Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research that Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life - Hardcover
A longer life. A happier life. A healthier life. Above all, a life that matters—so that when you leave this world, you’ll have changed it for the better. If science said you could have all this just by altering one behavior, would you?
Dr. Stephen Post has been making headlines by funding studies at the nation’s top universities to prove once and for all the life-enhancing benefits of caring, kindness, and compassion. The exciting new research shows that when we give of ourselves, especially if we start young, everything from life-satisfaction to self-realization and physical health is significantly affected. Mortality is delayed. Depression is reduced. Well-being and good fortune are increased. In their life-changing new book, Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Dr. Post and journalist Jill Neimark weave the growing new science of love and giving with profoundly moving real-life stories to show exactly how giving unlocks the doors to health, happiness, and a longer life.
The astounding new research includes a fifty-year study showing that people who are giving during their high school years have better physical and mental health throughout their lives. Other studies show that older people who give live longer than those who don’t. Helping others has been shown to bring health benefits to those with chronic illness, including HIV, multiple sclerosis, and heart problems. And studies show that people of all ages who help others on a regular basis, even in small ways, feel happiest.
Why Good Things Happen to Good People offers ten ways to give of yourself, in four areas of life, all proven by science to improve your health and even add to your life expectancy. (And not one requires you to write a check.) The one-of-a-kind “Love and Longevity Scale” scores you on all ten ways, from volunteering to listening, loyalty to forgiveness, celebration to standing up for what you believe in. Using the lessons and guidelines in each chapter, you can create a personalized plan for a more generous life, finding the style of giving that suits you best.
The astonishing connection between generosity and health is so convincing that it will inspire readers to change their lives in ways big and small. Get started today. A longer, healthier, happier life awaits you.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Stephen Post, PhD, is a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine. He is president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, and his work has appeared in top journals such as JAMA, Science, and The Lancet.
Jill Neimark is a journalist, novelist, and former features editor for Psychology Today whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, and Discover.
One
Find the Fire
If I could take one word with me into eternity, it would be "give."
For the past eighteen years I've taught medical ethics at Case Western University Medical School, and since 2001 I've run a research institute dedicated to exploring the extraordinary power of giving. We've funded over fifty studies at forty-four major universities.
I have one simple message to offer and it's this: giving is the most potent force on the planet. Giving is the one kind of love you can count on, because you can always choose it: it's always within your power to give. Giving will protect you your whole life long.
Most of us can recall with radiant clarity those moments when giving was receiving, when another's happiness was our own. After fifty-five years on this earth, I, like you, hold those moments as my most precious. But I also know about the power of giving because, as head of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL), I've funded studies and seen scientific proof. Pioneering scientists across many disciplines are pursuing a whole new topography of research focused on the traits and qualities that create happiness, health, contentment, and lasting success in life. These scientists are discovering the deep, remarkable impact of benevolent behavior on mental and physical health. Personally, I am now convinced that giving is the answer to the malaise that corrodes many lives today, a malaise born of too much "bowling alone," as the sociologist Robert Putnam describes our fragmented lives.
You wish to be happy? Loved? Safe? Secure? You want to turn to others in tough times and count on them? You want the warmth of true connection? You'd like to walk into the world each day knowing that this is a place of benevolence and hope? Then I have one answer: give. Give daily, in small ways, and you will be happier. Give and you will be healthier. Give, and you will even live longer.
Generous behavior shines a protective light over the entire life span. The startling findings from our many studies demonstrate that if you engage in helping activities as a teen, you will still be reaping health benefits sixty or seventy years later. And no matter when you adopt a giving lifestyle, your well-being will improve, even late in life. Generous behavior is closely associated with reduced risk of illness and mortality and lower rates of depression. Even more remarkable, giving is linked to traits that undergird a successful life, such as social competence, empathy, and positive emotion. By learning to give, you become more effective at living itself.
As psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger wrote, "Love cures--both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." This book will show you why giving is scientifically sound advice, and by the time you're finished reading these pages, you'll have many tools for embarking on a healthier, more giving lifestyle yourself.
