Kindness Can Help With Weight Loss

Welcome to Day 14 of our 30-Day Kindness Challenge. Today, we're talking about how Kindness Can Help With Weight Loss. If you're just joining us or listening for the first time, let me tell you what we've been doing. Every day in November, I'm doing a short podcast about kindness. I will talk about some kindness facts and give you a kindness challenge.

Exploring the Connection Between Kindness and Weight Loss.

There is evidence to suggest that cultivating kindness can positively influence our well-being, including our ability to manage weight. Today we're discussing how being kind can help with weight loss.

Self-Kindness in Weight Regulation

A study published in The National Library of Medicine examined a model of self-compassion, body shame, and mindful eating. The study looked at the Role of Self-compassion and Self-kindness in Weight Regulation. Self-compassion means being aware of your own existence and being kind and empathetic toward yourself, like you would with a friend or loved one. It consists of three components:

• Self Kindness
• Common Humanity
• Mindfulness

The study found the following:

• Self-compassion can help with weight loss and mindful eating.
• Differentiating self-compassion from self-kindness is important; they are not the same.
• Self-kindness varies among individuals, leading to different behaviors, some of which may have negative health consequences.
• Self-compassion may affect food choices, emotional eating, and prioritizing psychological over physiological health.
• Self-compassion may impact food choices and emotional eating.

The Link Between Kindness and Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is a common struggle when trying to lose weight. Kindness can play a crucial role in addressing emotional eating by:

• Promoting Self-Compassion
• Reducing Stress
• Fostering a Positive Mindset

Recent studies have shown that self-compassion, which is the act of being kind to oneself, is linked to healthy eating behaviors such as intuitive eating and a decrease in unhealthy eating habits such as emotional eating.

Self-Compassion and Body Esteem in Mothers

Another study in the National Library of Medicine looked at how being kind to oneself can help mothers develop healthy eating habits and influence their children's attitudes toward food and body image.

The study found

• Mothers who are compassionate towards themselves are more likely to eat a healthy diet and listen to their body's signals, and less likely to eat when they are feeling emotional.
• Self-compassion, defined as kindness to oneself during difficult times, is linked to healthy eating behaviors and reduced emotional eating.
• Body esteem was found to be a factor that influences the relationship between self-compassion and diet quality, intuitive eating, and emotional eating.
• Higher self-compassion was associated with better diet quality and healthier eating behaviors.

Being kind to yourself can improve your body image and eating habits, and it can also influence your child's attitudes.

Self-kindness can help reduce the negative effects of focusing too much on body shape and eating disorders. It is also associated with feeling good about your body, eating well, and reducing stress. Parents' eating habits can also influence their children's choices.

How Acts of Kindness Can Reduce Stress and Emotional Eating

Another article from Great Lakes Psychology Group looks at the role of kindness as it relates to weight and emotional eating. The article explains that emotional eating is a way of coping with life's challenges and feelings.

It can vary from occasional emotional eating to a more serious condition called Binge Eating Disorder (BED), which may lead to weight gain or other behaviors like purging or over-exercising.

Emotional eating works by using food to feel better when dealing with emotional pain. This creates a habit in our brains that links eating with feeling better, reinforcing the behavior.

To address emotional eating, it's important to ...

30 Day Kindness Challenge - Day Twelve

Kindness The Helpers High & Meaningfulness

Welcome to Day 12 of our 30-Day Kindness Challenge. Today, we're talking about Kindness, The Helpers High & Meaningfulness. If you're just joining us or listening for the first time, let me tell you what we've been doing. Every day in November, I'm doing a short podcast about kindness. I will talk about some kindness facts and give you a kindness challenge.

November 13th is World Kindness Day, so this mini-series is in honor of World Kindness Day 2023

The Science of Kindness

When you do something kind, you probably feel a sense of warmth and wellbeing wash over you. But did you know that this feeling isn't just in your head? It's caused by chemicals in your brain. Kind acts can release hormones that contribute to your mood and overall well being. The practice is so effective that it's being formally incorporated into some types of psychotherapy.

Can Helping Others Help You Find Meaning in Life?

Helping others can create a sense of meaning, emphasizing the importance of human connection for fulfillment.Kindness can make people feel good and give them a sense of purpose. It can also help to build strong relationships, which are important for a happy and fulfilling life. Here are some tips for increasing your sense of meaning through kindness:

• Start small. Even small acts of kindness, like holding the door open for someone or letting someone go ahead of you in line, can make a difference.
• Make your help count. Choose activities that you're passionate about and that you know will make a difference.
• Express gratitude towards others. Thanking people for their kindness is a great way to show them that you appreciate their efforts.

Helping others can be a great way to find meaning in life. It can also help to impnext time yorove your relationships and your overall well-being. So u're feeling lost or alone, reach out and help someone else. It might just make all the difference.

Kindness Can Produce Helpers High!

Various research papers explore the connection between helping, the brain's response, and personal well-being. "Helper's high" is associated with greater health and longevity.

