In a time where daily life often feels rushed, noisy, and overwhelming, it can be easy to overlook the power of something as simple as kindness. But in this episode of Skin & Within, Claire Gray sits down with Dr David Hamilton—a former pharmaceutical scientist turned kindness advocate—to explore how small, compassionate actions can have a powerful and lasting impact on our health, mindset, and wider community.
Dr Hamilton, who has written extensively about the science of kindness, explains that it's not just a fluffy concept or something to tack onto a to-do list. Kindness has a measurable, biological effect on the body. Every time we perform or even witness an act of kindness, we release oxytocin—known as the “kindness hormone”—which helps to reduce blood pressure, calm the nervous system, and boost heart health. It’s a natural mood booster and a quiet, consistent way to build resilience.
But perhaps the most striking takeaway from the conversation is what Dr Hamilton calls the ripple effect. He shares compelling research suggesting that a single act of kindness can influence up to 125 people. One kind gesture—holding a door, giving someone a compliment, sending a thoughtful message—can inspire a chain reaction, reaching far beyond the moment or the people directly involved.
The episode also touches on the connection between kindness and the placebo effect—another area Dr Hamilton has explored in depth. He discusses how belief and expectation can genuinely shift our physical experience, and how kindness, both given and received, can act like a “natural medicine” in our lives. For Dr Hamilton, this is personal. His mother’s experience with depression was the spark that led him to explore the emotional and physiological connections between the mind and the body.
Claire and David also explore the idea of kindfulness—a blend of mindfulness and kindness—which involves deliberately cultivating kind thoughts towards others. It’s a practice that rewires the brain towards empathy, compassion, and optimism, building emotional strength in the process.
The episode ends with a call to action—not grand or overwhelming, but quietly powerful. Choose kindness. Not because it’s expected, or because it might be returned, but because it makes you feel good, helps others, and creates a ripple that reaches far beyond what you might ever see.
So, if you’ve ever doubted the impact of your small gestures, this is your reminder: they matter. Kindness is one of the most powerful tools we have for creating a healthier, more connected world.
🎧 Listen now to Skin & Within – Episode 5: The Ripple Effect of Kindness, and take the first step towards a kinder, more mindful way of living.
Transcript:
Skin and Within explores kindness and how it impacts your overall well being
>> Claire Gray: Welcome to Skin and Within, where I help you find your inner glow with insights from wellness experts. I'm Clare Grey, founder of Ermana Natural Skincare and passionate wellness warrior. In this series I'm exploring how to find radiance that's not just skin deep, but leads to a healthier, happier you from the inside out. In today's episode, we're going to explore kindness and how it impacts your overall well being. I had the most amazing conversation with the wonderful writer and kindness scientist, Dr. David Hamilton. We talked about how being kind can influence your brain chemistry and in turn have a positive effect on both your mental and physical health. Listen out for Dr. David telling us about how kindness is contagious and that just one act of kindness can impact up to 125 people. Let's go. It's an absolute honour to have you on the podcast today, David, so thank you very much for coming on.
>> Claire Gray: It's my pleasure, Clare. I'm very excited to be here.
>> Claire Gray: Thank you.
David Hamilton is a kindness scientist and public speaker
So for anybody out there, who doesn't know who Dr. David Hamilton is, David has written 12 books on kindness on the subject of kindness. He's a kindness scientist and public speaker and some of the titles of his books, the five side effects of kindness, perhaps my favourite is why Woo Boo works. And his new book, the Joy of actually giving a fuck is due out the beginning of July. So, David, you were a research scientist originally, weren't you? What made you make the career move?
