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From a young age, we're often told to be kind – to other people and to ourselves – but it's not always that easy. When you're feeling stressed, upset or annoyed with friends and family it can sometimes feel hard to be as kind as you'd like to be. But did you know that being kind can actually have a positive effect on your mental wellbeing?

Professor Robin Banerjee is a psychologist at the University of Sussex and he conducted the world's largest study of kindness, the Kindness Test, run in partnership with ����ý Radio 4. One of the things confirmed by that study in 2021 is that kindness is actually very common and that most of us give and receive it regularly.

So for this year's World Kindness Day, we'll be looking at how The Kindness Test (along with other scientific research) showed us the different ways in which kindness is linked to wellbeing. Some of them may surprise you!

1. Regular kindness People who regularly carry out or receive kind acts from others have higher levels of wellbeing on average.

2. Reward system Neuroscience shows that kindness activates the ‘reward-system’ of the brain – the same part that lights up if you eat something tasty or get a nice surprise. It’s sometimes called the ‘warm glow’ feeling. And – this is the really interesting part – we get this warm glow both when we receive an act of kindness and when we offer kindness to others. And even though we often do kind things to help other people without any intention to make ourselves feel good, that is a happy extra benefit!

3. More connected One study showed that even just reflecting on times we’ve been kind in the past can give us this feeling. Results from the ����ý Kindness Test showed that people associated being kind with feeling more connected with other people, and reminding ourselves of those connections feels pretty good!

4. Forging friendships One of the reasons that kindness can improve wellbeing is that kindness fosters friendship. When we do kind things for others, they’re more likely to have positive feelings towards us and having strong relationships with the people in our lives is known to be good for our wellbeing.

5. Kindness spreads Many people feel like kindness has a ripple effect. If you or someone in your friendship group is regularly kind to others, others in the group are more likely to feel they want to do the same.So how can you spread a little more kindness in your world?

Now you know the benefits of kindness, you might be wondering how you can be more kind, more often. Focus groups in one study carried out by researchers at the University of Sussex showed a variety of ways in which people in the 11-15 age-group tend to show kindness to each other. Here’s just a few of them:

Giving emotional support – if you know someone is feeling down, you can support them by listening, comforting them and reminding them of their strengths.

Giving practical support – this could be as simple as helping out around the house or helping a friend learn a new skill.

Being generous – this isn’t just about giving gifts. You can be generous with your time and energy. How about baking some cookies for a friend or family member or offering to help a younger sibling with their homework?

Being inclusive – you can show kindness by inviting someone to join you when you're getting together with friends, whether that's a trip to the cinema or just hanging out.

In the ����ý Kindness Test Professor Banerjee found that there were 5 words people most associated with kindness. You could think about these if you find yourself in a situation where you want to do something kind, but aren’t sure how:

1. Empathy

2. Care

3. Helping

4. Thoughtfulness

5. Compassion

It was interesting that people in the Kindness Test were most likely to link kindness with empathy. Indeed, many researchers studying the science of kindness have shown that empathy is often the key foundation that leads to kindness. Empathy involves sharing and understanding others’ emotions as well as being motivated to help others feel better, and that can often lead onto kindness, especially when others are in distress and need support. And as we’ve seen above, regularly showing kindness can help connect people with each other, and make it even more likely that people will be caring, empathic, and kind to each other in the future. So kindness can help build our ‘empathy muscle’!

So, being kind to others can have lots of positive effects, but it’s also important to be kind to ourselves. Sometimes people refer to this as ‘self-compassion’, but what is that and why is it important?

One big part of self-compassion is being kind to ourselves when we encounter difficulties – rather than putting ourselves down and criticising ourselves internally, we can show a bit more understanding and concern for ourselves, just as we might do if we wanted to help a friend.

It also means having a more balanced view of ourselves, rather than just getting bogged down in negative thoughts and judgements. Reminding ourselves of the positives and looking to the future with hope can really help us find good ways forward even when things are difficult. And remember that looking after yourself and looking after others should go hand in hand – that gives us all the best chance to grow our sense of wellbeing and create a happier and kinder world!

If you need support

You should always tell someone about the things you’re worried about. You can tell a friend, parent, guardian, teacher, or another trusted adult. If you're struggling with your mental health, going to your GP can be a good place to start to find help. Your GP can let you know what support is available to you, suggest different types of treatment and offer regular check-ups to see how you’re doing.

If you’re in need of in-the-moment support you can contact , where you can speak to a counsellor. Their lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are more links to helpful organisations on ����ý Action Line.