2026年8月30日星期日

Doing random acts of kindness is good for you

Mandy Oaklander | August 30, 2026

Want to be kinder, but don’t know how to start? In our Sunday read, Yale trauma psychologist Joan M. Cook offers some fun ideas. Catch you later, readers…I’m off to take my kid on a kindness walk.

TODAY’S TOPICS

The kindness boomerang
Got a question for us?
A troubling football stat

SUNDAY READ

Doing random acts of kindness is good for you

By Joan M. Cook

I’m the kind of person who shares a genuine compliment often, telling someone who is standing behind me in the airport line that I love their sneakers or letting one of my daughter’s friends know they have a beautiful smile. I also like to do nice things for people, like bringing the veterans that I work with doughnuts and coffee every Monday morning.

I learned to be kind from my grandfather who raised me. He drove the nuns from my Catholic grammar school to their doctors’ appointments, and he shared smiles and jokes with grocery store clerks, neighborhood kids, and almost every soul whose path he crossed. I wanted to follow in his footsteps and engage as often as I could in my own random acts of kindness. I recognized that being kind and giving selflessly to others made me feel good as well, but it wasn’t until recently, 25 years into my career as a trauma psychologist, that I learned about the science behind random acts of kindness.

Research indicates that engaging in random acts of kindness boosts happiness in both those who give and those who receive. A systematic review of 24 studies indicated that performing acts of kindness boosts the well-being of the giver.

Read the full essay here.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

At least one in four professional U.S. football players may have the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Jeffrey Kluger reports for TIME.
Don’t play “invite chicken” with your new neighbor. Aaron Hurst at Greater Good explains why extending a social invitation to someone new is good for both of you.
New data suggest that many women have PTSD after giving birth—but they’re either misdiagnosed as having postpartum depression or not treated at all, writes Dennis Campbell at the Guardian.

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