Romance of a Different Kind
This book has one purpose: to inspire you to a healthier, more giving lifestyle. It offers:
*The latest scientific findings connecting generous behavior and happiness, health and longevity, as well as a look toward future science
*A practical roadmap detailing the distinctly different ways of giving available to all of us every day that will allow you to think about daily giving concretely, chapter by chapter
*Stories of giving, for what is life but a tapestry of stories? We are meaning-making creatures, and stories inspire us
*A new and unique Love and Longevity Scale, developed by top scientists, with which you can self-rate your own strengths and gifts
*Simple, practical suggestions and exercises to help you shift easily and gradually to a life of greater giving
You'll notice, as you read this book, that when I speak of giving and love, I rarely mention romantic infatuation. What of the face that launched a thousand ships? The rose that, by any other name, would smell as sweet? The troubadours, music, poetry, art, and wars waged because of love?
Romantic attraction is a pleasure-driven passion that carries its own unique brain chemistry, marked by fevered highs and, at times, wrenching lows. When we "fall" in love, infatuation propels us to ride a tidal wave of overwhelmingly positive feelings, so that we see our beloved as perfection incarnate. This early bliss helps propagate the species--but it tends to be fleeting. Though falling in love is an experience we all cherish, it is not the kind of love that does the heavy lifting in life. Staying in love requires the many expressions of generous behavior that are the core of this book. I have been married for twenty-five years. It's fair to say that my marriage began with romantic infatuation. Friendship emerged because it had to. After the birth of our daughter, cooperation and tolerance became essential; in fact, the transition to parenthood was one of the most maturing events of my life. But even the new, cooperative friendship that developed as we became parents would not have been enough to hold us together over the decades. A deeper kind of love emerged, one grounded in compassion, hope, forgiveness, loyalty, tolerance, respect.
In every marriage that begins with the dizzying highs of romance, it is the deeper, quieter ways of love that ultimately sustain it. The Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who has followed the lives of Harvard graduates for half a century, gives the example of a judge who met his wife in high school. At age sixty-five, he reported that his love was "much deeper than at the beginning." At age seventy-seven, he said, "As life gets shorter, I love Cecily even more." This book is about that kind of love. And it is giving that renews and sustains love over time.
How Did a Bioethicist End Up Running an Institute on Love?
One evening in the year 2000, at Duke University, a philanthropist named Sir John Templeton sat with me over a friendly cup of tea and suggested that I start an institute to study love, and love alone. Sir John is legendary in the investing world for creating one of the most successful mutual funds of the last century. His specialty was to identify emerging markets so that stimulating business could benefit the local economy. Knighted in 1987 for his achievements, Sir John retired to the Bahamas and began a unique kind of philanthropy. His foundation gives away $60 million a year for both spiritual and scientific endeavors and achievement. His annual Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities offers about $1.5 million a year and has been awarded to everybody from Mother Teresa to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the physicist Paul Davies.
I was a bit floored by Sir John's suggestion. When I came to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1988, I chose to focus on the needs of Alzheimer's sufferers and their families. I was drawn to these people I call the "deeply forgetful" because I had seen my own grandmother die of Alzheimer's. I knew that even in the haze of dementia, she could still give and receive love--in fact, it was the only language left to her. These patients revealed to me the simple truth that love is our core. I learned a lot about giving from the deeply forgetful and their families as I traveled around the country holding focus groups. Sir John knew this, and he himself had long been captivated by the idea of unselfish love.
A few months after we'd shared tea, Sir John wrote me to continue the conversation; he asked that I establish a first-class scientific institute to study the impact of love and giving on our lives. Soon after, I sat down with the dean of Case Medical School, Nathan A. Berger, to discuss it. "Nate," I said, "public health is about more than the flu and lead paint and obesity. It's also about benevolence and generosity and hope. Love is actually powerful medicine. We all know that--Harry Harlow told us that half a century ago--but we don't study it enough."
In 1951 the psychologist Harry Harlow had offered an extraordinary presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Harlow was one of the first scientists to bring love into the lab. His controversial studies of baby monkeys clinging to cloth-and-wire "moms" are unforgettable--they showed us how deep and hardwired the need for affection and warmth is. "Love," Harlow said, "is a wondrous state, deep, tender and regarding . . . [and yet] psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives." He challenged the entire audience of his peers, asking why we study hatred, violence, fear, pornography, but not positive emotions.
