Friday, January 21, 2005
Volunteers lead better lives
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Volunteers lead better lives, according to recent research
It was the first Thursday of January, the opening night of the Homeless Shelter program at Brotherhood Synagogue, and I left the premises practically dancing.
Some things had gone wrong - only nine folding cots had been sent for the ten homeless guests who were coming, we were four blankets short, the deliveries had not been made. But things straightened out – miraculously, only nine guests from the Heuss House intake center arrived, and the sleepover volunteer was able to have his own cot, instead of curling up on the bench in the Synagogue atrium. There were six eager teenager volunteers, and some of their parents, watching their kids learn social responsibility, and making sure that they get home safely. One of the parents has been a sleepover volunteer for the past five years, staying over every Thursday night for the three months that the shelter is open. The Thursday coordinator has also been taking his turn on the designated night without fail for at least twelve years, if memory serves.
One eight-grade volunteer from Spence was also a veteran Thursday regular. She knew all the routines, from cutting rolls (donated by a local bakery), making sandwiches with egg and salmon salad fillings, packing Care bags for the morning, to checking the arriving guests against the manifest they brought from Heuss House. Their school bus, miraculously, arrived at the requested time, 8:30 PM (late arrivals had plagued us for years, endangering the young helpers’ sleep time). The youngster also knew how to serve the two hot dishes (all donated by volunteers), ask “how many sugars” for coffee (homeless guests take a lot of sweetening in their hot drinks), and to sit with the guests, chatting about the day’s events. The new volunteers learned a lot from her and from another veteran participant, a senior from Stuyvesant High.
Why do they all do it, with joy and pride and dedication and a sense of accomplishment, year after year? The volunteer who makes the salads and cooks the soups for the January through March program, why doe she religiously start her cooking early in the Fall, with fresh well-chosen vegetables, freezing the stock in a basement freezer, year after year? The synagogue office manager who has volunteered, for years, to do the actual enrolling of workers and who has discovered that the community-service minded youngsters are the best resource for seeing to the needs of our homeless guests? The member who jumps in with a check to fund parts of the program when donations appear endangered? Is it that being good by doing good is good, for the mind and the body?
And then it came to me, remembering a Thanksgiving article I picked up for a twice-a year newsletter that I write. The title was “Boost Your Health With a Dose of Gratitude.” The WebMD physician authors speak of the long-known benefits of feeling and expressing gratitude, recently viewed by a movement called positive psychology that studies the health benefits of such virtues, noting such results as ability to cope with stress (all varieties, everyday, post-traumatic and loss-induced), boosting the immune system, and generating optimism in health-compromised lives. Something real, not just intuitive. Further reading brought up a possible link to neural physiology, a connection to the mysterious substance called serotonin.
Some talking with friends revealed extended aspects of the subject. The contributor known to you as the Prince of Darkness, more dour than Dr. Paranoia, brought into the picture the possible release of the above neurotransmitter that creates the euphoria known as “runner’s high,” and spoke of research that links the physical act of smiling with release of serotonin. The Old Curmudgeon, aka OC, denied the potential of smiling as a physical medication, but spoke of adrenalin, while Moose (actually his college nickname was Mousse, due to a predilection for desserts, but his size makes the former more appropriate) remembered Norman Cousins, the late editor of Saturday Review, who fought sickness by secluding himself in his UCLA Medical Center room, playing old Marx Brothers movies, taking megadoses of Vitamin C and having friends over for storytelling and jokes.
Cousins had anklyosing spondylitis, a potentially fatal arthritis of the spine, and had found that laughing while watching slapstick comedy relieved his pains. In 1969 he wrote “Anatomy of an Illness,” describing how he was cured, and spent the last decade of his life at UCLA’s Department of Behavioral Medicine, researching and preaching the humor cure. Loma Linda University has published a study of significant rises of function in patients’ immune systems with humor therapy, and in 1997 Duke University had a report about significantly improving the effectiveness of heart arteries with positive emotions.
As for myself, I’m opting to spend significant time with Turner Classical Movies, humor variety, and less with Law and Order, particularly the more depressing recent offshoots, Special Victims Unit and such. I’m also soft-pedaling the watching of the blood and gore on CNN news. I’m also stepping up my responses to most e-mails with a thank you. Results of this study will be reported in a future issue of this journal.
