What are you doing?

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. 

I acted and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranith Tagore

I just finished reading excerpts from an  article that was posted in August 2011 in the journal Health Psychology.  The writers quoted statistics from a study that was done in Wisconsin, where a random sample of over 10,000 Wisconsin residents who had graduated from high school in the late 1950's were interviewed over a 16 year period.


The article states: *** "In 2004, the participants reported how often they had volunteered within the past 10 years. They also explained their reasons for volunteering, or, in the cases of those who had not volunteered  but were planning to, the reasons they would.

Some of the participants' motives were more oriented toward others, such as "I feel it is important to help others" or "Volunteering is an important activity to the people I know best." Other respondents, however, had more self-oriented reasons for volunteering, such as "Volunteering is a good escape from my own troubles," or "Volunteering makes me feel better about myself."

Researchers then compared the participants' responses with physical health information that had mostly been collected in 1992. The researchers also considered the respondents' socioeconomic status, mental health, social support, marital status and health risk factors, including smoking, body mass index and alcohol use.

The findings showed that those who volunteered for more altruistic reasons had lower mortality rates as of 2008 than people who did not volunteer. Of the 2,384 non-volunteers, 4.3 percent were deceased four years later, compared with 1.6 percent of altruistic volunteers who had died.

However, people who said they volunteered for their own personal satisfaction had nearly the same mortality rate (4 percent) as people who did not volunteer at all.

"It is reasonable for people to volunteer in part because of benefits to the self; however, our research implies that, ironically, should these benefits to the self become the main motive for volunteering, they may not see those benefits," said study researcher Andrea Fuhrel-Forbis, also of the University of Michigan." ***

My  mother-in-law, who is 78 years old still volunteers one day a week at the local food pantry and does volunteer sewing for the charitable organization, Newborns in Need.  She does this because she loves to help where help is needed! The added benefit is that she is healthier and happier because of her service to others!

My challenge today is this: Look around your community and find something that needs to be done.  We all have opportunities to help.  


You may find, like my mother-in-law and many others that the blessings of volunteerism are worth it!

Blessings,

Sharon

*** To read the entire article about the benefits of volunteering go to: http://news.yahoo.com/people-volunteer-live-longer-study-suggests-115806902.html