Slices of Life
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
2 of 3 free articles.
Emotions are powerful forces within each of us. They can impact our day, our year - perhaps even our life. How we feel about something influences our reactions to it. How we feel dictates our response to the world, the environment.
And by and large all of this is beyond our control, correct? Maybe so, maybe not.
What if our feelings were within our control? What a superpower that would be.
What a superpower it is!
I spent most of my life not realizing this. I drifted in and out of positivity and negativity without understanding why. I still don’t completely understand, but I’ve contemplated it quite a bit and want to share with you.
Having said that, I believe you already know these truths, in your heart.
Think about a time you were really angry; we’ll all been there. Anger is instantaneously followed by a surge of adrenaline. It can burn slowly or ignite in an instant. Whether the anger is warranted or not doesn’t really matter. Being right doesn’t matter. Anger ignites a fire in us that leaves us… tired. Even if we are 100 percent right in our anger, the righteous indignation doesn’t fuel our soul.
It leaves us empty.
Because you can’t fuel the soul at the expense of another soul. That’s wired into our DNA.
An adrenaline rush may heighten your abilities, making you feel invincible. You heart may race. You may feel excited. Nervous. Anxious. This heightened awareness can last up to about an hour and then you are spent.
After the rush, you might experience fatigue, irritability, dizziness, nausea, chest pain and shortness of breath. You might even have trouble sleeping.
All of this, because of anger. Being angry only makes you feel worse than before you were angry. Seems rather like a waste of time and energy.
In that, let’s flip the coin, to something completely devoid of anger: kindness.
Like anger, kindness poses real physical repercussions to our physical being.
Unlike the adrenaline rush often caused by anger, kindness has no time limit, and it’s benefits claim the same. They include increased empathy, compassion, self-esteem, improved mood and decreased stress.
All those positive outcomes happen because kindness can stimulate the production of a hormone called oxytocin.
Oxytocin is linked to feelings of connection, bonding, and trust. The release of oxytocin leads to a cascade of positive effects like reduced stress, lower blood pressure and improved cardiovascular health.
In fact, studies have shown that repeated oxytocin exposure can lead to sustained effects. The more kindness you experience the better off you’ll be. Kindness builds upon itself!
But hold on, because it gets even better.
Within a kindness interaction one might think the person being kind would benefit from an oxytocin surge, and this is true. But it’s been shown that the receiver also experiences increased levels of oxytocin. And, the overall goodness doesn’t stop there. You don’t have to personally participate in acts of kindness to benefit from them. Simply witnessing someone else being kind can trigger the production of oxytocin.
Talk about a win-win-win situation.
It’s almost like kindness and anger, both emotional states, have opposing effects on our physical bodies - because they do. Go figure.
So, with that knowledge, how can we pump up our chances of fueling a positive surge of oxytocin?
The takeaway is obvious: cultivate kindness while avoiding anger. Easier said than done in our current state of affairs. (But let’s not get political, shall we?)
It’s a lesson we all learned in kindergarten. Avoid the negative and cultivate the positive - through kindness. It’s as simple and as obvious as that. Find what makes you happy and pursue that. Find what makes you angry and avoid that. Make yourself the recipient of kindness.
And the best way to be the recipient of kindness in your life is to first create it yourself. So simple.
Almost like a kindergartner could understand it.
Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright and author. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.