• "Helper's high" is a feeling of well-being after acts of kindness, charity, or volunteering.
• It's part of human evolution and contributes to species survival.
• Volunteering releases endorphins similar to those during exercise or sex.
• These endorphins help the body cope with stressors.
• The brain's pleasure centers activate when thinking about charity or helping.
• Endorphins affect the brain like morphine, providing pleasure.
• Helping triggers pleasure centers and releases natural morphine.
• Volunteering also releases oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, boosting mood and reducing stress.

According to Cedars-Sinai, being kind can increase serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood. It can also boost oxytocin and dopamine, causing a "helper's high".

Dr. IsHak says studies have also linked random acts of kindness to releasing dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain that can give us a feeling of euphoria. This feel-good brain chemical is credited with causing what's known as a "helper's high."

Being kind not only boosts oxytocin and dopamine levels, but can also increase serotonin. So this means that being kind can actually be a natural treatment for pain, depression, and anxiety! What we know about the science behind acts of kindness is influencing how we treat certain health conditions, Dr. IsHak says. "We're building better selves and better communities at the same time."

Love Hormone

Oxytocin, often referred to as the "love hormone," is released when we're physically intimate with someone. It's tied to making us more trusting, more generous, and friendlier, while also lowering our blood pressure. In addition to physical intimacy, acts of kind...

30 Day Kindness Challenge - Day Eleven

Kindness Can Help to Retrain Neural Pathways in The Brain

Welcome to Day 11 of our 30-Day Kindness Challenge. Today, we're talking about how kindness can help to retrain neural pathways in the brain. If you're just joining us or listening for the first time, let me tell you what we've been doing. Every day in November, I'm doing a short podcast about kindness. I will talk about some kindness facts and give you a kindness challenge.

November 13th is World Kindness Day, so this mini-series is in honor of World Kindness Day 2023. It has been said that kindness is its own reward. But new research suggests that there may be another benefit to being kind: it can help retrain neural pathways in the brain.

4 Tips For Training Your Brain To Act With Kindness

Ever notice that being kind to someone makes you feel good too? It’s because altruism promotes a chemical reaction in your brain, releasing serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine. These chemicals not only make you feel good but also work to reinforce positive social behavior. By laying down new neural pathways, you set yourself up for living a positive, kinder life.

https://bit.ly/gregscloud4tips

In another study, participants were asked to perform acts of kindness for others on a daily basis. The results showed that after just six weeks, the participants had developed new neural pathways in the brain that were associated with positive emotions.

Journal Frontiers in Psychology

And a study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that participants who did acts of kindness had increased levels of activity in the hippocampus – a region of the brain associated with memory and learning.

The study involved 40 adults aged 60-77 years old who were split into two groups.

One group completed eight weeks of training in mindfulness and compassion, while the other group did not receive any training. So next time you're feeling down, or like you're in a rut, try being kind to others. It just might help to retrain your brain and put you on the path to a happier, more fulfilling life.

Our findings suggest that engaging in acts of kindness may help to improve hippocampus function, which is important for memory and learning," said lead author Dr. Oliver Robinson, from the University of Birmingham. "This could have implications for interventions aimed at improving cognitive function in older adults.

Happy People Become Happier Through Kindness: A Counting Kindnesses Intervention

In Study 1, researchers examined the relationship between kindness and happiness in Japanese undergraduate students.

Study 1 findings:

• Happy people reported more frequent and intense positive experiences in daily life.
• Happy people had more happy memories, primarily related to social relationships and kindness from others.
• Happy people scored higher on motivation, recognition, and behavior related to kindness.
• The study suggests that subjective happiness is associated with kindness and positive experiences.

In Study 2, researchers conducted a "counting kindnesses" intervention to assess its impact on subjective happiness.

Study 2 findings:

• The counting kindness intervention significantly increased subjective happiness.
• Participants who showed large increases in happiness also reported more kind behaviors and higher levels of grateful experiences during the intervention.
• The study indicates that consciously practicing and recognizing kind behaviors can lead to increased happiness.

The studies highlight the importance of kindness and gratitude in subjective happiness and suggest that focusing on kind actions can enhance well-being.

https://bit.ly/gregscloudretrain

Another study, which was published in The National Library of Medicine (NLM) corroborates the findings that participants who did acts of kindness had increased levels of activity in the hippocampus – a region of the brain associated with memory and learning.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well-being

• The study focuses on brain structures, particularly the hippocampus and caudate.
• Modern techniques like MRI and fMRI are used to measure structural and functional brain changes.
• The environment and social interactions can affect brain development and behavior.
• Early experiences and social support play a significant role in mental and physical health.
• Stressful environments can impact brain development, and interventions like exercise and therapy...

The Power of Social Connections and Acts of Kindness
Engaging in social activities and committing to kindness not only enhances personal well-being but is also suggested by research to mitigate the risk of Alzheimer's and dementia.

Hello everybody, the first chanel trailer and intro to National Podcast Post Month didn't play when syndicated. Probably user error on my side. So this is a quick test to see if it now works!