Volunteering to Improve Your Mental Health

By Martha Michael

Everyone’s passionate about something -- it’s what makes the world go round. Though you may love wildlife conservation or working with youth, your neighbor may volunteer at a food bank. Hands-on volunteering is a win-win, in terms of its benefits to the giver and receiver, whether you lend a hand with seniors in your neighborhood or join Doctors Without Borders abroad.

Most charities have a clear vision for how their services boost recipients, but sometimes the many ways they benefit the volunteer is harder to see. So let’s take a closer look.

Benefits of Volunteering

Benefits to society such as reducing the suffering of others are good reasons to volunteer, but you can also receive practical benefits from volunteering, according to an article by HelpGuide.org.

Connection to Others

Humans are social animals, so the sense of community you get from volunteer work can help you find balance and achieve a high level of fulfillment. In addition to social interaction through partnering with others, doing charity work can contribute to better social skills.

By volunteering together, families create deeper bonds through shared experiences, and many non-profit organizations are structured in a way that welcomes a group effort. Cleaning a public park or serving holiday meals are good examples of opportunities an entire family can share.

Potential Career Boost

If you’ve ever fantasized about making a career change but you don’t want to give up your current job, you may get that itch scratched by adding a volunteer position to your schedule. You get a new workplace where you can meet people, and sometimes the mental boost of helping others improves employee satisfaction because you achieve a life balance that comes from gaining a charitable purpose.

People who volunteer can also build their skill sets in a low-pressure atmosphere. A new graduate can make their rookie mistakes in a setting where the stakes aren’t as high as they are in a successful law office or a demanding brokerage firm. You also develop skills such as teamwork in an atmosphere where all you need is passion and positivity.

Fulfilling and Fun

When you think of volunteering, the typical jobs may come to mind -- Peace Corps, Meals on Wheels, or a community cleanup project. Depending on the type of personality you have, there are countless settings where you can find personal fulfillment.

Volunteer positions can be most gratifying when they:

• Promote creativity
• Inspire
• Energize
• Promote relaxation
• Coincide with your job skills
• Fill in for a hobby
• Get you into the outdoors

Mental Health Benefit of Volunteering

Adding anything to your schedule has an impact on your physical health, one way or the other. An article on the website for the National Alliance on Mental Health, or NAMI, says there’s evidence of several mental health benefits that stem from giving your time to charity.

Stress relief - When people participate in volunteer programs, there’s an emphasis on the benefits for recipients, but it’s also a form of reducing stress for the person giving their time to serve others.

Building confidence - Taking on a new role can contribute to a sense of pride and add definition to your identity, which is helpful if you’re lacking confidence. The sense of accomplishment can build your self-esteem and create a positive cyclical effect.

Greater happiness - Research shows a strong correlation between volunteerism and a boost in well-being, according to a happiness study in the UK. Through self-reporting, participants claimed an improvement in their mental health after one month of volunteering.

Physical Health Benefits of Volunteering

Exercise - If you’re volunteering to do bookkeeping for a non-profit, you’re not getting the side benefit of a boost in physical activity, but many volunteer projects burn calories and help you maintain a healthy weight. Becoming a docent and giving walking tours or taking teens on backpacking trips through a national park are more physical examples of volunteerism. Even if your role is sedentary, such as collecting tickets or playing the piano, some charities enable you to utilize other resources such as expansive gardens or interactive event spaces where you can do something more active.

Lower blood pressure - According to research at Carnegie Mellon University, older adults have a lower risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure, when they volunteer. Participants who volunteered for 200 hours or more per year had a 40 percent drop in their risk of hypertension, a condition that can lead to cardiovascular disease.

Longer lifespan - Some volunteerism contributes to the health and well-being of social groups as a whole, but the act of doing charity work can lengthen your life, according to government service organization AmeriCorps. Volunteering a minimum of 100 hours per year lowers the incidence of illness and raises positive outcomes stemming from social engagement. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, as the act of volunteering contributes to better health, and that boost in health enables older adults to give their time and energy to a cause.

How to Choose Your Area of Volunteerism

No two volunteer circumstances are the same, in part because no two people are the same. Finding the right match is one of the factors to consider when you want to maximize the experience.

Forbes has an article with tips for finding the right volunteer gig.

Know Your Strengths

Non-profit organizations need skillful volunteers to deliver services such as:

• Fundraising
• PR
• Marketing
• Accounting
• Mentoring
• Event planning

Whether you have a professional background such as medicine or career experience in clerical work, there’s an organization that needs your skill set. Many groups seek assistance in a broad range of fields related to coaching, hospitality, and technical work from web design to grant writing. Consider your strengths and abilities and be willing to engage with an organization in need of those qualities.

Assess Your Availability

When reaching out to a volunteer organization, be honest about the amount of time and energy you can offer. There may be periods in your life when adding a volunteer position is unrealistic such as the early days of parenthood or when you have a sandwich of responsibilities, caring for aging parents while working long hours to put kids through college.

Too many demands can lead to problems with burnout and sometimes cause health issues from chest pain to chronic fatigue.

Determine Your Purpose

By identifying what fuels your passion, you can more easily choose a volunteer opportunity that meets your own needs while serving others. There are various reasons a person feels called to add a new dimension to their life and become a volunteer.

“A number of people who are looking to volunteer are searching for community, being with other people, and are not as specific about the mission of the nonprofit,” says Betsy Werley, director of network expansion at nonprofit Encore.org. “If you’ve never previously volunteered, this is a way to meet new people and get engaged.”

After checking with alumni groups or faith-based networks you’re already involved with, you can do some soul-searching to explore other issues that interest you. Whatever drives you can be your guide, as well as the needs out there and logistics that meet your personal circumstances.

If solitude is your happy place or you want to engage with the masses, there’s a way to reap more than just the physical benefits of volunteering. Whether it’s a volunteer trip to South Africa or helping someone around the corner, you can gain mental health benefits from passion to purpose. You may not see it with the naked eye, but the confidence and satisfaction you show when you get your hands dirty as a volunteer is obvious enough that it’s visible to everyone else.

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