“Do you think you are a kind person?” If I asked you this question, most likely you would answer “Yes.” Or, “Yeah, well, most of the time.” Or, a brutally honest person might quip, “Not anymore.” Most people believe they are—deep down—a kind person. Moreover, people rate kindness at the top of their list for qualities cherished in a romantic partner, as a value in raising children, and a desirable trait in a boss. Yes, kindness tops our wish lists in what we seek in others.
The truth is that most of us value kindness and have the desire to express it. At the same time, people are wondering what happened to kindness. Me included. These days, it seems the world is beset with renewed vigor and exultation of meanness—from bully pulpits, isolation politics, racism, and gender discrimination. It’s a kind of a cool-to-be-cruel culture out there. Moreover, social media amplifies polarized opinions and overexposure of the terror du jour. Who can take another terrorist attack or public shooting? Many people are caught in the vast middle ground of complacency, exhaustion, or fear. The thing is: kindness erodes in stressful environments. This means we must try a little bit harder to be kind. Yes, we really do.
To Be Human Is to Be Kind
What is kindness? Simply put, kindness is love in action. It is any act of love that reflects genuine caring. Such kindheartedness is the embodiment of your feelings of warmth and generosity toward others and the world at large. It is your desire to bring relief to those who are suffering, also referred to kindness’s twin sister, compassion. In this way, kindness is both a quality of loving presence and an orientation to life that is intentional and active. We need it to thrive.
Kindness is an inner resource. It is not some quaint, saccharine, suspect, or weak characteristic. It is wired into our DNA. We all have a deep instinct to care. It developed from our need to care for vulnerable babies, who require years of nurturing. This made us a super-caregiving species, which—from one generation to the next—rewired and refined our nervous systems. Compassion and kindness are so much a part of the human blueprint that they are “embedded into the folds of our brains,” as the researcher and academic Dacher Keltner puts it. This means that we need to nurture kindness.
The Kindness Trap
The seed for kindness springs from the ability to be empathic. The killer of kindness is stress, and in extreme cases, trauma. But most of us have habituated to some form of stress, which is like a slow-dripping poison that gradually weakens and disempowers your capacity for empathy and, therefore, for kindness. The American Psychological Association’s Stress in America surveys show upward trends of high levels of stress across many groups. Our own personal distress and fears of an uncertain future keep us in a survival mentality, which makes it difficult to draw on our kinder natures. I call this effect Self-Protective Empathy Lethargy, or SPEL. It creeps up when we are consumed with ourselves: too busy, tired, afraid, overworked, overwhelmed, tethered to distractions like technology, or simply burned out. Basically, too consumed with coping to care. Any of us can get caught under a SPEL, for internal or external reasons. It all comes down to how you respond to the things that trigger stress and purposely activating your kindness instinct.
Perhaps the untold secret of kindness is not that it’s just a nice-to-have quality but is essential for a happy life. To break a SPEL, we need to cultivate practices of kindness. Sometimes this means getting uncomfortable and stretching yourself a bit to help others. Being kind inherently takes courage, since we must be willing to experience the vulnerability of connecting with other people—especially those who are different than us.
Breaking the SPEL
Here’s the thing: Practicing kindness and compassion change you for the better. Modern science is proving what spiritual masters and wisdom traditions have been prescribing for eons. For the skeptics who need proof, rest assured that the evidence is in and growing. Studies from a broad range of sciences repeatedly show positive effects of kindness on personal and collective well-being, in areas as diverse as physical health, emotional health, relationships, life satisfaction, communities, and even economies. Here are some of the things we’re learning that kindness can do:
- Activate emotional regulation and compassion networks in the brain
- Alleviate symptoms related to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans
- Protect against compassion fatigue in helping professionals and first responders
- Lessen migraines and symptoms of chronic pain
- Promote positive attitudes and compassion toward oneself and others
- Lessen biases against minorities
- Improve body image
- Strengthen romantic relationships
- Improve symptoms related to depression, anxiety, and social isolation in teenagers
- Foster stress resilience and prosocial behaviors in young children
- Promote longevity in those who volunteer
Kindness, it turns out, is a happiness fix. And you have the wiring and the natural motivation to grow kindness from the inside out. Take this quiz to find out what your Kindness Quotient is and where there is room to grow.
Tara Cousineau, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, researcher, and a parent of two teenage girls in Boston, MA. Her expertise spans child and adolescent health, women’s health, mind-body medicine, the science of happiness, and the use of innovative technologies to promote positive coping and wellbeing. Her forthcoming book The Kindness Cure will be available from New Harbinger Publications in February 2018.