An unexpected act of kindness can change a day—whether you are on the receiving end or the one who initiates it. And that change can echo far beyond a single day, because when measured by their effects, acts of kindness are never truly small, despite the language we use to describe them.
In 2016, on a cold morning, a man tied a scarf to a lamppost in the city of Bristol, adding a note explaining that it was not a lost item. The number of homeless people in the city had increased more than eightfold in just seven years, and many residents were inspired by the gesture to dress the city’s trees with coats, hats, and thick blankets for anyone who might need them. The initiative spread from Bristol to many other cities across the country and eventually crossed borders, inspiring people in other parts of Europe.
How much do small acts of kindness matter?
Even today, it is not unusual to see hot-water bottles hanging from tree branches in cities across the United Kingdom—although the sight might at first resemble an eccentric form of public art. In reality, it is simply a way to help people experiencing homelessness stay warm during the winter. The hot-water bottles carry notes identifying the companies that filled them and providing information on where more such items can be found.
The project may appear to be a minor gesture when set against the scale of the need, but its initiator, Pete Wentland, who was once homeless himself, says that a simple bottle of hot water can make the difference between life and death.
Small acts of kindness not only bring comfort and practical help to those who need them, but, according to research, they can also yield a surprisingly wide range of benefits for those who practice them, whether occasionally or on a regular basis.
Good news for those who sow kindness
In a study that set out to examine the link between kindness and happiness, Japanese researchers found that happy people tend to be kinder than unhappy ones, but also that the relationship does not run in only one direction. In a second study conducted by the same team, participants were asked to keep track of every act of kindness they performed over the course of a week. The result was an increase in the subjects’ reported levels of happiness.
In his book The Five Side Effects of Kindness, biochemist David Hamilton presents findings from a series of studies showing that kindness brings about changes in the brain, plays a protective role against heart disease, strengthens the immune system, can act as an antidote to depression, and may even slow the aging process.
Chronic inflammation underlies many modern illnesses, including degenerative diseases.
A 2013 study showed that individuals oriented toward hedonistic happiness—grounded in the acquisition of material goods—tended to have poorer health, marked by elevated levels of biological indicators associated with increased inflammation in the body, as well as lower levels of markers linked to antibody production.
By contrast, participants whose sense of happiness stemmed primarily from small acts of service toward others and the well-being generated by those acts displayed a much healthier profile, with significantly lower levels of inflammation.
Practicing kindness has also been shown to reduce anxiety. A 2015 study conducted by the University of British Columbia assessed students with high anxiety levels before and after they became involved in helping others and found a clear improvement.
“We found that any kind act appeared to have the same benefit, even small gestures like opening a door for someone or saying ‘thanks’ to the bus driver,” said Professor Lynn Alden, who led the study.
Alden also points out that acts of kindness do not have to be “face to face” in order to be effective; they can also take place at a distance, as in the case of charitable donations.
A 2016 study highlights the difference between focusing on acts of kindness directed toward oneself and those directed toward others: “People striving for happiness may be tempted to treat themselves. Our results, however, suggest that they may be more successful if they opt to treat someone else instead,” the researchers said.
Kindness is a strong predictor of happy marriages
Kindness is a strong predictor of happy marriages, according to studies conducted three decades ago by psychologist John Gottman. Observing 130 couples who spent an entire day in a laboratory designed to resemble a living room, Gottman found that patterns of interaction divided couples into two groups: those who fostered a climate of intimacy and trust, and those who undermined it.
Over the course of the day, it was inevitable that one spouse would draw the other’s attention to something they found interesting—perhaps an unusual bird spotted outside the window. The partner’s responses ranged from engaging with interest and attentiveness to continuing their own activity undisturbed, sometimes even reacting with irritation and asking not to be interrupted.
These small acts of goodwill weighed heavily in marital happiness. Couples who divorced within the following six years responded positively to their partner’s bids for connection and attention only 33 percent of the time, while couples who stayed together did so in 87 percent of cases.
Julie Gottman, the researcher’s wife and herself a psychologist, says that kindness can be viewed from two diametrically opposed perspectives: either as a trait you simply have or do not have, or as a muscle that grows in proportion to how often it is exercised.
A drop in the ocean
Kindness is not exactly a defining virtue in an increasingly individualistic society, and its role is often underestimated precisely because it is rarely credited with producing change that truly matters.
Various websites and blogs list—and even describe—acts of kindness that anyone can perform, yet even those involved in promoting them sometimes doubt their significance. Beyond the immediate gesture, the recipient’s situation often remains unchanged, and society continues on its course, largely unaffected by occasional acts of charity.
Christie Watson, who worked for 20 years as a nurse before becoming a successful writer, reflects in her book The Language of Kindness on how caring for people can reduce the volume of suffering to something more bearable. Whether it is helping a boy write a message to parents who have lost their son but agreed to donate his organs, or washing the hair of a girl who died in a fire so that her parents might be spared at least the unbearable smell of smoke, Watson understands that her profession is less a combination of chemistry, physics, anatomy, and pharmacology, and more an art grounded in ethics and psychology.
Acts of kindness matter, concludes writer Chibundu Onuzo, after taking part in the distribution of 2,000 care boxes to people in need in the days leading up to Christmas.
At first, the fact that 2,000 families would have a substantial Christmas meal seemed insignificant to her—if they could not afford these foods at Christmas, they almost certainly would not have them at New Year’s, on birthdays, or on other festive and ordinary occasions throughout the year.
Although the effort of the church she belonged to appeared to matter little in the broader scheme of reality, Onuzo saw through her interactions with people just how much it mattered to them that someone had remembered them.
Even if global inequalities can seem as fixed as geographic coordinates, the writer emphasizes that every unjust system—from political corruption to the rapacity of bankers—has been cemented through millions of individual acts of injustice.
If this machinery of selfishness was set in motion by the collective effort of countless participants, the proposed remedy is the gradual accumulation of kindness, even when it takes the form of barely noticeable acts—because the world is neither built nor dismantled with a single wave of a magic wand.
Its fate, and its quality, rest on the bricks we add or replace each day, even when no one notices what we are doing.
As former U.S. senator Bob Kerrey also observed, “unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly and most underrated agent of human change.”