>> Claire Gray: I was fascinated with the placebo effect. And the reason why I was fascinated with it is because when I was, a kid, my mom had postnatal depression after my youngest sister was born. I've got three sisters. My youngest sister was born in the mid-70s and my mom had postnatal depression. It wasn't very well understood at that time, not as well as it is today. And my mom didn't really get the proper treatment and she really struggled with depression, anxiety, panic attacks and stuff. And I found a book in the library when I was at my first week, I think at high school. And the English teacher had taken us to the library. I'd never been in a library, I didn't recall anyway. And a book fell off the shelf, maybe I bumped it, I don't know. But it was called the magic power of your mind by a gentleman called Walter Germain. And I thought, I bet that can help my mum. And I just had an instinct, could help my mom. And I just took the book I borrowed. Well, I borrowed it I put it in my bag. I didn't know you're supposed to join the library and get a yellow card and all that. I just thought, library, you borrow books. I put it in my bag and we still got it. But it really helped my mom. It didn't cure her of depression, but what it did is it taught her, it gave her tools and insights and taught her strategies that helped her to navigate a course through some of the more challenging days. And so my mom learned things like mindfulness meditation, she learned affirmations and positive thinking, all these kind of things that nobody really knew about, certainly where I grew up at that time. And so all through my late childhood and through my teenage years and my twenties, my mom and I often frequently talked about the power of the mind because talking about this kind of thing became a fascination for both of us because we both saw how it benefited my mom. So wind the clock forward. And I finished my PhD and I'm working in cardiovascular, research and development and cancer and looking at the results of clinical trials and drugs that I've been involved in. And all my colleagues were so excited about the effectiveness of the drug. But for me, I just couldn't help looking at, the effectiveness of the placebo, which told me people's belief that they're getting a drug, even though it was a sugar tablet, was having an actual physiological effect. And I started researching that on my own, just as a wee money side project on my own. And understanding that when you believe something like in the context of a placebo, for example, the belief itself actually causes changes in your brain chemistry. So brain chemicals actually change in response to what you believe or what you imagine or what you expect. And that was so compelling for me. I think because of my background of having, you know, helped my mum all those years and chatting to my mum for years about this kind of thing that became, that was, had always been a passion for me and I realised that is very, very important to me. So I just one day decided to go out and do it and resign from the job and go out and start teaching and writing and that kind of stuff.
>> Claire Gray: So isn't that amazing? So from the age of 11, you've given your mom a book, you've seen the impact of these tools that she's used on a day to day basis. So positive affirmations. And then years later when you find out about the placebo effect, you connect that to what happened with your mum.
>> Claire Gray: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah.
Having an experience of kindness has a physiological effect on our blood vessels
>> Claire Gray: And so can you explain what Effect the placebo effect can have when relating to kindness.
>> Claire Gray: It will kindness, basically any state that you feel has some sort of a, physiological effect. So with kindness, for example, if you have an experience of kindness, and when I say an experience of kindness, you could be the person being kind, giving the kindness. You could also be the person who's receiving it, or you could even be a person who's witnessing it, either live or maybe you're watching on a video. it's whatever the experience of kindness is. What that experience actually does is it causes, like the placebo effect. It causes actual changes in your brain, but also throughout your body. I mean, for example, having an experience of kindness has an actual physiological effect on our blood vessels. You know, people say, you know, if you live from the heart, it's good for the heart. That is actually physically true. That's physiologically true.
>> Claire Gray: And so am I right in saying that oxytocin's connected to the heart health. Is that right?
>> Claire Gray: Yeah. So I refer to oxytocin in some contexts as a kindness hormone. And I do that because it plays a big role in many of the physiological effects of kindness. So I call it a kindness hormone to draw parallel with stress hormones, things like adrenaline and cortisol. These are stress hormones, but they're produced when you have an experience of stress. it doesn't matter what the situation is. It's the experience of stress. It's if you feel stress. Because two people can be in the same situation, one feels stressed and one doesn't about it. the person who feels stressed will produce stress hormones. So stress hormones are produced through an experience of stress. Similarly, kindness hormones are produced through an experience of kindness. And oxytocin is one of the main parties, in that kind of game, I suppose. So if you have an experience of kindness, you generate oxytocin toxin not only in the brain, but also in the heart and in different parts of the body. And one of the amazing things that it does, certainly in the context of the cardiovascular system, is it actually parks, if you will, on the lining of our blood vessels. The proper term is it binds onto, receptors on the cells on the interior of our blood vessels. What that, does is it causes, an expansion, you know, a dilation, a widening of the blood vessels. And what we get out of that, is a reduction in blood pressure because the heart doesn't have to push as hard to get the blood through.
