People Doing Good Things For Others (5 Examples)

Today’s blog post focuses on ‘people doing good things for others’. We begin our discussion with understanding the relationship between doing good and mental health. In it we separately take into consideration the physiological reasons for doing good for others and the psychological reasons for doing good for others. Lastly, we take into account the stories of people who did good for someone.

People Doing Good Things For Others:

We all wish to do good things, sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for others. Doing a good deed, especially for others, helps us make a positive impact in society and all the same time helps us feel good about ourselves that we could make a contribution, no matter how big or small it is. This feeling has led to 108 countries celebrating The Good Deeds Day, each year on 11th April. There have been a few people however, whose good deed has become known to the world.

Today we will be taking a look at a few of such people doing good for others.

They are:

Manny Pacquiao
Alaa Jaleel
Raymond Nelson
Shifra Baltinester
Students of Columbus Nebraska Elementary School
Anja Ringgren Loven
Scott Dunn’s classmates
Ranjitsinh Disdale
Trey Pyane’s students

Doing good to others and mental health:

People have been doing good to others and helping others since the beginning of humankind. However, it has only been recently that researchers and psychologists have started looking into the various reasons that would make people do good for others in the first place. Primary studies have shown that when people do good deeds for others, they feel more comfort and less stress.

The advances in studies now have helped us understand the physiological as well as psychological reasons that prompts people to do good things for others.

Physiological reasons that prompt people into doing good things for others:

People have an innate need to do good:

People have an inherent need to do good things for people. It is because they are likely to feel good when their compassion and generosity leads to positive health and well-being for others.

Association between kindness and health:

Health of people usually deteriorates because of stress and studies have found that altruism can be a remedy to reduce the stress. Research has found that early death in people is likely to reduce to a greater proportion with acts of altruism such as volunteering, as compared to exercise.

The mechanism of altruism:

When we do good for others, we tend to reduce our stress, which also includes the physiological stress. When the body experiences stress, it releases cortisol, which triggers the fight or flight response. If the fight or flight response is active for an extended period of time, it may lead to exhaustion and weakening of the immune system as we consume our resources.

Long term stress also affects our genes, putting us at a higher risk of premature death. Cultivating altruism, in the form of pro-social behaviours such as volunteering and being generous can be helpful as the ‘helper’s high’ generated by altruism can help soothe the stress response.

Compassion-altruism axis:

The brain consists of a compassion-altruism axis which gets activated during compassionate and empathy responses which is genuine in nature. Acts of generosity and altruism also lead to the release of oxytocin in the brain which leads the person to feel good.

Triggers healing hormones:

Oxytocin is related to physical as well as emotional well-being. When a person is altruistic and generous towards others, the oxytocin level goes up and helps in relieving stress. It may also trigger the brain’s reward system wherein, altruistic behaviour may increase levels of dopamine and endorphins which can further reduce stress.

Psychological reasons that prompt people into doing good things for others:

To help someone:

People doing good things for others often do it so as to help someone in whatever way they can and this prompts their altruistic response.

To help oneself:

Doing a good deed for others not only helps the others, but also helps the person feel good about himself or herself. It often gives a purpose and meaning to one’s life, especially when they feel at a lack of direction, isolated and alone. It also gives them a new perspective.

Helps expand worldview:

When people do good things for others, they meet people from different walks of life. This interaction not only builds contacts but also changes the person’s worldview and perception.

Development of take it forward concept:

Helping others can start off a chain reaction, where, when a person helps someone, he or she can ask them to help three others and then to ask them to help three other people. This starts the take it forward concept where maximum people are helped.

Shows values:

Doing good things for others helps the person build a reputation of a moralistic person who has values and ideals propagated towards helping others. It may also help a person wipe out their flaws with their good deeds.

To set an example:

When one person does good for others, he or she often sets an example for others in the community to follow the suit. This can also lead to a phenomena similar to the take it forward concept and people may get motivated to do good for others.

Acts of people doing good things for others:

We would be taking a look at the actions of people doing good things for others. These have been the acts that have changed the lives of communities as well as individuals.

