Our next positive emotion strategy in our series on increasing positive emotions is acts of kindness!
Acts of kindness can increase our own positive emotions, whether or not they make others feel positive (and they often do!). Even if we don’t feel like doing them that day, engaging in acts of kindness can improve our mood in the moment.
But doing acts of kindness regularly can also increase our positive emotions overall, increase our social confidence, and combat depression, anxiety, and social anxiety.
Emotional Minutes 45 discusses multiple benefits and examples of acts of kindness and how they help increase our positive emotions!
Hi. I’m Dr. Matt B, and these are your Emotional Minutes. It’s been a really hectic day, and I’m in the coffee line. As I sit here, I realize one thing that I think will bring up my mood and give me more positive emotions is to do an act of kindness. So, when I get coffee here, I will buy coffee for the car behind me. I actually don’t know who that person is.
Example of Act of Kindness
Now, I’m in this situation where it’s been a hectic day, and I’m experiencing some stress. My emotional state is not very consistent with an act of kindness. When we’re in these more negative, stressful, anxious, depressed, or other negative states, where we don’t feel like doing positive things, we can gain the most benefit. It might take us pushing our emotional envelope a little bit. I am going to try to do it now.
Even if the positive behavior doesn’t align with your mood, and even if you feel like you’re just going through the motions, it still has a lot of benefits. You end up feeling a lot more of that positive emotion.
I didn’t plan to do this. I started filming because I realized I am in this situation and have had a hectic day. When I went to get coffee, I realized this is a great time to talk about acts of kindness and try out an act of kindness. Really, as an experiment to see how it goes. As I order the coffee, I greet the employee with a “hey, how are you doing?” before asking if I can buy coffee for the car behind me.
Acts of Kindness
Acts of kindness are engaging in acts of kindness for others on purpose – even if we don’t really feel the desire to. That can be one of those beneficial things to boost our own emotions. They can have similar effects to what other positive emotions have. This means they focus our attention away from negative things and toward the positive.
One real significant effect that these can have, regardless of how the other person feels, is that they can make us feel really good about ourselves. It can give us a sense of accomplishment and value or as though we did something good for someone. The act of kindness can boost our positive emotions and our sense of self. The increased sense of self can help improve our mood and combat negative emotions like depression or anxiety.
Acts of kindness can also improve our social interactions. When we are in moments where we’re interacting socially, it improves or enhances our confidence as well. In terms of giving other people kindness, our actions can also really affect the other person. The other person might have a positive reaction, but we can’t control other people’s reactions, so no matter what response they have, it can give us a positive reaction and a positive sense of self. This can be a really good and beneficial experience!
Some people will ask if this is using acts of kindness for selfish reasons. However, the definition of selfishness doesn’t include the benefit of someone else. If you are giving a positive emotion, even if you’re going to get some benefit from the act of kindness, it inherently can’t be a selfish action. This is because it is benefiting another person. No matter how other people feel, it can be beneficial for us.
Doing Acts of Kindness
What are some ways to engage in acts of kindness? These might be small things we can do in everyday life. Maybe it’s buying someone else coffee, making something for someone, or donating something. For example, giving blood can be an act of kindness because it’s a generous sacrifice you make for someone else. Even saying hello to a stranger on the street can be an act of kindness. It can be small things that don’t cost you much time or money. Other ideas include visiting an elderly neighbor or bringing food to a family member.
These are all things that can boost our sense of positive emotion and our sense of self. These are usually best done if they’re not things that we have to do anyway. For example, suppose you’ve already volunteered to bring a family member to the doctor’s office, and you’re thinking about what acts of kindness you can do this week. In that case, it’s usually better if it’s something that you didn’t already agree to do. It’s generally better if it’s something that you plan out or do on the fly or a combination of both. No matter how you do it, doing a new thing, a novel activity or a new plan that you can make is better.
Like gratitude journaling, it’s good to engage in acts of kindness once a week and do around four or five of them. Sometimes, people like to even journal about these acts of kindness. For instance, they do four or five of them every Saturday afternoon and write how it made them feel. They can elaborate on what their emotions were and what their thoughts went to after they did it. This can be another way to boost attention toward these positive experiences.
Concluding Thoughts
This exercise with the coffee was off-the-cuff, and so is this Emotional Minutes video! Another thing I did was I bought some coffee for a friend that I am visiting. I am going to give it to him now.
Hopefully, today was helpful in talking about acts of kindness and different things you can do, whether they’re pre-planned or off-the-cuff. Either way, acts of kindness are intentional things. They can be small actions like taking a little time to help someone or create something.
I’m Dr. Matt B, and these are your Emotional Minutes. Stay tuned for more ways that you can boost or enhance your positive emotions. We’ll see you then!
