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Rx: It’s Good to be Good Over The Course of a Lifetime

post@stephengpost.com

2021

Aldous Huxley Late Life Advice

◼ “It's a little embarrassing that after 45 years of research & study, the best advice I can give people is to try to be a little kinder.” The Perennial Philosophy

Aging Well: Be Like Water

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Rockwell’s The Golden Rule: The

Right Kind of Oneness

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Flourishing Over a Life Time

HELPING

◼ 41% VOLUNTEERED IN 2009 ABOUT 100 HOURS/YEAR

◼ 89% agreed that “volunteering improved my sense of well-being”

◼ 73% “lowered my stress levels” (serenity)

◼ 92% “enriched sense of purpose in life”

◼ 68% “made me physically healthier”

◼ 77% “improves emotional health”

◼ 78% “helps recovery from loss and disappointment”

◼ Improved sleeping, friendships; reduced anxiety & helplessness, 25% volunteer through their workplace, and 76% of them feel better about employer as a result

◼ www.volunteermatch.org & United Healthcare

Sir John Templeton

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Reduced Mortality

◼ National study of older adults by Stanford University researchers: “….more frequent volunteering is associated with delayed mortality even when the effects of socio-demographics, medical and disability characteristics, self-ratings of physical activity

and social integration and support are controlled.” (Harris & Thoreson, “Volunteering is associated

with delayed mortality in older people: analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Aging,” J of Health Psychology, Vol. 10 (no. 6), 2005, pp. 739-752)

Preventing Hypertension

◼ 1100 older adults ages 51 to 91 were

interviewed and had BP checks in 2006

◼ Those subjects who were volunteering at least

200 hours (est. four hours per week) in the past

year at the time of their first interview were

40% less likely to have developed hypertension

four years later compared to nonvolunteers(Sneed, et al., “A prospective study of volunteers and hypertension

risk in older adults,” Psychology & Aging, Vol. 28, 2013, pp. 578-

586)

Preventing CVD Events

◼ CVD (n = 4,491) longitudinal national survey

compared those who gave unpaid assistance to

family and friends outside of their households

with those who did not

◼ Spending up to 200 hours over the prior 12

months (est. four hours per week) helping

others was strongly associated with lower odds

of a new CVD event & of depression(Michele Haislet, et al., “Adults with cardiovascular disease who help others:

a prospective study of health outcomes. Journal of Behavioral Medicine,

36(2), 2013:199-211)

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Sir John

◼ Who are the happiest people you have ever met? Let us write down the names of ten persons who continually bubble over with happiness, and we will probably find that most are men and women who radiate love for everyone. (John Marks Templeton, The Humble Approach, 1981, pp. 98 – 99)

Preventing Cognitive Decline

◼ Older adults who rated high quartile on a purpose of life scale had 30% lower rate of cognitive decline than the low quartile (PA

Boyle et al., “Effect of Purpose in Life on the Relation Between Alzheimer Disease Pathologic Changes on Cognitive Function in Advanced Age,” Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 69 (no. 5), 2012, pp. 499-504)

◼ Usually associated with helping others

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Purpose: Youth Essay Contests

◼ Picture of cover

Sir John’s Laws of Life: Positive Psychology

◼ Gratitude

◼ Kindness

◼ Honesty

◼ Service

◼ Humility

◼ Perseverance

◼ Patience

◼ Future-mindedness/vision

◼ Thrift

◼ Forgiveness

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Ancient China

◼ “Scent lingers on the hands of those who deliver flowers.”

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Donate to Meaningful Charities

◼ Just contemplating a donation activates the mesolimbic pathway, associated with feelings of happiness. (Moll, et al., “Human fronto-

mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Medicine, Vol. 103 (no.2), 2006, pp. 15623-15628)

Sir John’s Fax

CREATIVITY: Chagall UN Windows (1964)

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The Good Samaritan Window

Martin Buber

◼ I-It (egoism), I-You (altruism), I-Thou (sacredness), I-Me (Vedic)

Mental Healthwww.hopewell.cc

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A Purpose for Grandparents: Kind Kids

◼ Paul Bloom, Yale Child Studies Center◼ Toddlers between six months and one

year watch three puppets. Puppet One (P1) tries to climb up an incline; P2 helps; P3 pushes P1 down. After watching several times, the toddlers prefer P2, as evidenced by gaze and touch. “It wasn’t just a statistical trend; just about all babies reached for the good guy.”

◼ (Hamlin JK, Wynn K, Bloom P. Social evaluation in preverbal infants, Nature, 450, 2007, 557-9)

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Emily: A Simple Good Morning

Kids: The Bad

◼ The Yale studies reveal a disturbing aspect of human nature that is clear before age one

◼ A toddler who picks Cheerios for a snack over graham crackers will slam a lid on the helper puppet if it chose graham crackers. 87%!

