"What do you think of when I say the word "kindness? A friend answered, "It reminds me of sitting around a camp fire and singing Kumbaya." She said her allusion to this folk song represented a cynical and satirical view of human nature as naively optimistic, "thinking kindness will help you and the world." I had an immediate knot in my stomach. I loved singing Kumbaya at camp. Okay, I do wake up happy, and love extending kindness to others and having others extend their kindness to me, but am I really naively clinging to a concept that has no value and no reality?

I found my first support when my yoga teacher said the focus of the day's practice was "kindness." "Think of it during the workout and the upcoming week with the idea of translating that into one act of kindness for another and one for your self during that time," she said. I looked around the room and everyone was smiling. They seemed warm to the idea of "kindness," so we're not all Oscar the Grouch, but have we all been brainwashed?

Certainly a Google search would provide research and documentation. First, in order to be fair, I searched for negative effects of kindness - hours worth of searching, and came up with no research that told me kindness had a negative effect on one's life or health. So I headed in a positive direction and hit the mother lode. Yes, there is an organization, the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, and it seeks to quantify and support kindness. Using Allan Luks' investigated research in The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others, I found numerous scientific studies showing acts of kindness result in significant health benefits, both physical and mental. Here are some key findings of contemporarty research:

• Helping contributes to the maintenance of good health, and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders - serious and minor, psychological and physical.
• A rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act is often referred to as a "helper's high," involving physical sensations and the release of the body's natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.
• Stress-related health problems improve after performing kind acts. Helping reverses feelings of depression, supplies social contact, and decreases feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.
• Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation.
• The incidence of attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body is reduced.
• The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.
• An increased sense of self-worth, greater happiness, and optimism, as well as a decrease in feelings of helplessness and depression, is achieved.
• Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or faith group attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income.

From this and the hours I spent tracking research, for me, the answer is pretty clear: it's naive not to see the value and reality that kindness brings to your own health and that of others. If you're still not sure, do your own search, or check out some of the Cool Free Downloads listed in the story below.

And one last thought, remember not everyone will ask for help, so try to walk in their shoes and think of their needs. That kindness will go a long, long way - for both of you.