Kind is the new awesome

For the past few generations, kind has been perceived as weak. Just as nice has been seen upon as not cool. Nowadays is being kind again fashionable. People start to get tired of the disrespectful manner of both business and private interactions. Why is being kind good for us? Should we even care why it’s good for us? Aren't we kind to be good for others?

First of all there’s a big difference between kind and nice. Many times these terms have been used interchangeably. There is a difference between the two. Someone who can be considered to be nice is someone that tries to be in a way that society will like him. He’s doing good towards others in order to be liked by the community around him. He wants to be perceived as a nice person by the society around him. Contrary to a kind person, who doesn’t necessary care about what society thinks about him. The kind person will do good things for someone else to be good. He doesn’t care what society thinks about his act. He cares more about the outcome of the person he does the good deed towards. The rude explanation would be that the kind person is selfless and the nice person is selfish. Kind does things for others. Nice does things for others so he will be looked upon as a nice person. Kind is more empathy, nice is more narcissistic. A kind person will act from his heart to do kind acts. A nice person will act in order to be perceived as a good person in the society or community around him. Nice is submissive. Kind is confident. Being nice and kind are both important. Yet, being kind is more the new awesome we could use in our current daily society.

When you’re doing kind acts towards others you’ll start feeling happier. The University of Oxford has made a 400 page research on the connection between happiness and kindness. It’s hereby proven that being kind really affects your act of happiness. They’ve tested this theory by letting students do more acts of kindness daily. In a short period of time it was found that the students who did daily acts of kindness became happier and gained more confidence. They realized that being kind towards other people around them gave them the value of self-worth through helping others. Humans are social beings. We are made to work together in a way of teamwork in order to survive in the world. Helping family, friends, colleagues and strangers will give us the feeling of success and satisfaction.  Kindness can be taught and is contagious.

Being kind and altruistic increases the production of a hormone called, oxytocin. Oxytocin is better known as the “love hormone”. The love hormone helps us in lowering the blood pressure, also improves our overall heart health. It increases self-esteem and optimism, thereby lowering our shyness and social anxiety. People who are kind are also shown to be more energetic and awake throughout their life. Kindness and altruism leads to 44% less chance of dying on early age. It effectively increases lifespan. This is a stronger affect than exercising 4 times a week or going to church. When you are helping people you’ll get the pleasure and reward center light up. This phenomenon is called the “helper’s high”, a kind of pleasure spree that comes from the kind acts. Serotonin is released in this process. Serotonin is one of the main ingredients in most medical antidepressants. When serotonin is going around in your body even wounds will heal effectively faster. Endorphins are also released through the process of kindness. Endorphins are the natural pain killers that our body produces. Kind people have 23% less cortisol (stress hormone) in their body. Less cortisol makes the body age slower.

There was a social test performed on people that were suffering from extreme social anxiety. They were asked to perform 6 kind acts in a week. Those acts were performed for 1 month and there was already a noticeable increase in positive moods and less social avoidance among the social anxious individuals. A Harvard research of kindness in 136 countries found that people who are altruistic and kind were happiest overall.

Being kind will be the new awesome in 2019.

Be kind. Be a leader. Be the change.