Nate got my point. Visionaries like Nate Berger and Sir John Templeton are rare. And so, in 2001, with a generous start-up grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded as an independent entity located at Case Medical School.
Many colleagues of mine, even good friends, have been amused by the name of the Institute. When you accept a challenge like Sir John's, you've got to shore up a lot of nerve to push it forward. And so I embrace the skepticism I encounter. It's one of the delightful challenges of this kind of work, and increasingly, people have come to take the Institute seriously.
When people ask me what the Institute does, I have three answers. The first: we fund pioneering, high-level, empirical research on unselfish love in every aspect from human development and genetics to positive psychology and sociology. The second: Remember what Mr. Rogers said after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? He was asked on television what parents should tell their children about the terrorist attacks and his simple answer was: "Keep your eye on the helpers." That is what this institute does: it keeps an eye on the helpers, literally studying their good heart...
Find the Fire
If I could take one word with me into eternity, it would be "give."
For the past eighteen years I've taught medical ethics at Case Western University Medical School, and since 2001 I've run a research institute dedicated to exploring the extraordinary power of giving. We've funded over fifty studies at forty-four major universities.
I have one simple message to offer and it's this: giving is the most potent force on the planet. Giving is the one kind of love you can count on, because you can always choose it: it's always within your power to give. Giving will protect you your whole life long.
Most of us can recall with radiant clarity those moments when giving was receiving, when another's happiness was our own. After fifty-five years on this earth, I, like you, hold those moments as my most precious. But I also know about the power of giving because, as head of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL), I've funded studies and seen scientific proof. Pioneering scientists across many disciplines are pursuing a whole new topography of research focused on the traits and qualities that create happiness, health, contentment, and lasting success in life. These scientists are discovering the deep, remarkable impact of benevolent behavior on mental and physical health. Personally, I am now convinced that giving is the answer to the malaise that corrodes many lives today, a malaise born of too much "bowling alone," as the sociologist Robert Putnam describes our fragmented lives.
You wish to be happy? Loved? Safe? Secure? You want to turn to others in tough times and count on them? You want the warmth of true connection? You'd like to walk into the world each day knowing that this is a place of benevolence and hope? Then I have one answer: give. Give daily, in small ways, and you will be happier. Give and you will be healthier. Give, and you will even live longer.
Generous behavior shines a protective light over the entire life span. The startling findings from our many studies demonstrate that if you engage in helping activities as a teen, you will still be reaping health benefits sixty or seventy years later. And no matter when you adopt a giving lifestyle, your well-being will improve, even late in life. Generous behavior is closely associated with reduced risk of illness and mortality and lower rates of depression. Even more remarkable, giving is linked to traits that undergird a successful life, such as social competence, empathy, and positive emotion. By learning to give, you become more effective at living itself.
As psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger wrote, "Love cures--both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." This book will show you why giving is scientifically sound advice, and by the time you're finished reading these pages, you'll have many tools for embarking on a healthier, more giving lifestyle yourself.
Romance of a Different Kind
This book has one purpose: to inspire you to a healthier, more giving lifestyle. It offers:
*The latest scientific findings connecting generous behavior and happiness, health and longevity, as well as a look toward future science
*A practical roadmap detailing the distinctly different ways of giving available to all of us every day that will allow you to think about daily giving concretely, chapter by chapter
*Stories of giving, for what is life but a tapestry of stories? We are meaning-making creatures, and stories inspire us
*A new and unique Love and Longevity Scale, developed by top scientists, with which you can self-rate your own strengths and gifts
*Simple, practical suggestions and exercises to help you shift easily and gradually to a life of greater giving
You'll notice, as you read this book, that when I speak of giving and love, I rarely mention romantic infatuation. What of the face that launched a thousand ships? The rose that, by any other name, would smell as sweet? The troubadours, music, poetry, art, and wars waged because of love?
