21 May 2012

Why Kindness is so Amazing and some Sprinkles

With everything going on with Luke lately I have been reading and discovering a lot about the brain. I am never going to understand it completely and will really only understand the basics but oh my goodness what an AMAZING  muscle the brain is! Atm I am reading '10 mindful minutes' by Goldie Hawn, I found that the book is much more helpful for my parenting with Blake and not so much with Luke but it has provided some basic knowledge on how the brain works and right now I am really watching Luke's brain make many new connections in his brain everyday. I also came across a book in the shop the other day that was about people who has had severe accidents or were retarded etc. and they learnt to connect different parts of there brains so that they could function in everyday life. If they can do it then I am sure that my healthy little Luke can  connect as many pathways in his brain as possible to get everything working better!
(last week I put a pack in a book and returned the book to the library)

It is possible for the brain to do many many things but one of the things that sparked my interest is that you can 'literally grow your brains ability to care' by performing acts of kindness you release dopamine  and activate the brains pleasure centres and the effects last over a long period of time!! Isn't that Amazing. Research shows that by doing five acts of kindness a week can boost our mood, reduce depression, increase optimism, we feel less isolation, we have greater joyfulness, we create more resilience within ourselves AND it strengthens our immune system and boost our health!
That is a lot that you get back from doing something nice for someone else!
(Luke taking a break in the car)

These acts of kindness can be simple things like:
Helping someone at work or school.
Cheering someone up.
Opening a door for someone.
Letting someone go in front of you at the checkout.
Give a friend a hug.
Telling someone that they did a great job.
Helping an elderly person (cross the street, or with there bags or up some stairs or put there shopping trolley back!).
Give a smile.
Say thank you to the people you see, make them feel appreciated.
give someone a bunch of home grown flowers.
Why not get creative with your kindness!

Remember that by doing acts of kindness you get so much back but also in turn often the recipient will pass it on in some way because you made them feel good. Share what you did with your family  because it is such a great thing for kids and adults to learn and sharing with them also boost there happiness because they imagine how you felt when you did something nice and they then get a happiness kick themselves.

Do you wanna do some acts of kindness with me?


2 comments:

Sami said...

Interesting article Aimee.

Nell said...

LOVE the new blog header! Sending hugs for Luke as I won't be at kindy Wednesday (back Thursday though!)
xxx