Volunteers lead better lives, according to recent research
It was the first Thursday of January, the opening night of the Homeless Shelter program at Brotherhood Synagogue, and I left the premises practically dancing.
Some things had gone wrong - only nine folding cots had been sent for the ten homeless guests who were coming, we were four blankets short, the deliveries had not been made. But things straightened out – miraculously, only nine guests from the Heuss House intake center arrived, and the sleepover volunteer was able to have his own cot, instead of curling up on the bench in the Synagogue atrium. There were six eager teenager volunteers, and some of their parents, watching their kids learn social responsibility, and making sure that they get home safely. One of the parents has been a sleepover volunteer for the past five years, staying over every Thursday night for the three months that the shelter is open. The Thursday coordinator has also been taking his turn on the designated night without fail for at least twelve years, if memory serves.
One eight-grade volunteer from Spence was also a veteran Thursday regular. She knew all the routines, from cutting rolls (donated by a local bakery), making sandwiches with egg and salmon salad fillings, packing Care bags for the morning, to checking the arriving guests against the manifest they brought from Heuss House. Their school bus, miraculously, arrived at the requested time, 8:30 PM (late arrivals had plagued us for years, endangering the young helpers’ sleep time). The youngster also knew how to serve the two hot dishes (all donated by volunteers), ask “how many sugars” for coffee (homeless guests take a lot of sweetening in their hot drinks), and to sit with the guests, chatting about the day’s events. The new volunteers learned a lot from her and from another veteran participant, a senior from Stuyvesant High.
Why do they all do it, with joy and pride and dedication and a sense of accomplishment, year after year? The volunteer who makes the salads and cooks the soups for the January through March program, why doe she religiously start her cooking early in the Fall, with fresh well-chosen vegetables, freezing the stock in a basement freezer, year after year? The synagogue office manager who has volunteered, for years, to do the actual enrolling of workers and who has discovered that the community-service minded youngsters are the best resource for seeing to the needs of our homeless guests? The member who jumps in with a check to fund parts of the program when donations appear endangered? Is it that being good by doing good is good, for the mind and the body?
And then it came to me, remembering a Thanksgiving article I picked up for a twice-a year newsletter that I write. The title was “Boost Your Health With a Dose of Gratitude.” The WebMD physician authors speak of the long-known benefits of feeling and expressing gratitude, recently viewed by a movement called positive psychology that studies the health benefits of such virtues, noting such results as ability to cope with stress (all varieties, everyday, post-traumatic and loss-induced), boosting the immune system, and generating optimism in health-compromised lives. Something real, not just intuitive. Further reading brought up a possible link to neural physiology, a connection to the mysterious substance called serotonin.
Some talking with friends revealed extended aspects of the subject. The contributor known to you as the Prince of Darkness, more dour than Dr. Paranoia, brought into the picture the possible release of the above neurotransmitter that creates the euphoria known as “runner’s high,” and spoke of research that links the physical act of smiling with release of serotonin. The Old Curmudgeon, aka OC, denied the potential of smiling as a physical medication, but spoke of adrenalin, while Moose (actually his college nickname was Mousse, due to a predilection for desserts, but his size makes the former more appropriate) remembered Norman Cousins, the late editor of Saturday Review, who fought sickness by secluding himself in his UCLA Medical Center room, playing old Marx Brothers movies, taking megadoses of Vitamin C and having friends over for storytelling and jokes.
Cousins had anklyosing spondylitis, a potentially fatal arthritis of the spine, and had found that laughing while watching slapstick comedy relieved his pains. In 1969 he wrote “Anatomy of an Illness,” describing how he was cured, and spent the last decade of his life at UCLA’s Department of Behavioral Medicine, researching and preaching the humor cure. Loma Linda University has published a study of significant rises of function in patients’ immune systems with humor therapy, and in 1997 Duke University had a report about significantly improving the effectiveness of heart arteries with positive emotions.
As for myself, I’m opting to spend significant time with Turner Classical Movies, humor variety, and less with Law and Order, particularly the more depressing recent offshoots, Special Victims Unit and such. I’m also soft-pedaling the watching of the blood and gore on CNN news. I’m also stepping up my responses to most e-mails with a thank you. Results of this study will be reported in a future issue of this journal.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:42 AM 
