Love letters and kindness may improve mental health

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Love letters and kindness may improve mental health

By Lorna Stewart
Health Check, BBC World Service

"You matter to me. In a way I cannot explain, you matter to me. And you, you are a marvel... you and all the parts of you."

It's not the kind of thing you normally write to a complete stranger.

But after graduating from college and moving to New York City, Hannah Brencher was feeling anxious and depressed. She found herself not wanting to be around other people and "just really unravelling".

Then she started writing love letters to strangers and leaving them all over the city. The first letter she left on a train simply addressed: "If you find this letter then it's for you."

Since then she has left letters in libraries and cafes, and even hidden them around the United Nations building.

"What I noticed was that my sadness and loneliness got backburnered," she told the BBC. "I found something that allowed me to take the focus off of myself."

Unexpected kindness
Hannah and her More Love Letters campaign are part of a growing number of organisations shouting about the beneficial effects of random acts of kindness for givers as well as receivers.

It might sound a bit like new-age nonsense to some people, but new research suggests being kind might actually be good for your mental health.

A study published in the journal Emotion reports that performing acts of kindness may help people with social anxiety to feel more positive.

Dr Lynn Alden and Dr Jennifer Trew, from the University of British Columbia, asked volunteers with high levels of social anxiety to commit multiple acts of kindness on two days a week over a four-week period.

"Sometimes people would give a small gift to somebody, or picking somebody up from work, visiting sick people, thanking a bus driver. They were actually fairly small acts," explained Dr Alden.

They were small acts perhaps, but ones which had a much bigger impact.

Challenging beliefs
More standard treatment for social anxiety disorder is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) adapted specifically for people who fear they will do or say something embarrassing in a social situation.

As part of this therapy patients are encouraged to face their fears about social contact, by putting themselves into a situation they would normally avoid or initiating conversation with new people.

In Dr Alden's experiment a comparison group of anxious volunteers were asked to perform small "belief-challenging" tasks similar to these therapeutic ones.

Just like the kind acts group, this group were also increasing their levels of social contact, engaging in unfamiliar behaviour, and paying attention to others' responses; all things which have been suggested to be important components in overcoming social anxiety.

At the end of the four weeks, participants in the kind acts group avoided social situations less and also reported increased relationship satisfaction. Performing kind acts appeared to have a bigger effect than CBT-like behaviour tasks.

Dr Nick Grey, consultant clinical psychologist and clinic director at the Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma in London, was initially wary of the idea that performing kind acts might have therapeutic value for patients with anxiety disorders.

"I hadn't seen the paper and I was sceptical from the title to be honest. But it's a good paper and comes from a well-respected team.

"I don't think that's ever going to be a therapy in and of itself, but it could well be the kind of activity that could be integrated as part of a broader treatment."

Dr Alden suggests that acts of kindness might be an initial step in a longer therapeutic pathway.

"Engaging in kind acts may help the person to get out and encounter other people and then we can use other techniques to help the person change their beliefs about themselves."

But she urges caution about performing acts of kindness chosen by someone else or just to impress others.

"I think it has be done in such a way that the individual has a sense of autonomy. They are performing the act because they want to and not because it's required by the group."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21900202

I think the main component to a long and satisfying life is happiness. Being kind to others and have other people being kind to me always makes me forget about my superficial problems and remember the important things in life

I've done these things for ages & they're right, it does make me feel good.

On some of my darkest days I've found immense comfort in writing loving positive things to & about my friends. Plus they get the benefit of reading something nice about themselves/their family. Sometimes I get replies, sometimes not, but never a negative response - and some of the positive responses have really stood out, making me feel even better about having written it in the first place. I think I sometimes underestimate how much some people appreciate reading loving things about themselves, especially other Aspies and "differently social," people ie my deaf friends, as sometimes their responses can be pretty amazing. Warm fuzzies amazing.

The random acts of kindness thing is good stuff, too. If I notice I can do some little thing for someone and it's within my means to do it, I try to, and things just seem to go a little better for it. You get what you give, after all.

This almost seems like one of those "No S, Sherlock!" type medical studies.. something that should almost be common sense & seems a bit strange to be the subject of a medical paper. However, if studying these sorts of thing in detail and publishing articles like this brings these things to the attention of people who could benefit from doing them who would have never otherwise considered it, well, then I guess there's some value in it. I guess shouldn't assume that just because I've done these things, possibly even as an AS coping mechanism, that others automatically do the same. Maybe what's obvious to me is news to someone else? Meh, whatever, I'm over thinking this now for sure.

