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Volunteering: Good For The Body As Well As The Soul
Research shows tangible benefits to physical health for those who give up their time for others.
Most people will have volunteered at some point in their lives, whether it was going into a kindergarten class to wash paint pots or offering up time to man a refreshment stand at the church fundraiser.
However, how many of us can honestly say that we regularly give our time without the expectation of being paid for it? As we struggle to achieve a work-life balance with our paid jobs, anything that’s not obligatory can easily fall by the wayside, despite our good intentions.
Well, if you’ve been meaning to get around to volunteering, then you might want to bite the bullet — because a study has shown it could help you live longer, as well as giving you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.
Researchers at Harvard University were able to find demonstrable benefits for the health and wellbeing of older adults who completed regular volunteer work, they outlined in an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Using a combination of interviews, survey responses from the US Health and Retirement Study and clinical data gathered between 2010 and 2016, the team was able to show that over-50s who…
