Understanding Kindness, Its Health Benefits, and How to Be a Kinder Person

How often would you say that you practice kindness? Do you know how to? Learning the science behind kindness may also support your own well-being. There’s a strong connection between being kind to yourself and showing kindness to those around you.

This article explains the different types of kindness, why it can benefit your mental and physical health, and how to work kindness into daily mindfulness practices

For example, you may help your neighbor carry groceries up the stairs because you see they’re having trouble with such heavy bags. If you do it because you want to make their day a little easier, that’s different than if you help because you think it may prevent them from reporting you to your building’s management company for having loud parties, for instance.

Some researchers have defined different types of kindness, but they aren’t hard-and-fast clinical definitions.

• Kin Kindness Being kind to your family.
• Mutualism Being kind to members of your community.
• Reciprocal Altruism Being kind to those you’ll meet again.
• Competitive Altruism Being kind to others when it enhances your status.

“I’m always delighted by the data showing kindness is as beneficial for the giver as the receiver,” says Kelli Harding, MD, MPH, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, and the author of The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier With the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness.

Practicing kindness can help you when you’re dealing with other people and everyday stressors. Showing kindness toward people who are rude to you or who cut you off on the road can help tamp down your stress response by putting you in a better mindset to think compassionately toward the other person (and not be overrun by your emotions), explains Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, PhD, a research assistant professor at West Virginia University in Morgantown, who studies how compassion meditation training can help relieve stress.

“Compassion meditation,” Dr. Brefczynski-Lewis adds, “helps one move from simple empathy, which can be quite distressing, into a balanced care for others.” It can help you tap into a warm feeling toward someone else without becoming overwhelmed.

Here are some of the significant ways kindness and improved health may be linked:

• Kindness buffers stress. Practicing kindness can lower cortisol and decrease depression and anxiety, says Harding. And research has found that even just observing acts of kindness can help to reduce stress.

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• Kindness is good for facets of your mental health too. Some research shows that showing kindness toward yourself can be one tool in relieving depression, as well as social anxiety.

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• Kindness is good for your heart. Kindness cultivates your sense of social support and lessens stress, which can protect your health, says Harding. “We know this from both animal studies and decades of public health research looking at the social dimensions of health. Kindness is not only heartwarming but also heart protective,” she says.
• Kindness increases longevity. Research has found that loving-kindness meditation may protect telomeres, a part of your DNA that serves as a biological marker of aging. A small study found that just 12 weeks of this type of meditation can buffer cellular aging when compared with a wait-listed control group.

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Loving Kindness Meditation in Action

When Jeffrey Brantley, MD, founder and former director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, arrived at a meditation retreat years ago, he expected his teachers to focus on mindfulness. Then the instructors announced that the students would be practicing loving-kindness meditation as part of their retreat: a Buddhist meditation in which you wish people well, including loved ones, strangers, people you find difficult, and yourself.

Dr. Brantley had a quick reaction. He says he remembers thinking: “What’s that got to do with being mindful?”

He felt some aversion to what the instructors had said. He judged them a bit — and wondered if they were taking the wrong approach. But he began the daily practice. He thought of others and wished them well with phrases like “may they be happy,” “may they be healthy,” and “may they find peace.” By the end of a week of directing kindness toward others, he noticed a change in himself, he says: “I became much more soft, if you will, and receptive to whatever came up.”

He realized that the teachers had included this practice for a reason. Trying to practice mindfulness — letting thoughts pass through your mind without attaching judgment to them — required kindness.

After the week of practicing kindness, he began to feel less judgmental toward the instructors. And he noticed that cultivating kindness in this way improved his mood, supported anger management, and helped him navigate complex interactions.

Brantley went on to work for decades as a psychiatrist specializing in meditation, including loving-kindness. He realized that cultivating warmth toward others and toward himself (self-compassion) — despite his initial annoyance with his teachers’ approach — has many benefits for our health.

As a clinician who integrates Eastern and Western traditions, Brantley says that his career has taught him that kindness toward others and toward oneself can be deeply connected.

For many people, he says — especially those who tend to beat themselves up about things — the hardest person to be kind to is yourself. By cultivating a kindness practice directed outwardly toward others, he says, you can eventually begin to direct more kindness inwardly too.

You’ve got all the kindness and goodness in you that you need already, Brantley says.

You can work on cultivating it more, but you’ve already got it innately in you. “Just think about anything you did in the last 24 hours that was kind,” Brantley says.

1. Recognize the Acts of Kindness That You’re Already Doing

Did you hold the door for somebody? Did you smile at a stranger? Did you water a houseplant that looked thirsty?

Even if you feel like a novice when it comes to a more structured approach, such as loving-kindness meditation practice, “you’re not a novice to kindness,” he says.

2. Try a Kindness-Centered Meditation Practice

One way to cultivate kindness is to try the loving-kindness meditation practice Brantley started doing begrudgingly at that retreat decades ago.

“If you’re feeling kind of numb, such as with empathy burnout, connecting with the warmer feelings of loving-kindness can help in really seeing the humanity of the person in front of you, whether they are your family member, a customer, a patient, or a grocery clerk,” Brefczynski-Lewis says.

At first, Brefczynski-Lewis recommends going slowly and not choosing people you find it difficult to send kindness to until you build a bit more confidence in this particular meditation skill.

“I’ve even done the practice right before meetings with people I’ve had some difficulty with, and find they go surprisingly much better than expected,” Brefczynski-Lewis says.

3. Start With Gratitude

4. Begin Big

That doesn’t mean you should stop there — you can practice kindness daily — but honing in on your efforts over the course of one day can show you how good it can feel to reach out to others, inspiring you to make it a regular part of your life.

5. Show Yourself Kindness

Some include:

• Talking to yourself as if you were talking to a friend
• Using writing to release feelings of shame
• Repeating a kindness mantra during difficult situations

• Incorporating kindness into your daily life can lead to numerous health benefits, including lower stress levels, a better mood, and even a longer lifespan.
• Practices like “loving-kindness meditation” can help you access these benefits, but starting small with gentle meditation is recommended if you’re new to mindful kindness.
• If you ever feel overwhelmed by empathy or stress when dealing with others, practicing compassion meditation or reaching out for support can provide substantial relief.
• Taking stock of the kindness you already demonstrate, showing self-compassion, and practicing gratitude are all good steps toward being a kinder person.