I understand the concept of leaving letters for random people. Yet i would fear that by leaving a letter i may get someone's hopes up if they thought it came from someone else.
For example if someone had a crush on someone and then assumed they wrote the letter, it might hurt them as their crush didn't write the letter.

If i ever wrote random letters i would have to state from a random stranger or make it clear that i am an unknown person to them.
If it helps someone then it's worth it. I like random acts of kindness.

My gf was driving to the shopping center one day and picked up a homeless guy with 2 dogs. She got him a big bag of dog food and money for a burger and food. They were both crying, it was touching as my gf doesn't show a lot of emotion, yet she was emotional about this so it was very touching.
We don't pick up random strangers, however she read his vibes and knew he would be fine.

It won't reduce things like social anxiety, it will tend to worsen it because when you are a kind person people will knock you about because of it.

It is better to do it anonymously for that reason so that people cannot hurt you for being kind to them.

Also it is better to do it for the right reasons...ie because you genuinely care, not just because you want to be kind to feed your own ego, for that reason it is better to do it anonymously also.


"At the end of the four weeks, participants in the kind acts group avoided social situations less and also reported increased relationship satisfaction."

This will not happen!

I know I have spent a life time going out of my way to do kind things for people, even strangers I do not know and it has only resulted in my being bullied, attacked, physically assaulted and so on.

I would still continue to do kind things but they would have to be from behind the scenes and completely and utterly anonymous. Never ever fool yourself that people will think that being kind makes you a likeable person, they will only attack you for it.
If anything being kind hearted has simply lead to my repeatedly being abused by people.

Choose wisely who you want to help. The human race in the most part is not a good species. they are animalistic and cruel.

You only have to look at that thread the other day with all the personal attacks to see how vile and disgusting the human race cqn be regardless of neurology. Behaving in that way towards me will never ever make me feel the human race is a good thing to spend time around. It only makes me want to stay away from the world, it certainly will not help with social anxiety.

There are some sweet people out there, but not many. Stick to helping them. The others should be avoided because they have sickness of the soul (or consciousness/mind if you prefer) and cannot be helped. For your own safety and emotional well being it is best to steer clear of that type in order to protect yourself.

You cannot appeal to that type of person, they have no conscience to appeal to and it is best not to try and help them or be kind to them. Don't be nasty either, just stay the hell away from them.

Anyone who enjoys hurting another human being in anyway is severely ill and cannot be reached. Leave them destroy each other and don't intervene.

If only there were an emoticon that combined both of these faces, then I could be more concise in my reply: +

Being kind to people doesn't get you assaulted. That's just ridiculous.

I have some very kind friends. You know what being kind gets them? Kindness in return.

The Law of Attraction.. you get what you give.. if you're giving off negative vibes, you're going to attract negativity & that's all there is to it in an ultra simplified way.

By just reading this letter as if it was addressed to me, I already felt better.

Random acts of kindness can help. Provided that you are around the kind of people that doesnt appreciate them by taking advantage of you(go from small acts to somewhat bigger and see how others react)


If someone wants to bully you they´ll find a reason to do so.
Trust me I spent most of my high school years with people bullying me because of the fact that I smiled at school/ didnt wear the clothes everyone else wore(went as far as class mates that barely cared about me made a list of items I should wear to school)/ and some times when I had worked in all of those "flaws" it was things that were even beyond my control(the fact that my family was somewhat wealthy/whatever)

What can you do about bullying?
I believe that by your age you are able to determine most of the early signs of bullying.
The minute you see one make a point to avoid whoever does it at all times.


As for random acts of kindness they can help because most people do reciprocate them this days.

For example about a year ago I ended up in a poor state in a pub(too many beers/not enough food, take a pick), this woman older than my mum asked me if I wanted something to eat and eventually talked me into going into a fast food restaurant. I wasnt allowed to pay.
The following time I saw her she was telling everyone we were besties and I figured that yes I wanted to be a good friend of hers(still great friends and its been almost a year of mutually helping out each other)

Bumble herself talked in another thread about how a random act of kindness got her her only female friend for example.

I agree with you, I have said kind words to people on this forum only to be reported for harassment. But I would also like to show this part that perhaps wasn't emphasized enough, as it is at the end of the post.



Again, caution, but allow new people into your approved selection and if things go wrong then rather move on than being hung up on it.