Altruism Study - Brain Effects of Altruism

Do you know what is altruism? A rough definition of altruism is the act of giving unselfishly without expecting returns. We do not expect any return favors in our heart and just want to help others.

We all would agree that altruism helping behavior is good but do you think giving to others unselfishly is beneficial to the giver in any way?

Do you think this helping behavior has any benefits to our health, self-esteem or our brain? Read on to be pleasantly surprised.


The Brain Effects of Altruism - Increasing Brain Power:
Surprise! Surprise! A new and interesting research suggests that it can help in increasing brain power. Yes you read it right!!!

It seems that both receiving and giving activate pleasure centers in our brain which give us instant gratification. However while giving, a couple of other brain regions in the cerebral cortex are also activated which is not the case while receiving.

So the act of giving might strengthen certain regions of our brain that are involved in higher levels of thinking, specially related to social interactions.

The act of giving might improve your skills of interaction with people, which can increase your
self-esteem. If you just care to receive things then you are thinking short term but if you are always willing to help and give then you are thinking long-term, even though you may not realize it at that time. So we now know a good method of how to increase brain power.

Isn't this an interesting and useful bit of information. I read about this research in the following article - Can giving Improve your brain ?


While this might be interesting to read, but it is not surprising to me because I have always believed that following Islamic injunctions would help me in many different ways. This new study just confirms my belief.

This study should make us adopt altruistic behavior and encourage our children to do so too. Try to increase altruism in yourself and children.

We would also need to change our thinking about helping others at our workplace. Altruism should be adopted everywhere - at home, workplace, neighborhood, while walking on streets etc. We have got another reason to be good to others and help with a clean heart.

Helpful Resources:
1. Do you want to learn how to control your nerves, handle anxiety and let go of panic? Click here.

2. Feel low on energy? What if you learn how to sleep 3 hours less each day and still have more energy than before - no need to drag through the day and procrastinate because you feel too lazy to do anything.

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