>> Claire Gray: So that's incredible, isn't it? Just thinking about it?
>> Claire Gray: Yeah. So kindness hormones are called cardio protective. So oxytocin, as well as being a reproductive, hormone, it is also a very important cardio protective hormone. In other words, it protects your cardiovascular system. So any way of producing it that, ah, is having an experience of kindness is also cardio protective. So if you live from the heart, it really is good for your heart.
>> Claire Gray: So. Yeah, so kindness is good for your heart. I guess it's like if you witness something you mentioned, you know, if you're watching something. So I know there's a study they did with Mother Teresa that was going to ask if you could talk about it. And I guess that's where the term heartwarming comes from. If you watch something heartwarming.
>> Claire Gray: Yeah, yeah. So that study, if I remember, that's referred to sometimes affectionately as the Mother Teresa effect. Only because the researchers to get people to have an experience of kindness, you know, all of them to have an experience of kindness, they asked them to watch a video. And it was a video of Mother Teresa, who was on the streets of Calcutta showing compassion and kindness and empathy. And as they watched the video, their immune system responded. So we have a little antibody in our, saliva. It lines our, mucous membranes. It's the first part of your immune system that ever responds to something that you ingest or inhale, for example. It's the first part of your immune system that protects you. And it's called siga, or secretory immunoglobulin M A. That's for the test. Let's just leave it as siga, more common name. And what they found Is levels of SIGA, this very, very important immune system antibody, increased by 50% simply by watching that video of Mother Teresa. And so they called it the Mother Teresa effect. But, what it does, it applies to any observational experience of kindness. If you witness any experience of kindness, it doesn't have to be Mother Teresa. It could be, you know, I watch dog rescue videos almost every day. You know, anything you witness that's kind or anything, any experience you have, whether you could be the giver as well or the receiver, all has more or less the same effect.
>> Claire Gray: Amazing.
Researchers at Harvard and Yale say kindness spreads out to three stages
So you talk about kindness being contagious. So I guess that's what if you're watching somebody. So if you receive it, if you give it, you notice it, it's catching.
>> Claire Gray: Yeah, it's contagious. In fact, researchers at Harvard and Yale found that that contagion effect actually spreads out to three stages. The technical term is three, three degrees of separation. And what that means is if you be kind to someone because of how that person now feels, the technical term for that, how they feel is called elevation. You know, when you receive kindness, you feel better in some way. You feel elevated or uplifted. So technically, researchers call it elevation. And that feeling itself then would cause that person who you've helped to be kind to someone else. And that someone else is now at one degree of separation from you. And that person will then, because if they feel elevated, will be kind or kinder to someone else who's at 2 degrees of separation from you, and then that person will then be kind or kinder to someone else who's at three degrees of separation from you. And Harvard research has found that it goes out there to three degrees of separation. But each person doesn't just help one person. In fact, the R number, the contagion number, the reproducibility number of kindness, is somewhere between three and five. I say somewhere between because it varies. It depends on where you are and what kind of. Whether you're working in a place or it's populated or sparse, whatever. but it varies between three and five. So if, for example, it was five, then if you help someone and you be kind to someone and they feel elevated, that person will be kind or kinder to five people. Not just one, but to five. And each of those five will be kind to five, and each of those, now 25, will be kind to another five. And what you actually get then, if you use that r number, is 125 people benefiting from an act of kindness. And I say this because I think oftentimes we don't realise the impact that we have on people's lives. We think, I just do my thing, I just go from day to day and I just do my thing. And sometimes a lot of people feel like you're not contributing. What's the value in me? And what I'd like to say to the listeners right now is even the seemingly small things that you say and you do have this ripple effect, you just don't notice it because you do something or say something nice, supportive, ah, and then you turn away and get on with the rest of your day, what you don't see is what happens next. That, ripple effect. It's like dropping a pebble in a pond and then walking away. What you don't see is that, ah, ripple spreading out over the pond. And lily pads at the other side of the pond, 100 metres away are, rising and falling because of the pebble that you dropped. In the pond. That happens in society when you drop a little act of kindness or say something supportive or kind to someone and then you walk away. What you don't see, it's not lily pads rising and falling, it's people's smiles, it's the quality of people's days that are being affected by something seemingly small that you said or did that you didn't even realise. And I'm saying this because, I think don't ever underestimate the power of these seemingly small things that you say and do for people.