◼ An innate tendency to create “us” versus “them”

300 Pre-Teens

300 pre-teens in the Bay Area followed every ten years since the 1920s. The one third who identified contributing to humanity as important were healthier and happier 50 years later, protected from depression & some physical illnesses. (P.

Wink & M. Dillon, In the Course of a Lifetime, 2007)

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Preventing Vascular Disease:

Vancouver High

◼ Grade 10 students: subjects volunteered one

hours per week for ten weeks; controls wait

listed

◼ Reduced inflammation/cholesterol, lower body

mass index, especially in those reporting

increases in empathy and well-being

◼ Predict cardiovascular disease, which is

spreading in adolescents. (M.C. Schreier et al., “Effect of

volunteering on risk factors for cardiovascular disease in adolescents: a

randomized controlled trial,” JAMA Pediatrics, Vol. 167 (no. 4), 2013,

pp. 327-332)

Scream Free Parenting

◼ 98% have unleashed a psychologically damaging outburst toward each of their children under age five

◼ Be a calming presence

◼ Learn to pause more and react less

◼ When parents learn to control their emotions and behaviors children follow

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Harvard Mastery of Stress Study

◼ 126 healthy men were randomly selected from the Harvard classes of 1952 and 1954. They responded to a questionnaire about how close they felt to their parents. 35 years later, 91% [82%] of those who did not perceive themselves to have had a close relationship with their mothers [fathers] had serious diagnosed diseases in midlife (high BP, heart disease, ulcers, alcoholism) as compared to 45% [50%] of those who had close relationships. (Russek LG, Schwartz GE, Perceptions of

parental caring predict health status in midlife: a 35-year follow-up of the Harvard Mastery of Street Study, Psychosomatic Med, 1997, 59(2), 144-149)

Helping Kids Turn Off Destructive

Emotions

◼ 27 Questions From the MMPI: 1950, age 25.

20% of high hostility quartile dead by age 50

(cardio-vascular disease); 2% low quartile. (Redford & Virginia Williams, Anger Kills, 1998)

◼ Protracted state of hostile emotions closely

correlates with vascular disease, hippocampal

atrophy, slower wound healing

◼ “Do not seek vengeance or bear a grudge, but

love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

Family Mission Statement

◼ Family mission statements (see Thomas Lickona, How to Raise Kind Kids 2018)

◼ Involve everyone and be intentional because “It lays the foundation for everything else you’ll do to raise children of character. It become the point of reference in family life.”

◼ Discuss it and develop it as a young family, have everyone sign it, and post it in the kitchen

◼ Return to it weekly (like motivational interviewing)

◼ Without an explicit written statement there is nothing to build on when there is a behavioral problem of conflict

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The James Family Statement

◼ We are kind, honest & respectful

◼ We don’t hurt others or lose our temper

◼ We express gratitude

◼ We do our chores

◼ We eat as a family with TV & computers off

◼ We do kind acts at school and in the neighborhood

◼ We volunteer as a family

4-Week Electronic Fasts

◼ American Academy of Pediatrics

◼ 2015 most 2-year-olds using mobile devices on a daily basis

◼ Teens 8 hours/day, 100 texts/day

◼ Loss of one-on-one conversations

◼ Family meal often lost to screens and grab & go

◼ Linked to chronic irritability, poor focus, depression, meltdowns, “oppositional-defiance”

◼ Dr. Victoria Dunckley, Reset Your Child’s Brain (4-week electronic fasts seems to help a lot, assert family guidelines)

◼ www.resetyourchildsbrain.com

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http://www.helpingotherslivesober.org

Recovery From Addiction

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A “Higher Power” and Helping Others in AA

◼ Alcoholics Anonymous, subtitled The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism, is called the “Big Book.” First printed in 1939, this treatment manual begins “We of Alcoholics Anonymous.” The Rx is captured in the passage, “we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an altruistic plane,…”(2001, p. xxvi).

Bill W.

◼ “Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers, depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help their needs.” (AA: The Big Book, p. 20)

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◼ 40% of high helpers were sober one year out, but only 22% of lower helpers

◼ helpers saw decreased depression levels (Pagano,

et al., “Helping others in Alcoholics Anonymous and drinking outcomes: findings from Project MATCH, J of Studies on Alcohol, Vol. 65 (no. 6), 2004, pp. 766-773)

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Overcoming Hatred: World Youth Day UN 8/12/2016

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Those Who Make No Mistakes Make Nothing

Don’t Second Guess Yourself

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Albert Schweitzer MD

◼ “Whatever you do in your life, how rich and famous you become, only those of you will be happy who have served others.”

What Is Success?

◼ Harvard “Making Caring Common” 80% of teens value achievement over kindness

◼ Harvard Grad School of Education Leah Shafer Raising Kind Children

◼ Slippage in teen years

◼ “rhetoric/reality gap”

◼ “affluenza”

◼ mcc.gse.harvard.edu

SIX-WORD MEMOIR

◼ Looking back on my life a decade from now, what six words would I want to describe my life as a person?

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“LOVE” AND “FLOW”

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