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How does helping people affect your brain? Study shows neurobiological effects of giving social support -- ScienceDaily

"Humans thrive off social connections and benefit when they act in the service of others' well-being," according to the authors. A previous study by Dr. Inagaki, also published in Psychosomatic Medicine, found that giving social support has positive effects on brain areas involved in stress and reward responses. That study suggested that providing support -- not just receiving it -- may be an important contributor to the physical and mental health benefits of social support.

The god of small things -- ScienceDaily

Dr Ramsay said the results show that all people, but especially religious people, regularly assign significance to unremarkable events -- such as discussing hobbies with a work colleague, receiving a small but unexpected gift, or spending time with a family member. "We found the more people gave meaning, purpose, and significance to such events the more they experienced positive emotions such as gratitude and contentment," he said.

What Ultrarunners Think About When They Run | Outside Online

Christensen says runners who appreciated the social nature of the endeavor and those who were able to sit with—and not fight—their pain had the best days. “Thoughts of gratitude—realizing you’re a part of this broader ultrarunning community, that everyone is in it together—proved to be really common and important,” she says. “Also, this notion of radical acceptance: when a runner accepts their pain, it’s very freeing. You can be in pain without suffering. Pain is an objective sensation. The runners who are able to say ‘this dark spot won’t last forever’ do really well.”

How Expressing Gratitude Might Change Your Brain

participants who’d completed the gratitude task months earlier not only reported feeling more gratefulness two weeks after the task than members of the control group, but also, months later, showed more gratitude-related brain activity in the scanner. The researchers described these “profound” and “long-lasting” neural effects as “particularly noteworthy,” and they highlighted that one of the main regions that showed this increased sensitivity — the “pregenual anterior cingulate,” which is known to be involved in predicting the effects of one’s own actions on other people — overlaps with a key brain region identified in the only previous study on the neurological footprint of gratitude.

The power of ‘thanks’

a field study that looked at 41 fundraisers at a university, all receiving a fixed salary. The director visited half of the fundraisers in person, telling them, “I am very grateful for your hard work. We sincerely appreciate your contributions to the university.” The second group received no such expressions of gratitude.  What was the impact of the director’s thanks? Gino said that “the expression of gratitude increased the number of calls by more than 50 percent” for the week, while fundraisers who received no thanks made about the same number of calls as the previous week.