>> Claire Gray: Gosh, do you know, it's just such a lovely thought just visualising that. I always say you never underestimate the power of a smile. Say, for example, just walking through the park, you know, in your daily walk and how nice it is just to smile at somebody because you, when you get the smile back from them and you, you know, the hope, maybe that's making them feel good, maybe that's the only person they'll see that day and hopefully you've lifted their mood. And I think we all live in this. We're content to live in little bubbles, as you say, you know, get our head down and we don't always notice what's going on roundabout. So I just, I mean that. Just the idea of that ripple effect of kindness, I just think, gosh, can you imagine the world where everybody's just a little bit kinder?
>> Claire Gray: I know, I know.
>> Claire Gray: We wouldn't have the issues we've got, would we?
>> Claire Gray: I know. That's actually why I wrote my most recent book, the Joy of Actually Giving a Fuck. I tried to inspire people to realise the impact of little acts of kindness on other people in society, but also on your own health as well, mental and physical health.
Mind body connection is basically everything you think about. You believe, for example, has physical effects
>> Claire Gray: And can you, can you talk to us a bit more about that? and just. And the whole mind body connection, you know, how, how it impacts.
>> Claire Gray: So, so the mind. Mind body connection in general is basically everything you think about. You imagine a. You believe, for example, has physical effects and you can actually harness the can affect. I mean, for example, researches shows that if people have had a stroke as m. Well as receiving physiotherapy, if they do little things like visualisation, like imagine repetitively visualise or repetitively imagine moving the impaired side of the body. So for, let's suppose someone had impairment to the left hand side, the left arm, for example. Then if they were to daily, even just for 10, 15 minutes a day, just imagine that they're using their left hand and left arm that they're picking up objects freely, they're reaching for a glass of water, taking a drink, and repetitively, freely imagining it's freely able to move. What that actually does is it begins to impact on the brain, it begins to impact on the arm. And every single research study in this field shows that people who imagine, do that repetitive, imagine movement, imagining of movement recover faster and more than people who just do physiotherapy, alone. And the reason why it works that way is because studies show that if you repetitively imagine something, your brain processes it as if it's actually happening. I mean, researchers at Harvard, for example, got volunteers to play a sequence of five notes on a piano repetitively for each day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And they had their brain scanned every day. And the researchers could see the region of the brain connected to the finger muscles expanding, growing like a muscle. In fact, the reason why muscles physically grow is because they're mirroring a corresponding change in the brain. So muscles grow because there's a phenomena in the brain called neuroplasticity. It basically means the brain is plastic, it's moving, it's changing. And what's happening is the region connected to the muscle is actually developing and expanding. You know, it's not swelling in the brain, it's just expanding within the brain, its reach, if you will. And so it's called neuroplasticity. So you get, it's like a tree growing more branches or roots. It becomes more, you know, more connection, so more powerful. and so researchers found as they played these sequences of piano notes, the area of the brain significantly grew through this phenomena called neuroplasticity. But while they did that, a second group of people closed their eyes, put their hands flat on a table, no piano, but imagined that they were playing the piano notes. They had to imagine playing the same sequence of five notes each day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, also having their brain scanned every day. And what was astonishing is when you looked at the brain scans on the fifth day, you couldn't tell the difference between those who played the notes with their fingers and those who played the notes in their mind. They were absolutely identical.
