“About one-quarter of the U.S. population aged 55 and older engages in some form of regular volunteer work.” – Bureau of Labor Statistics
Besides giving back to your community, does volunteering lead to other health benefits? Yes! Volunteering is one of the healthiest activities you can choose to spend your time doing. The wide variety of benefits can include improvements in overall wellness and life satisfaction, increased physical endurance, decreased anxiety/social isolation/depression, and uplifting mood. Additionally, volunteering can even lead to small benefits for our cognitive abilities, with older volunteers experiencing the greatest degree of improvement. Just by volunteering for a few hours per week over several months to a year, you can experience these cognitive benefits.
Why does volunteer work trigger these improvements to our overall health? It likely stems from an increase in physical, social, and cognitive activities that have been shown to improve brain and bodily function, which aids in reducing the risk of developing dementia.
Here are some key areas that improve with volunteer work:
Physical Activity: The benefits from physical exertion can be beneficial to your heart, brain, and body. Volunteering can include walking, working in a garden, or building a project – all of which include physical activity.
Cognitive Activity: A great volunteer opportunity will challenge you mentally as well as cognitively, by teaching you new skills. Typically, you’re working outside of your comfort zone and being engaged in a way that stimulates you in a variety of ways.
Socializing: Using a volunteer opportunity to spend time with others is a great way to feed two birds with one seed. Participating in volunteer work allows you to form connections with new and old friends alike, and even across generations, as many people of different ages come together to help an organization.
Persistence: View each chance to volunteer as a step to reach your personal goals. Volunteering allows you to do something that you enjoy, and gives you a sense of purpose and enrichment. All the benefits of physical activity, cognitive activity, and socializing are increasing with each moment you spend volunteering.
The WSJ gives a rough grading system that you can utilize to search for ways to change each activity to better suit you: “One way to analyze a volunteer opportunity is to give it a grade of A (high), B (moderate) or C (low) for each category, and then see if there is a way to adapt or supersize the activity to achieve a better grade. For example, serving as a senior companion may earn an A for socializing but a C for physical activity if you spend your time sitting in a chair. Adding in regular walking with the person you visit can boost the grade. Working at a food pantry may earn an A for physical activity but a C for persistence if it’s only a monthly or quarterly endeavor, but can be boosted by adding in more hours, or combining it with related activities such as serving as a liaison to businesses who are potential donors. The best volunteer positions force you to cross-train and multi-task across these key domains–moving, thinking, learning and interacting with others–over and over again.”
Ultimately, the main goal for choosing to volunteer should be maximizing good karma, both for the community and yourself.