Romantic attraction is a pleasure-driven passion that carries its own unique brain chemistry, marked by fevered highs and, at times, wrenching lows. When we "fall" in love, infatuation propels us to ride a tidal wave of overwhelmingly positive feelings, so that we see our beloved as perfection incarnate. This early bliss helps propagate the species--but it tends to be fleeting. Though falling in love is an experience we all cherish, it is not the kind of love that does the heavy lifting in life. Staying in love requires the many expressions of generous behavior that are the core of this book. I have been married for twenty-five years. It's fair to say that my marriage began with romantic infatuation. Friendship emerged because it had to. After the birth of our daughter, cooperation and tolerance became essential; in fact, the transition to parenthood was one of the most maturing events of my life. But even the new, cooperative friendship that developed as we became parents would not have been enough to hold us together over the decades. A deeper kind of love emerged, one grounded in compassion, hope, forgiveness, loyalty, tolerance, respect.
In every marriage that begins with the dizzying highs of romance, it is the deeper, quieter ways of love that ultimately sustain it. The Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant, who has followed the lives of Harvard graduates for half a century, gives the example of a judge who met his wife in high school. At age sixty-five, he reported that his love was "much deeper than at the beginning." At age seventy-seven, he said, "As life gets shorter, I love Cecily even more." This book is about that kind of love. And it is giving that renews and sustains love over time.
How Did a Bioethicist End Up Running an Institute on Love?
One evening in the year 2000, at Duke University, a philanthropist named Sir John Templeton sat with me over a friendly cup of tea and suggested that I start an institute to study love, and love alone. Sir John is legendary in the investing world for creating one of the most successful mutual funds of the last century. His specialty was to identify emerging markets so that stimulating business could benefit the local economy. Knighted in 1987 for his achievements, Sir John retired to the Bahamas and began a unique kind of philanthropy. His foundation gives away $60 million a year for both spiritual and scientific endeavors and achievement. His annual Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities offers about $1.5 million a year and has been awarded to everybody from Mother Teresa to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the physicist Paul Davies.
I was a bit floored by Sir John's suggestion. When I came to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1988, I chose to focus on the needs of Alzheimer's sufferers and their families. I was drawn to these people I call the "deeply forgetful" because I had seen my own grandmother die of Alzheimer's. I knew that even in the haze of dementia, she could still give and receive love--in fact, it was the only language left to her. These patients revealed to me the simple truth that love is our core. I learned a lot about giving from the deeply forgetful and their families as I traveled around the country holding focus groups. Sir John knew this, and he himself had long been captivated by the idea of unselfish love.
A few months after we'd shared tea, Sir John wrote me to continue the conversation; he asked that I establish a first-class scientific institute to study the impact of love and giving on our lives. Soon after, I sat down with the dean of Case Medical School, Nathan A. Berger, to discuss it. "Nate," I said, "public health is about more than the flu and lead paint and obesity. It's also about benevolence and generosity and hope. Love is actually powerful medicine. We all know that--Harry Harlow told us that half a century ago--but we don't study it enough."
In 1951 the psychologist Harry Harlow had offered an extraordinary presidential address to the American Psychological Association. Harlow was one of the first scientists to bring love into the lab. His controversial studies of baby monkeys clinging to cloth-and-wire "moms" are unforgettable--they showed us how deep and hardwired the need for affection and warmth is. "Love," Harlow said, "is a wondrous state, deep, tender and regarding . . . [and yet] psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives." He challenged the entire audience of his peers, asking why we study hatred, violence, fear, pornography, but not positive emotions.
Nate got my point. Visionaries like Nate Berger and Sir John Templeton are rare. And so, in 2001, with a generous start-up grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded as an independent entity located at Case Medical School.
Many colleagues of mine, even good friends, have been amused by the name of the Institute. When you accept a challenge like Sir John's, you've got to shore up a lot of nerve to push it forward. And so I embrace the skepticism I encounter. It's one of the delightful challenges of this kind of work, and increasingly, people have come to take the Institute seriously.
When people ask me what the Institute does, I have three answers. The first: we fund pioneering, high-level, empirical research on unselfish love in every aspect from human development and genetics to positive psychology and sociology. The second: Remember what Mr. Rogers said after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? He was asked on television what parents should tell their children about the terrorist attacks and his simple answer was: "Keep your eye on the helpers." That is what this institute does: it keeps an eye on the helpers, literally studying their good heart...
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- PublisherBroadway
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 0767920171
- ISBN 13 9780767920179
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