Amazing facts about kindness

Backed up by empirical evidence

I have always being fascinated by kindness and by the huge impact that even small, gentle acts can have on people's lives.

Over the past few years, the topic has sparked growing interest among psychologists, and I've recently had the opportunity to read many interesting studies about kindness and its effects, and I wanted to share some of the findings that I liked the most:

🌸 kind acts have a positive impact not only on those who receive them, but also on those who perform them;

🌸 both intentional and random acts of kindness can have a huge impact on the giver and the receiver;

🌸 similarly, kindness performed towards people we know and kindness performed towards strangers both have significant positive effects;

🌸 speaking of which, people often underestimate the impact their kindness can have on strangers, which is actually very profound;

🌸 practicing kindness-based types of meditation (for example, loving-kindness meditation, compassion-based meditation) can have a positive impact on mental health and, especially for children and adolescents, on cognitive functioning too;

🌸 practicing self-kindness and self-compassion is just as important as practicing kindness towards others;

🌸 watching 'kindness media' can have numerous positive emotional and behavioural effects on viewers, even when the exposure happens in stressful real-life settings;

🌸 kindness responds to the ripple effect: when people witness or experience acts of kindness, they are more likely to engage in kind behaviours themselves, contributing to a virtuous cycle that can continuously propagate.

Because if it is true that hate spreads fast, it is also true that love and kindness can spread just as much.

So, let’s be kind! And try to make this world a little more comfortable for everyone.

📚 Some of my references and free to read articles: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]