Manny Pacquiao

Once an ordinary boy living in the Philippines, Pacquiao later went on to become the first fighter in history to win world titles in eight different weight divisions. After winning his first prize money, he decided to give back to the society and constructed homes for the poor in his hometown Tango.

Alaa Jaleel

Alaa Jaleel chose to remain in the war torn region of Syria to provide food and shelter to those in need. Even though most of the people left, he chose to stay behind to take care of the abandoned pets. He takes care of more than a 100 felines today.

Raymond Nelson

Nelson created the gentleman’s club when he understood that the students he taught at school would not behave. So he started the club and bought ties, shirts, jackets for the students who did noy have them and started teaching them life lessons.each week, a new topic was introduced, such as the ways to talk to a mother, sister, teachers etc. the aim was to instill moral consciousness in them, making him an one of the people doing good things for others.

Shifra Baltinester

Shifra started this initiative two years ago to help the elderly by staying connected with them. With the help of apps such as facebook and Nextdoor, she was able to connect the youngsters with the elderly in order to give them company and also help them run their errands,especially during the covid pandemic.

Students of Columbus Nebraska Elementary School

Fourth, fifth and sixth graders of the Columbus Nebraska Elementary School made get well soon cards for each patient who was quarantined at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre. The patients were brought there from a cruise where a corona outbreak took place. This makes the students one of the people doing good things for others.

Anja Ringgren Loven

Loven is one of the people doing good things for others. On her trip to Nigeria, she found a two year old boy who was starving. The boy had been abandoned by the family thinking that he was a witch. Loven adopted the child, named him Hope and now he is being cared for along with 34 other children at an orphanage that was found by Anja and her husband David Emmanuel Umem. today, Hope is a happy and chubby child.

Scott Dunn’s classmates

Scott Dunn met with an accident a few days before his high school graduation and slipped into a coma. He had to miss his graduation ceremony because of this and was quite upset. Once he began to recover, his school principal and classmates arranged another graduation ceremony for him, so that he would not miss that day. The entire graduation ceremony was done all over again just for Dunn.

Ranjitsinh Disdale

Disdale is a primary school teacher at the Zilla Parishad School in a small town of Paritewadi, India. He has been credited for promoting education for girls in his town and is also responsible for introducing the quick response (QR) coded education system in India. He was recently awarded the Global Teacher Prize for his efforts.

Trey Payne’s students

Trey Pyane is a middle school teacher in Nebraska. He lost his precious tennis shoes one day and despite searching for them, he could not find them. Seeing this, the students from his class pooled their pocket money to buy him the exact same shoes that they surprised him with. This can be seen as a classic example of people doing good things for others.

Frequently Asked Questions:People Doing Good Things For Others

Does a good deed help someone in need?

Besides helping someone, doing a good deed warms one’s heart and makes you feel good. If someone is unemployed or retired, it gives them something worthwhile to do to pass the time. It is a social activity for those who may feel isolated and alone.

Why Being kind so important?

Kindness improves our quality of life in the workplace as well as in the community. It helps bring people together. Doing good for others also makes the person feel good. Showing kindness to others is just as rewarding as receiving kindness from someone else.

What is true kindness?

Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. It is also called having goodwill, warmth, tenderness, selflessness, and benevolence.

What is the feeling of helping others?

Helping someone through a hard time in their life can be humbling, as well as gives rise to empathy and sympathy.

Why does helping others make us happy?

Helping others makes us happier and healthier. ‘Giving’ connects us to others, helps in creating stronger communities and helping to build a happier society for everyone.

Conclusion:

Today’s blog post focused on ‘people doing good things for others’. We began our discussion with understanding the relationship between doing good and mental health. In it we separately took into consideration the physiological reasons for doing good for others and the psychological reasons for doing good for others. Lastly, we took into account the stories of people who did good for someone.

I hope the blog post was able to provide valuable insight to the readers about the people doing good things for others and about altruism in general. Please feel free to post your comments and queries below.