This one simple habit could improve your health and happiness in 2025. Here’s how
It’s been shown to boost physical health, reduce stress, and strengthen social connections, with experts calling it a key tool for healthy aging.
Barbara Sheffield, 82, outside Islington United Church in Etobicoke, where she volunteers with a group that helps resettle refugees. Sheffield says volunteering has provided her with a sense of purpose and connection, helping her avoid the isolation many retirees face.
- Michelle Mengsu Chang Toronto Star
When Dr. Iris Gorfinkel sees her patients, there’s always chatter about how work is going, how the kids are growing and even how their pets are doing — some of which she knows by name.
The Toronto-based family physician believes in providing personalized care, often suggesting volunteering to those who’d benefit from more social connections, even jotting it down on her prescription pad.
“We all strive for a purpose in life ... but for many people, they struggle with zero purpose,” says Gorfinkel. “That need to feel needed ... promotes physical exercise, social connections and a sense of gratitude,” she says. “Volunteering is medicine.”
Decades of research highlight the mental and physical benefits of volunteering, particularly for older adults, with some experts advocating for it as a public health intervention to promote healthy living and aging. It’s linked to lower rates of depression, increased life satisfaction, and a reduced risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline.
Benefits also extend to the broader community, says Kate Mulligan, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
“When people come together and volunteer, we are reminded of our capacity to actually get things done,” she says, adding that “makes a big difference and helps us feel like we matter.”
Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a Toronto-based family physician, believes in the health benefits of volunteering and often prescribes it to her patients as a way to promote physical and mental well-being.
- Steve Russell Toronto Star
She’s the founder and scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing, which promotes referring people to non-clinical supports and community resources, such as volunteering. Mulligan says people who become volunteers through social prescribing report the greatest health benefits.
In part, she says, people who give to others experience the so-called giver’s glow. And for those who are unwell, shifting from seeing themselves as having needs to feeling they have something to contribute creates “a big paradigm shift.”
“That change in your self-perception and self-esteem makes a tremendous difference in your own health experiences, your own health outcomes and your use of health services. So people who are feeling better socially — and connected through things like volunteering — go to their doctor a lot less often. And that’s really important at this time when we’re seeing such an overburdened health system.”
Barbara Sheffield, 82, began volunteering as a child, and since retiring has been part of a church group that helps resettle refugees.
“There’s personal engagement, joy, connection, meeting people, networking. I’ve particularly found in retirement, a meaningful retirement, rather than wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,” she says.
“Often retirees will say, ‘I really feel alone.’ Well, when you’re volunteering, there’s no way you’re ever going to feel that,” says Sheffield. “You can be hugely connected and busy, not only bringing joy to others, but joy to yourself as well.”
Bryan Smale, director of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, says volunteering is essential to our quality of life. It’s one of the main indicators his team uses when assessing well-being. (The GDP tells us how the economy is doing, while the index, which is housed in the Faculty of Health at the University of Waterloo, sheds light on our well-being.)
When Canadians are asked about quality of life across key categories — community vitality, democratic engagement, education, environment, healthy populations, leisure and culture, living standards, and time use — community always ranks in the top three. That’s because social relationships and social engagement — in part through volunteering — are pivotal.
“Better connectedness to others and one’s community are aspects of people’s lives that are increasingly seen as central to their quality of life,” he says.
The professor emeritus of recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo notes that larger social networks can also lead to indirect health benefits. For instance, if volunteers develop strong social connections with supportive people, they might make better lifestyle choices, such as giving up excessive drinking, quitting smoking and getting more sleep.
The psychosocial benefits of volunteering are well-documented, and now a growing body of research is examining how it influences health in neurobiological ways. One theory is that as humans evolved, helping others became an adaptive behaviour that was learned over time, which helped us function better in our daily lives. The belief is that when someone volunteers, there is a release of health-promoting hormones, such as oxytocin, which leads to neurobiological benefits. It’s similar to what happens when a parent helps their child.
Sae Hwang Han, assistant professor in the department of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, is studying how helping behaviours influence behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms underlying health.
He’s co-authored many studies, including one that examined how volunteering can act as buffer against stress. Researchers looked at data from 340 volunteers over several days, during which time cortisol levels — a stress hormone — in their saliva was measured and they were asked about daily stressors, such as work and relationships. The results showed that on days when participants volunteered, their cortisol levels were lower. (High levels of cortisol are linked to various health problems.)
Darrell Pinto started volunteering about 15 years ago, helping newcomers and refugees. He derived so much joy from it that he quit his corporate gig and got a job in the non-profit sector. He’s now the director of employment at Jumpstart Refugee Talent, and still volunteers on the side.
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In another study, Han and his colleagues analyzed data from about 9,700 Americans over 16 years. They found that those with a higher genetic risk of Alzheimer’s experienced slower cognitive decline if they volunteered.
In an interview with the Star, Han said a study he co-authored last year provides compelling evidence that volunteering should be considered a public health intervention. Researchers looked at data from nearly 35,000 people over more than two decades and found the health benefits of volunteering to be more pronounced amongst those in poor health.
“It’s a very exciting way of thinking about the relationship between volunteering — or any type of helping behaviour — and health,” said Han.
At Purdue University, Ken Ferraro, a professor of sociology, has studied the link between volunteering and reduced cardiovascular risk. One study he co-authored found that regular volunteers had lower levels of inflammation. Another, which tracked about 5,000 people over a dozen years, found volunteering, even just an hour a week, was associated with a 46 per cent reduction in the risk of heart attack compared with non-volunteers.
“Think of it as a dose — a dose of a medicine, or a dose of volunteering,” said Ferraro, the founding director of the Center on Aging and the Life Course at the university. “The dose is only an hour a week and you’re getting a significant reduction in the risk of heart attack.”
Eric Kim, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, studies how having a high sense of purpose relates to better health, including increased physical activity, better sleep, healthier diets and improved resilience to stress.
“As a society we like to get wrapped up in the newest and latest advancements,” he said. “But, I think that volunteering is a wonderful social technology that humans have created over centuries — and it has win-win benefits for everyone involved.”
Darrell Pinto says volunteering has given him so much energy that he can go 12-hours straight. He even has more energy than his three younger brothers, none of whom volunteer.
“I just don’t seem to get tired like my brothers” says Pinto. “At 56, I just seem to have more energy than my peers.”
He started volunteering about 15 years ago, helping newcomers and refugees. And he’s derived so much joy from it that during the pandemic, he quit his corporate gig, took a pay cut, and got a job in the non-profit sector. (He’s the director of employment at Jumpstart Refugee Talent, and still volunteers on the side.)
“That decision was driven by the question, ‘What is my purpose?’”
Twenty years from now, he says no one will remember the PowerPoint presentations he made during his corporate career. But the work he’s doing now, with refugees, will have lasting impact.
“It is a much more positive contribution to my community, and Canada.”