>> Claire Gray: That's mind blowing, isn't it?
>> Claire Gray: So the brain wasn't making a distinction between the brain wasn't making a distinction between who was playing the notes with their fingers and who was playing the notes with their mind. In other words, in many contexts, the brain doesn't distinguish real from imaginary. So that is why those people, in all of the studies that have been done on stroke rehabilitation. That's why people who do physiotherapy plus visualisation recover much faster than those who do physiotherapy alone.
>> Claire Gray: That's unbelievable, isn't it? I mean, I, guess we've always been told not to underestimate the power of the mind, but this takes it to a whole new level. It's like we're a lot more in control than we think we are.
>> Claire Gray: absolutely. And I think one of the things that I love is educating a wee bit about this kind of science m here. And it gives people a wee bit of hope. They think, my God, I didn't realise that my mind is, is not impotent. My mind isn't just something I think with and interpret the world. I can actually use it productively to, you know, to help, to aid my health, to assist myself. And you know, even I could sit for five minutes and just think kindly about people. That sounds really woo woo, right? To just sit and think kindly about people. But doing that will actually improve your cardiovascular function, you know, because you're generating kindness hormones. And it also physically changes the brain. I mean, research shows, for example, that consistent experiences of kindness actually rewire the brain much the same way as, you know, many, people nowadays are familiar with mindfulness. It's a meditation technique where you breathe and you notice that you're breathing. So in other words, you're giving your attention to what breathing is like and that's loosely referred to as mindfulness. So you're mindful of the experience of breathing. And what that does is that causes, that gives the frontal part of the brain above your eyes an actual physical workout. Just like if you work out a muscle at the gym and it gets physically larger, stronger, more powerful. So the same kind of thing happens in the brain and it's that, word I used a minute ago, neuroplasticity. So that frontal part of the brain physically changes through mindfulness because that's the part of the brain that gets a workout because it's the mindful or the noticing part of the brain. It's the part of the brain that gets a workout when you notice something, when you give something your attention. But let's suppose instead of doing mindfulness, you do what I refer to as kindfulness. And kindfulness is any mindfulness based practise that has at least some of the focus where you're thinking kindly. So you could just be sitting thinking about people you care about and wishing nice things for them, saying wouldn't it be nice if such and such a person had a wonderful day today. Wouldn't it be amazing if that hope or dream they've had if something, something really magical happened in their life today or you know, isn't it amazing that such and such a person, she's such a great mum, I just love the way she speaks to her kids and just thinking nice kind things about people as woo woo as ah, that sounds, that also works out the brain because you're giving something your attention. But here's the crucial part, that there's a bias to the left hand side part of the front part of the brain. In other words, it's not just the whole frontal part, there's a bit more working out on the left hand side. And crucially that's the part of the brain that plays a big role in happiness and joy and positive mood. And what that means is that is physically changing like you're working a muscle. And so that part of the brain is now more powerful, the happy part of the brain. and what that means in the long term is you're actually wiring your brain through thinking kindly about people as woo woo as that sounds, you're actually rewiring your brain by repetitively, consistently is often, you know, every day, for example, rather than just always thinking negatively about people or things, but thinking actively, kindly. And ah, what that means, when that part of the brain changes physically, it means that happiness and joy and positive mood become a little bit more accessible. It doesn't mean you'll always be happy of course, because life happens, doesn't it? But what it does mean, because that part of the brain is now more powerful, it means that happiness and positive mood and joy become more accessible to you. So out of the backdrop of life they become easier to have that experience of happiness. And that's why loads and loads and loads of studies show that when we are kind it feels good, but in the long term it makes us happier. And it's also protective against anxiety and depression.
