptly titled “Does Volunteering Make Us Happier, or Are Happier People More Likely to Volunteer? Addressing the Problem of Reverse Causality When Estimating the Wellbeing Impacts of Volunteering,” helps to answers this question. It turns out there is strong correlation and so we can say, without a doubt, on volunteering makes people happier. Not only that, but the study also showed the association between volunteering and subjective wellbeing, and its equivalent wellbeing value of £911 per volunteer per year on average to compensate for the wellbeing increase associated with volunteering. Also, according to another study, this time from Harvard, volunteering at least once a week yields improvements to wellbeing equivalent to your annual salary doubling!
Volunteering gets you out of your own head
Finally, we know that similar to when we experience awe, volunteering can take your focus away from your own self-reflection and help to stimulate contentment and inspiration. So, if you’re feeling down, or in a rut, try finding somewhere to volunteer your time. In the Journal of Happiness Studies, researchers Douglas A. Gentile, Dawn M. Sweet and Lanmiao He again found that doing good deeds through acts of charity or volunteer work can make you feel better and happier, and they also found that simply wishing someone well can have a similarly positive effect on our moods. In fact, even witnessing acts of kindness produces oxytocin, which aids in lowering blood pressure, and improves self-esteem, optimism and our overall heart-health.
A 2018 study on workers in a Spanish Company saw those giving out acts of kindness were even happier and more content than those who received the acts. “Our results reveal that practicing everyday pro-sociality is both emotionally reinforcing and contagious inspiring kindness and generating hedonic rewards in others,” said researchers, J. Chancellor, S. Margolis, K, Jacobs Bao, S. Lyubomirsky in the American Psychological Association Journal.
