Motives Matter: Volunteering to Help Others Improves Longevity

The road to health may be paved with altruistic intentions, according to a new study published in the online journal Health Psychology.

Researchers studied the motives of participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which has followed a group of more than 10,000 people since their high-school graduation in 1957. Those who volunteered because of their desire to help others or to make social connections were less than half as likely to die during the 4-year study period than participants who didn’t volunteer. People with self-focused motives for volunteering — for example, volunteering in order to escape your own troubles or volunteering because it makes you feel good about yourself — didn’t show the same decreases in mortality.

These results suggest that social connection plays an important role in physical health. Although the methods of the study don’t allow researchers to understand the physical mechanism exactly, it’s possible that volunteering for altruistic reasons gives people a sense of meaningfulness. Philosophers and psychologists have long described the importance of meaningfulness for mental health.

Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning explained:

“The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

In times of struggle, when the meaning of your own life is less than clear, reaching out to others may be just what the doctor ordered. Altruism connects us to the interdependent web of existence and opens our hearts to others. That allows us to give and to receive gifts of social support.

Find volunteer opportunities in your own back yard using the zip code search functions at www.volunteermatch.org or www.serve.gov. Better yet? Reach out to friends of family members who could use your help but won’t ask for it. The more you give, the longer you’ll live.