>> Claire Gray: Well yeah, that's what I was just thinking about. There is, it's so much nicer to be thinking that way than where a lot of our brains tend to go to the negative, to the negative side of things. And it's like going down a rabbit hole, isn't it? And that will change your mood. If can gently steer or push your mind towards to the left hand side to kinder things, it's going to make you feel a lot better, isn't it?
>> Claire Gray: absolutely. And it's just it's practise. again, it comes down to why I love talking about the science of this. Because if you understand that you can actually cause beneficial physical changes in the happy centres of the brain simply by thinking kindly of people and then speaking kindly to people and being kind, you know, if people just knew that, that I could actually change the physical structure of the brain and the happiness centres which make happiness therefore more accessible, simply by being kind, speaking kindly and thinking kindly as woo woo as that sounds, but literally thinking kindly of people. If I'd known that decades ago when I was a kid or a teenager, that would have been a game changer for me. If I knew that.
>> Claire Gray: I've wanted to tell some bosses, some ex bosses, how much nicer their life would be if they're a bit kinder. Not sure. But it shouldn't really be a strategy, it should just be a way of life for people and once they see the impact, hopefully it will be. You mentioned before, I'm sure as well, this might be an incentive for people.
Loving kindness meditation can also help how you biologically age, is that right
But you mentioned before that loving kindness meditation can also help how you biologically age, is that right?
>> Claire Gray: Yeah, yeah. So loving kindness is a meditation, it's a mindfulness based style of meditation. in the east they call it, they refer to it as metta and that really means universal unconditional kindness or kind thinking. In the west it's often called loving kindness, as in that's a literal translation of that. I refer to that type of meditation as a kindfulness practise because remember, I use the term kindfulness to encapsulate any style of meditation practise where at least some of the focus is on kindness or compassion. And with that loving kindness, basically there's a repetition, it's a structured meditation. So rather than just thinking of what such and such a person is like, in thinking nicely about such and such a person, what you actually say is something along the lines of you think of the person and you say mentally in your mind, you think of the person and you say, may you be happy and well and safe and may you feel at ease. And you say that repetitively and then you say that for different people. So you're repetitively just saying these and wishing these nice things. May you be happy and well and safe, may you feel at ease. And what was astonishing is lots of research as one of the most well studied meditation styles in science. And the reason why is because if everyone in a scientific study does that, practise, then researchers can measure the effects of a positive feeling A feeling, an experience of kindness or compassion, they can measure the effects of that in the brain, in the heart, in the immune system on the ageing process. And that's why we have a lot of data now about the effects of kindness and compassionate thinking. Because by studying people doing this meditation you can see, I mean for example, that meditation practise has been shown to create an anti inflammatory effect in the blood. In other words, knocking out some inflammation in the blood. That's astonishing. Literally it's because it activates a portion of the nervous system that brings about an anti inflammatory effect. But on the ageing process, scientists were studying, the rate of biological ageing. And one of the ways you can do this sophisticated, a very sophisticated way is to measure the, the rate of wear and tear in the end caps on our DNA. And these little end caps are called telomeres. And they're very similar to the little plastic end caps on your shoelaces. And those little plastic end caps and shoelaces are ah, called aglets. And their function is obviously to organise the shoelace so that you can poke it through the wee hole m in your shoe so you can thread the shoelace. If that aglet wears down over time, then you're left with a lace that's all frayed and you can't poke it through the wee hole. So the shoelace is useless. Something similar happens on our DNA to the telomeres. So the telomeres are the aglets of our DNA and over time they are subject to wear and tear and they wear down. And once they wear down, the cell dies because the DNA, cannot function anymore. And so the cell dies. And so the rate of wear and tear on our telomeres is one of the most accurate ways of measuring biological age. So in other words, a person's biological age and how fast you are ageing, because, you know, we have two ages. You have your chronological age, which is the number of years you've been on this planet, then you have your biological