Volunteerism can help improve your health
Doing something for nothing for the benefit of others can improve blood pressure, well-being, writes Lucy Elkins
PICTURE this: A treatment without any side-effects, that is proving beneficial for those with hard-to-treat conditions. This breakthrough treatment is, in fact, volunteering. It might sound surprising, but there is a growing body of evidence that doing something for nothing for the benefit of others – be that helping out in a charity shop, for example, or reading to children in schools – can improve health in numerous ways, from improving blood pressure to extending your life.
For example, a study in The American Psychological Association’s journal Psychology and Ageing, found that older adults who volunteered for at least 200 hours per year had improved blood pressure, levels of physical activity and psychological well-being.
The researchers studied adults over 50, some volunteers and some not, and checked their blood pressure and fitness in 2006 and again four years later.
Earlier this month, a study involving 66 000 people published in the BMJ Open journal found mental and physical health were best among those who were frequent volunteers and worst in those who never did so.
And the results of a review published in the BMC Public Health journal in 2013 were so in favour of volunteering it was entitled: Is volunteering a public health invention?
The British researchers examined 40 studies involving volunteers and concluded it helped lower depression, improved well-being and reduced the risk of dying early by 22 percent.
“Older people seem to benefit most from doing it – and by that I mean over the age of 65,” says Clare Bambra, a professor of public health geography at Durham University, who was one of the authors of the study.
“The fact that volunteering reduces the risk of early mortality could, of course, be due to the fact those who volunteer are already in better shape physically.
“However, there are possible explanations: One being simply that it gets people out and about and that is beneficial, especially for older people as it helps keep them mobile and mentally stimulated. The other is that research has found that people who feel they are more engaged in their community tend to live longer: It could simply be it makes them happier.”
Studies, including one last year in the scientific journal Ageing Research Reviews, found a lack of social interaction is linked to an increased risk of dementia.
Another benefit of volunteering seems to stem from the fact it gets people out but involves less stress than comes with a job.
Certainly volunteering has improved Liza Payne’s health. It helped her tackle the anxiety and depression that had plagued her since 2005, when she was held up at knifepoint at the shop where she worked.
Previously happy and outgoing, within a month of the incident Liza, now 40, lost all her confidence.
“I even got panicky when someone knocked at the door or the phone rang,” says Payne, an administrator for the British NHS.
“What started as feelings of anxiety spiralled into full depression. I had to give up work and stopped going out,” she said.
The antidepressants her GP prescribed did nothing, but in 2012 she saw an advert asking for helpers to work in an online charity shop.
“I was so scared but I thought: ‘I can do this’. I started doing four hours a week and found that I got my confidence back. Volunteering has utterly transformed me.”
It is not just psychological issues that it can help with. For Arike Owneyo, it has helped combat her chronic pain.
The former dancer and mother of one, 38, suffers with hypermobility syndrome, meaning the ligaments that should help hold her joints in place are abnormally weak and loose. As a result she is prone to recurrent injuries and her joints cause her constant pain.
“From having been really active suddenly I was in so much pain I could only shuffle about like an old woman,” says Arike. For years, she relied on painkillers, but then found relief from an unexpected source – volunteering. For the past year she has worked in her local Oxfam shop for four hours one day a week.
“When I am there I forget about my pain and feel good about who I am and what I am doing.”
Some health professionals are so convinced of the benefits of volunteering they are recommending it to their patients, among them Honey Langcaster-James, a psychologist at the University of Hull, who is also a practising psychologist.
“Doing things for others makes you feel good about yourself and this can help alleviate both anxiety and depression.
“And it will help to shift the focus away from the illness or the aches and pains.”
However, Bambra warns there can be too much of a good thing.
“The caveat is that it is better to do up to 10 hours a month,” she says.
“If you do more than that, the evidence is that the benefits stop.
“It could be that it becomes more of an obligation.” – Daily Mail