Health Benefits of Volunteering

“People who do volunteer work are much less likely to suffer illness. The close interpersonal relationships and community involvement that occur with volunteer service are tailor-made to enhance the healing process.”
—The Healing Power of Service by Edward V. Brown

Volunteering helps to rebuild communities and solve serious social problems. And, according to research, it can also improve your physical and mental health!

Volunteer work improves the well being of individual volunteers because it enhances social support networks. People with strong social support networks have lower premature death rates, less heart disease, and fewer health risk factors. (Fact Sheet: Volunteering as a Vehicle for Social Support and Life Satisfaction, Public Health Agency of Canada)

Volunteering can improve self-esteem, reduce heart rates and blood pressure, increase endorphin production, enhance immune systems, buffer the impact of stress, and combat social isolation. (Research Summary: Graff, L. (1991). Volunteer for the Health of It, Etobicoke, Ontario: Volunteer Ontario.)

Volunteering lowers the risk of physical ill health because it boosts the social psychological factors that healthy people have. (The Effects of Volunteering on the Volunteer, John Wilson and Marc Musik, 62 Law & Contemp. Probs., Autumn 1999)

Medical and scientific documentation supports that volunteering results in a heightened sense of well being, improves insomnia, strengthens the immune system, and hastens surgery recovery time. (The Healing Power of Doing Good, Allan Luks & Peggy Payne)

Volunteering puts people into highly social situations, increasing the opportunity for close interpersonal relationships and strengthening a sense of identity. (Peer Counseling Perspectives, April 2003 Survival News, Mary Lynn Hemphill, “Volunteer For Your Health”)

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