Nature MadeSAM-e Complete™**

• SAM-e basics
• good mood blog
• explore SAM-e
• try SAM-e

Most Recent Posts

• Alone in the Wild
• Central Coast Photoblog
• Quotation Tuesday 7!
• All Posts
  • Nature Made Lisa
  • Brigitte

Paying it Forward: Helping Others to Help Your Mood

“You don’t need much to change the world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you’ve got.” This quote from the 2000 film Pay it Forward illustrates that one of the keys to getting yourself in a better mood and improving your life is often to start by utilizing the resources around you. One way to do this is to help others. Sure, I told you about ways you can volunteer and make others feel better, but there are simple gestures that can make a huge difference in someone’s mood.

Helping Others is Step One
From college students who spend their spring breaks rebuilding homes in New Orleans, to celebrities endorsing an array of international social causes, helping your fellow man has suddenly emerged as the latest trend in self-improvement - and for good reason. It seems that helping others regularly is essential to bettering your well-being, moderating mood swings, and boosting your immune system.  A recent study found that doing something for the benefit of someone else helps to release endorphins in the body that create a sensation similar to a “runner’s high.” This release relieves tension within the body and boosts the immune system. The study goes on to say that just thinking of others boosts key disease-fighting antibodies. Other studies even claim that doing and thinking of others helps people to have fewer colds, headaches, backaches, and can even offer relief for an array of chronic illnesses. 

How to Start
Many of the ways to help others are pretty obvious. Point out and compliment not so obvious qualities to your friends and loved ones. Acknowledge their patience, perseverance, kindness, or simply how important they are to you. Help an elderly person with their groceries, tip a little extra at a restaurant, volunteer at a local shelter, or compliment a friend’s hairstyle or outfit. Giving others a boost will certainly pay dividends in increasing your personal good mood.  

Be Creative
Stretch yourself when you think of others and try to do things that are unexpected, original, and even anonymous. Try paying for the person’s order behind you in a fast food drive in, or even leaving a bag of clothes on the door step of a needy family. Maybe just take a little extra time introducing your co-workers or family members to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Friend or follow them, and maybe even take a few seconds out of your day to leave a positive or encouraging message on their Facebook wall or send an @reply them via Twitter. Go out of your way, push yourself, and be inventive. 

Pay it Forward
It is often difficult to comprehend, but one of the secrets to getting in a better mood is to simply step away from yourself for a moment, look around, realize the needs of others near you, and address what you can. Extend a helping hand or give a compliment. You may be surprised just how effective and invaluable these simple, inexpensive acts can be. Just wait; that person you helped cross the street or that waiter you just tipped an extra 10 percent may just pay it forward to someone else. What are some of your suggestions for extending a helping hand to others?

Pay it Forward illustrates that one of the keys to getting yourself in a better mood and improving your life is often to start by utilizing the resources around you. One way to do this is to help others. Sure, I told you about ways you can volunteer and make others feel better, but there are simple gestures that can make a huge difference in someone’s mood.

" />