age, which is really the age of your body. And there's usually a disparity between the two. People with a very healthy lifestyle, for example, often have a biological age that's younger than, that's less than their chronological age. And so researchers were measuring that rate of loss of telomere. So they had a fixed measurement of how on the average person, how much we lose in a space of six weeks. I mean they used sophisticated techniques to measure that. and then they got people to practise in mindfulness. So just Listen to the sound of the breath for example. Ah. And there was a tiny, tiny slowing, but not really anything observable. Then they got them to do this loving kindness practise, this kindfulness, you basically thinking of people and wishing them may you be happy and well and safe. May you feel it. He said about 20 minutes a day for that six week study and there was no loss in telomeres at all. It was a complete halting of loss of telomeres. Now obviously it doesn't mean you'll never age, but what it did mean is under those experimental conditions, there was a real significant anti ageing effect inside our cells. A very significant and profound anti ageing effect. And you can actually see that some other studies. There was a study in fact a few years ago, I mentioned this one in my new book because I just found it recently, that scientists scanned the brain of a Tibetan Buddhist who practises that meditation style every day and has done all of his life. And they scanned his brain four times over a 14 year period. Then they scanned the brains of 105 people between the ages of 25 and 70, sorry, 25 and 66, so that they could get an accurate picture of what an ageing brain looks like. So they used machine learning to work out, therefore here's a brain scan of someone at 25 year old, someone at 26, someone at 27, someone at 28, et cetera, right up to 66. And so the machine learning could work out what a brain looks like as it ages. Then they compared it to his brain and he was 41 year old when the study finished, yet his brain was only 33. So his brain age was eight years younger than his physiological age. And part of it is due to the slowing of the wear and tear of our telomeres and our DNA. But here you had an actual genetic measurable, a significant slowing of the rate of ageing of his brain and a predominant practise. He obviously has a healthy lifestyle as well. He has a fully plant based diet over there. But in addition to that it was every single day the kindfulness practise. May you be happy and well and safe. May you feel at ease. This repetition, repetition of kind thinking.
>> Claire Gray: Gosh, I mean that's so inspiring, isn't it? And it certainly gives you an incentive as well, you know, that you can actually live well, age well, feel better. Absolutely.
Give three reasons why people should show some acts of kindness today
If you were to. If somebody's listening to this today and they're in a bit of a bad mood, can you Give them three reasons why they should just try and change their mindset and show some acts of kindness.
>> Claire Gray: Yeah. Well, first of all, I would say if you're not having the best of days, help someone, find someone who needs help and help them. Even if it just means checking in on someone who, you know has been having a tough time. And what that does is it takes you momentarily out of yourself. You know, here's an example. I was once a, not so long ago, having a really rough day. Just a lot of things were happening and the family member who wasn't well at the time, and I was just in my head and I was going over stuff that had happened recently in other contexts and just a million things, and I was really not having a great day at all. And I almost stumbled over an elderly gentleman who was lying on the pavement in front of me and it took me right out myself. I immediately just helped him and I helped him to get up. I said, are you okay? Are you okay? And what happened is he had stumbled at the top of a flight of a shot flight of stairs that leads up onto the street from some houses down below. And he just fell. And I hadn't seen him and no one else had. It must have just happened. And I helped him to get up. And then I said, are you okay? He said, I'm absolutely fine. I just lost my foot. And then he walked away into a shop and helping that, man just took me right out of myself. It just momentarily suspended my focus on myself as I switched my attention to the immediate needs of another person. And that's what kindness does, right? Even if you check in on someone, just ask someone how you doing, send them a text or anything. It takes you out of momentarily out of your own self and your own troubles and frustrations and whatever. And it just switches your attention onto the needs of another person. And what that ah, does, it activates all the happy hormones in the brain, that activates all the biochemistry of kindness. And it will start to make you feel a bit better in the moment. You will feel better. But the more often you do these kind of things, the more consistently the effect.
