* How to Help Others During the Holidays *

Reply Subscribe

Thread Tools

Search this Thread

12-14-2012, 09:18 AM

Space

Thread Starter

Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Beach`in Florida

Posts: 33,585

*** How to Help Others During the Holidays ***

Hi `Member's,
Please help those in need `if you can 4-Sure

There's many in need & there are many rewards for helping other's in need...Count your blessings & keep looking at what you have, instead of what you don't..

Thanks for reading & thanks for helping those in need

p.s. Member's, please post your suggestions or what you do to help others...Thank You!!!
How to Help People During the Holidays

Last updated: December 7, 2012

How can we spread Christmas cheer to those in need? How can we help make their lives bright? Read on to find out how you can make a BIG difference in someone's life this Christmas season.

- Most of us really don't notice those people standing on the side of the road holding the signs. We don't really pay attention to the signs reading, "Will work for food!" How about making a little difference in a struggling person's life?
2

Make a basket full of fun little foods, a card, and a few other nice items, like toiletries, gum, a scarf, etc. When you stop at that stoplight where the person is standing, climb out and give them the basket with a "Merry Christmas!" Seeing them smile back will make your day. And you can look forward to the thought that their life will be that much better. Spread the Christmas spirit around!
3

Reach out to a family in need.
- There are many families who are struggling with the economic crisis, have single parents, or one parent who is in prison. You can help by joining a charity (as mentioned below) or going to areas where people have less. You can pass out gifts for their children, from something small like an action figure, to something bigger. It will be sure to put a smile on their faces. You will know that you are brightening up lives.
4

Write a letter to the mailman.
- Try giving the mailman a letter. You can wish him/her a merry Christmas and thank them for their service to the community.
5

Write a letter to a soldier.
- You can also make a day in the heat of Iraq more Christmas-like for someone. There are many organizations where you can join and write soldiers letters of encouragement and hope. It will be sure to put a smile on their faces.
6

Help 'Make a Wish'.
- The Make a Wish foundation helps grant wishes to terminally ill children. You can help by donating. Also, you could bring a gift and visit sick kids in the hospital. You could sing a song, bring some friends to help put on a silly play, or give them a gift and cookies. This will be sure to make them feel better!
7

Contribute to 'Toys for Tots' and abused children.
- You can make a difference by donating to Toys for Tots or foundations that help children who have been abused. You can give money to the organization or help and visit the children, giving them gifts and a smile. Its a great feeling to help out!
8

Visit the elderly.
- Visit a nursing home to sing carols to the elderly. You can sit and play a game of checkers after as well! Even bring some cookies to much on together. It'll make their day.
9

Take a drive.
- Offer to be a volunteer driver for a day. After, when the person get out of the car and thanks you, hand them a plate of cookies and wish them the best of Christmas. They'll be recommending you for sure!
10

Commit random acts of kindness'.
- Pay for the toll for the person behind you, even pay for more than one, after all, it's only a dollar! Organize a food drive. Spread gifts to neighbors and friends. Pay for a random person's meal across the room. Smile and wave a people driving by. Put Christmas cards on windshields. Help out the homeless by treating them to a meal with you. Buy someone something nice and surprise them with it today!
11

Drive somebody somewhere. Give a waiter an extra tip, with a happy holidays scribbled on the check!
12

Do whatever you know is right!
13

Have a merry Christmas!

EditTips

Be kind to even the meanest people, and remember what they say, "Kill them with kindness."
Pay for someone's small grocery bill.
Do a free car wash or repairs to their homes.
Give away in-good-shape items to people who need things.
Have a free garage sale.
Have fun and feel good helping people!
Send $'s to aliens from `Space (lol)

Last edited by Space; 12-15-2012 at 08:18 AM.

12-14-2012, 09:31 AM

Space

Thread Starter

Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Beach`in Florida

Posts: 33,585

'Tis better to give than to receive?

UCLA life scientists find that giving support offers health benefits -- to the giver

Providing support to a loved one offers benefits to the giver, not just the recipient, a new brain-imaging study by UCLA life scientists reveals.

"When people talk about the ways in which social support is good for our health, they typically assume that the benefits of social support come from the support we receive from others, but it now seems likely that some of the health benefits of social support actually come from the support we provide to others," said Naomi Eisenberger, a UCLA assistant professor of psychology and the senior author of the study, published today in the online edition of Psychosomatic Medicine, a peer-reviewed health psychology journal.

Eisenberger and UCLA psychology graduate student Tristen Inagaki studied 20 young heterosexual couples in good relationships at UCLA's Ahmanson–Lovelace Brain Mapping Center. The 20 women in the couples underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans while their boyfriends were just outside the scanner receiving painful electric shocks. At times, the women could provide support by holding the arm of their boyfriends, while at other times, they had to watch their boyfriends receive shocks without being able to provide support (each woman instead held a squeeze-ball).

At still other times, the boyfriends did not receive a shock, and the women could either touch or not touch them.

The life scientists found that when women gave support to their boyfriends in pain, the women showed increased activity in reward-related regions of the brain, including the ventral striatum and septal area. In addition, the more reward-related neural activity these women showed, the more connected they reported feeling with their boyfriends while providing support. Under conditions in which no support was provided, these regions showed decreased activity.

"One of these regions, the ventral striatum, is typically active in response to simple rewards like chocolate, sex and money," Eisenberger said. "The fact that support-giving also activates this region suggests that support-giving may be processed by the brain as a very basic type of rewarding experience."
The researchers also found another interesting pattern of neural activity in the septal area. In addition to being a pleasure center, this region plays a role in threat- or stress-reduction by inhibiting other regions of the brain that process threats, such as the amygdala. Researchers found that the women who showed greater activity in the septal area also showed less activity in the amygdala.

"This finding suggests that support-giving may have stress-reducing effects for the person who provides the support," said Eisenberger, who directs UCLA's Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. "Activity in the septal area during support-giving was negatively correlated with activity in the amygdala, which is a region known to play a role in fear and stress responses. If there is something about support-giving that leads to reductions in amygdala activity, this suggests that support-giving itself may have stress-reducing properties."

"Giving to others has benefits," said Inagaki, the lead author of the study, who has been awarded National Science Foundation and Jacob K. Javits fellowships. "We even saw substantially more activity in these reward brain regions when the women were giving support than when they were touching their boyfriend when he was not getting shocked. You might think it would be more pleasurable to touch your boyfriend when he is not going through something painful, but we found the opposite, which was surprising."

Eisenberger said she thinks the benefits of providing support also apply when a loved one is experiencing other stressful events, including emotionally painful events. She offered a theory to explain the findings.

"Giving support to those we are close to, such as family members or children, may increase their likelihood of survival and, therefore, the likelihood that our genes will get passed on," she said. "Because of the importance of support-giving for the survival of our species, it is possible that over the course of our evolutionary history, support-giving may have become psychologically rewarding to ensure that this behavior persisted."

Last edited by Space; 12-14-2012 at 09:34 AM.

12-15-2012, 06:22 AM

Space

Thread Starter

Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Beach`in Florida

Posts: 33,585

Thanks Everyone for your post(s) & your giving ways to help others...

What are you doing to Help others ?'
What are you doing to Help yourself ?
What are you doing to make it better ?
What are you doing ?

Whose doing for you ?
Why ?