HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

Many char­i­ties need a lit­tle ex­tra help par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, and they re­ly on the le­gion of bril­liant vol­un­teers who help feed the home­less, at­tend to the or­phan­ages or call an old­er per­son who is fac­ing spend­ing time alone.

Covid-19 may have af­fect­ed many fi­nan­cial­ly, how­ev­er there are many sim­ple acts of kind­ness that re­quire no spend, but a more in­valu­able as­set: your time.

Vol­un­teers make an im­mea­sur­able dif­fer­ence in the lives of oth­ers by sim­ply giv­ing of their time and love. Of­ten­times, their core in­ten­tion is help­ing oth­ers. But did you know that vol­un­teer­ing can ben­e­fit your own health as well? Re­searchers have at­tempt­ed to mea­sure the ben­e­fits that vol­un­teers re­ceive in­clud­ing pos­i­tive feel­ing re­ferred to as “helper’s high”, in­creased trust in oth­ers and in­creased so­cial in­ter­ac­tion.

From low­er­ing stress to boost­ing self-con­fi­dence, re­search has shown that vol­un­teer­ing of­fers many health ben­e­fits, such as:

1. Vol­un­teer­ing de­creas­es the risk of de­pres­sion. Re­search has shown that vol­un­teer­ing leads to low­er rates of de­pres­sion. Vol­un­teer­ing in­creas­es so­cial

in­ter­ac­tion and helps build a sup­port sys­tem based on com­mon in­ter­ests, both of which have been shown to de­crease de­pres­sion. Even dur­ing Covid-19 when

phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing is ad­vised, brief mo­ments of so­cial­i­sa­tion are not re­strict­ed once with­in the rec­om­mend­ed pa­ra­me­ters.

2. Vol­un­teer­ing gives a sense of pur­pose and teach­es valu­able skills. Vol­un­teers at homes for the el­der­ly or or­phan­ages per­form crit­i­cal roles in as­sist­ing staff and up­dat­ing fam­i­lies. They may serve as greeters pro­vid­ing

pa­tient room in­for­ma­tion and di­rec­tions. At hos­pi­tals, they make prayer shawls, blan­kets, sweaters and hats typ­i­cal­ly giv­en to new­born ba­bies and can­cer pa­tients. Some vol­un­teers move these ser­vices and skills for­ward and it be­comes their vo­ca­tion.

3. Vol­un­teer­ing helps peo­ple stay phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly ac­tive. Vol­un­teer ac­tiv­i­ties get you mov­ing and think­ing at the same time. One study found that vol­un­teer­ing among adults pro­vid­ed ben­e­fits to phys­i­cal and men­tal health. An­oth­er study found that, in gen­er­al, vol­un­teers re­port bet­ter phys­i­cal health than do non-vol­un­teers. Old­er vol­un­teers ex­pe­ri­ence greater in­creas­es in life sat­is­fac­tion and greater pos­i­tive changes in their per­ceived health as a re­sult of

vol­un­teer­ing.

4. Vol­un­teer­ing may re­duce stress lev­els. Vol­un­teer­ing may en­hance a per­son’s so­cial net­works to buffer stress and re­duce risk of dis­ease. By sa­vor­ing time

spent in ser­vice to oth­ers, you will feel a sense of mean­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion, both giv­en and re­ceived, which can have a stress-re­duc­ing ef­fect.

5. Vol­un­teer­ing may re­duce your pain lev­els. An analy­sis of da­ta from Mayo Clin­ic, Lon­gi­tu­di­nal Study of Ag­ing, found that in­di­vid­u­als who vol­un­teer have

low­er mor­tal­i­ty rates than those who do not, even when con­trol­ling for age, gen­der and phys­i­cal health. In ad­di­tion, sev­er­al stud­ies have shown that vol­un­teers with chron­ic or se­ri­ous ill­ness ex­pe­ri­ence de­clines in pain in­ten­si­ty and de­pres­sion when serv­ing as peer vol­un­teers for oth­ers al­so suf­fer­ing from chron­ic pain.

6. Vol­un­teer­ing helps you meet oth­ers and de­vel­op new re­la­tion­ships. One of the best ways to make new friends and strength­en ex­ist­ing re­la­tion­ships is to par­tic­i­pate in a shared ac­tiv­i­ty to­geth­er. Vol­un­teer­ing is a great way to meet new peo­ple who share com­mon in­ter­ests with you. Ded­i­cat­ing your time as a vol­un­teer al­so helps you ex­pand your net­work and prac­tice so­cial skills with oth­ers.

How to find the right vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ty

There are nu­mer­ous vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able. The key is to find a po­si­tion that you would en­joy and are ca­pa­ble of do­ing. It’s al­so im­por­tant to make sure that your com­mit­ment match­es the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s needs.

Ask your­self the fol­low­ing:

- Would you like to work with adults, chil­dren, an­i­mals, or re­mote­ly from home?

- Do you pre­fer to work alone or as part of a team?

- Are you bet­ter be­hind the scenes or do you pre­fer to take a more vis­i­ble role?

- How much time are you will­ing to com­mit?

- What skills can you bring to a vol­un­teer job?

- What caus­es are im­por­tant to you?

You will have a rich­er and more en­joy­able vol­un­teer­ing ex­pe­ri­ence if you first take some time to iden­ti­fy your goals and in­ter­ests. Think about why you want to vol­un­teer. The op­por­tu­ni­ties that match both your goals and your in­ter­ests are most like­ly to be fun and

ful­fill­ing. Vol­un­teer­ing al­so pro­vides you with re­newed cre­ativ­i­ty, mo­ti­va­tion, and vi­sion that can car­ry over in­to your per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life.

If you are in­ter­est­ed in be­com­ing a vol­un­teer, the Health Plus team is in di­rect con­tact with a num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions that of­fer Vol­un­teer op­por­tu­ni­ties, from the Vol­un­teer Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go to Health and Well­ness as­so­ci­a­tions in T&T and the re­gion. If in­ter­est­ed, feel free to reach out to guardian­health­plus2020@gmail.com