Kindness hormones neutralise free radicals, that is ageing inside skin cells
If I was to give people another reason for, being kind on the anti ageing thing, here was another study scientist that they took skin cells and they were measuring one of the factors of ageing in the skin. so one of the ways skin cells age is through production of free radicals, which are produced through. It could be too much sunlight, it could be too much m. Mental and emotional stress. It could be dietary choices. But basically, free radicals build our skin in our cardiovascular system, in the brain. In the brain. They lead to things like memory loss, dementia and the cardiovascular system. They lead to, heart disease, all that kind of stuff in the skin. They accelerate the ageing of the skin. And what they did is they measured these. They put the cells under stress in the lab and they measured the production of free radicals. Then they did the same experiment, but this time in the presence of kindness hormones, oxytocin, in other words, these things that are produced through an experience of kindness. And what was incredible is the levels of free radicals dramatically dropped. The dramatic drop in the levels of free radicals inside our skin, in other words, a dramatic drop m in the rate of ageing of our skin, simply through having an experience of kindness. And so I often bring people's attention to that sort of thing and it sounds unbelievable. I remember that I first spoke about that and a woman said, that can't be absolutely, that can't be true. And I said, well, actually, think about it. Kindness, we know, physiologically and neurologically, kindness is the opposite of stress. And what I mean by that is the experience of kindness generates the opposite conditions in the brain and body to the experience of stress. So everything an experience of stress does, an experience of kindness goes the other way. That's why kindness reduces blood pressure, stress increases blood pressure, et cetera, et cetera. So it is well known that stress increases the rate of biological ageing. Stress creates free radicals in our skin and it also does it in the brain, it does it in the cardiovascular system. So it's quite obvious you would expect experiences of kindness to neutralise free radicals in the skin. And that's all that study actually did. It set out, to show, yes, it does. Kindness hormones neutralise free radicals, that is ageing inside our skin cells. So I would say if you need to have a reason for how it might affect you, I would say it, make a lot of sense to be kind. The third reason why, if that's what you're looking for, reason why kindness is a, reason to be kind. it's one of the most potent ways to improve our overall mental health is to be kind. And lots and lots of research shows, and it's because earlier I talked about the physical effects on the brain. Lots of research shows that, that if we are kind consistently in our thinking and in our behaviour, it has an overall supportive effect on our mental health. It boosts our mood m and also helps at, the neurological level to counteract stress and also to protect us to a degree against depression and anxiety. It doesn't neutralise them, but it makes the positive states, as I said earlier, more accessible to us and it makes us a little bit more resistant to or resilient in the face of the more challenging things that have a potential to tip us over the edge in the wrong way.
>> Claire Gray: Yeah. So it's win, win, no matter what. It's win, win to be kind, isn't it? David, thank you so, so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. And people can pre order your book just now, can't they? Is that right?
>> Claire Gray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the book comes out in July, but it can be pre ordered now. In fact, I recently, as a wee thanks to people who pre order it, I recently created a kindfulness course that's free to anyone. So there's five kindfulness meditations and four lessons on how kindness impacts your mental health, your physical health and even how to practise self kindness, you know, self care. And that's, that's free to anyone who pre orders the book. and you can get all the information to pre order on my website and how to access that course.
>> Claire Gray: Brilliant. And what's the website just for those that don't know?
>> Claire Gray: Hey, Dr. David Hamilton.
>> Claire Gray: Excellent again, thank you very, very much. Thanks so much for joining us on Skin and Within, where I help you find your inner glow. Stay tuned for more conversations and wellness wisdom for a healthier, happier you.