This month’s dialogue

MONTHLY TOPIC: GET INTO THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT AND HELP OTHERS AS WELL AS YOURSELF

Drs. Maxine Barish-Wreden and Kay Judge, medical directors of Sutter's Downtown Integrative Medicine program in Sacramento, Calif., encourage people to “give back to the world you live in” by volunteering. As they point out, not only is it beneficial to the community because it “provides resources that might not otherwise be accessed and helps solve social problems,” but also it has other, less obvious benefits for the volunteer. Barish-Wreden and Judge state that volunteers gain both emotionally and physically because:

• Volunteering enhances the social interactions and networks of the volunteers. People with strong social networks have been shown to have reduced risks of depression and heart disease; they also tend to have fewer health risk factors.
• Volunteering leads to overall better health and a sense of well- being for the person who volunteers.
• Volunteering can improve self-esteem and increase endorphin production in the body. (Endorphins are the "happy chemicals" in the brain that give one a sense of well-being.)
• Volunteering may actually reduce mortality. A University of Michigan study showed that people who volunteered in one organization for 40 hours or less in a year lived longer than those who did not volunteer. The protective effects of volunteering are greatest for those who have low levels of social interaction.

The greater Pensacola area has many volunteer opportunities. UWF employees and students can register their volunteer hours with Volunteer UWF! You can find out more by going to http://www.volunteermatch.org or http://uwf.edu/volunteer/.

The full article is available online at http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=1399504171&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=20173&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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