Volunteering For The Right Reasons Might Help You Live Longer

If you have the time, volunteering is an excellent way to keep yourself busy and positive. According to a new study in Health Psychology, it turns out if you’re volunteering to help others and not yourself, it might help you live longer.

Photo by: USFS Region 5.

The researchers looked at a random sample of 10,317 Wisconsin high school students who graduated in 1957 and tracked their responses to a simple survey involving their volunteering habits. In an ironic twist, respondents who claimed they were volunteering in order to help others lived longer than those who were doing it to benefit themselves or not at all. Even still, the volunteers who reported their work as self-motived still lived longer than non-volunteers.

Volunteering to Help Others Could Lead to Better Health [Science Daily]