Читать книгу Kindness: The Little Thing that Matters Most - Jaime Thurston, Jaime Thurston, Jessica Ball - Страница 7

Foreword

David R. Hamilton, Ph.D., author of The Five Side Effects of Kindness

Kindness is the glue that holds society together. It is the essence of beauty. It brings smiles to faces, lightens our burdens, creates friendships, transforms people and situations. It can make a day memorable. It can be the answer to someone’s prayers. This is how I see Jaime Thurston’s work with 52 Lives. It is heart-warming to see how she makes a difference in so many people’s lives.

And I mean heart-warming in two ways. First, in the sense that it makes us feel uplifted and inspired. Second, in that observing or learning about kindness does create a warming sensation in the heart. Kindness produces oxytocin and nitric oxide, two substances that directly affect our arteries, softening them, dilating them, reducing blood pressure, clearing them of free radicals, and increasing blood flow to the heart.

It’s part of what social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, calls ‘elevation’, which we feel when we’re being kind, receiving kindness, or witnessing kindness. This also inspires us to pay kindnesses forward. This in turn sets in motion the well-known ripple effect of kindness, where one act touches many more lives than just the original recipient.

We are wired to be kind. It’s our deepest nature. We have kindness genes that are some of the oldest in the human genome, at over 500 million years young. Looking out for each other is human nature.

I hope this book warms you and may your kindnesses in turn warm the hearts of many others. Of the different talked-about ways of changing the world for the better, I believe that kindness carries our best hope.