Three Senior Health Benefits of Volunteering
By Megan Dearman, Volunteer Engagement Coordinator at Kavod Senior Life
Throughout my life, I have seen firsthand the transformative power of volunteering. I’ve stood on both sides of the experience: I have served as a volunteer during times of community need, where helping others changed my life for the better. I have also been the one in need, receiving help from volunteers when I didn’t know where else to turn.
From these life events, I became passionate about community engagement, leading me to attend the Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU). At MSU, I studied community wellness and resilience. Diving into sociology, psychology, and lifestyle medicine, I learned a scientific truth that I had already felt in my heart: volunteering isn’t just good for the community; it is beneficial to the volunteer’s own health.
Three of these main benefits affect physical, mental and emotional health.
- Physical: According to research in lifestyle medicine, social connection creates a powerful “buffer system” for our bodies. Engaging with others through volunteering strengthens our immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems.
- Mental: Volunteering can help us keep our mind sharp and our spirit bright, because it is a unique kind of mental exercise. At Kavod Senior Life, it can be as simple as making change at the community gift shop or as complex as planning the next Kavod community event. Both kinds of tasks stimulate the brain and strengthen problem-solving skills. This mental stimulation encourages us to think ahead, plan next steps, and stay cognitively active.
- Emotional: Research shows that volunteering releases dopamine, the brain’s “feel-good” chemical, leading to more relaxed and positive feelings.
By shifting our focus toward helping others, we inadvertently strengthen ourselves. Whether it is the joy of a shared conversation or the satisfaction of a job well done, volunteering reminds us that we are part of something larger than we are.
At its heart, volunteering is about connection, and I am honored to be part of a community like Kavod where that connection can truly flourish.
If you’d like to learn more about volunteering at Kavod, send us a note here!
References:
- Frates, B. (2019).Lifestyle Medicine Handbook.
- Thoreson, A. (2023). Mayo Clinic Health System.
- Mayo Clinic Health System. “3 health benefits of volunteering.”