Helping Others May Benefit Brain Health

Your brain is your control tower. Everything that goes on in your body is regulated and controlled in some way by your brain. As we age, our brains change—that’s why you may walk into a room and find that you’ve forgotten what you came there for. It can also be why you have a hard time remembering where your keys are.

Some of this can be a normal sign of aging. But when it begins to disrupt your daily life, including memory, thinking and behavior, it could be a sign of cognitive decline, potentially leading to dementia.

While Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia do have genetic components, many modifiable lifestyle and risk factors can be employed to reduce your risk. Research suggests that nearly 45% of all dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by making healthy lifestyle changes. For example, there is some evidence that high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, smoking and air pollution increase the risk of dementia. But eating a balanced, varied diet, engaging in regular physical activity and participating in socially meaningful activities have been associated with better cognitive outcomes.

That last factor, socially meaningful activities, has gained attention as it can help combat social isolation and loneliness. Socially meaningful activities may include both formal volunteering and informal helping, like making a meal for a new parent or grocery shopping for someone unable to do their own.

Past research has typically focused on formal volunteering and its effect on brain health. But the more informal type of helping has not been as intently studied. Researchers from Texas and Boston universities joined forces to take a closer look at both of these types of volunteering and their effects on brain health. They published their findings in Social Science & Medicine. Let’s break down what they found.

How Was This Study Conducted?

Researchers drew data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, a long-term study that spanned two decades and included adults aged 51 and older. For this analysis, researchers used data from 1998 to 2020, which included almost 31,500 participants.

Participants engaged in assessments of cognitive function and helping behaviors, including formal volunteering and informal helping, as well as the time spent on these behaviors. 

Researchers also collected data on participants’ demographics, which were adjusted for during statistical analyses. 

What Did This Study Show?

Consistent with previous research, this analysis suggests that volunteering for two to four hours a week is associated with significant cognitive benefits. And the more time participants spent volunteering, the greater the cognitive benefits. 

With that said, cognitive benefits were reduced when participants withdrew from volunteering. However, the biggest reductions came when participants stopped volunteering abruptly. Those who gradually scaled down their volunteering experienced a less intense reduction in benefits.

Results were similar for informal helping—the more one engaged in it, the greater the cognitive benefits, and withdrawing from informal helping worsened cognition. One difference between formal volunteering and informal helping is that those who engaged in high levels of informal helping experienced an immediate boost in cognition. But when they tried to sustain these levels of informal helping, the benefits did not accumulate over time as they did with formal volunteering. 

Researchers note that high levels of informal helping activities may become a normal part of one’s routine and may even add stress—like the stress from caring for an aging or ill relative. There is often no reward or positive stimulation involved, which lessens the cumulative effect of positive cognition changes. 

This study lacked information on specific types of helping activities, both formal and informal. For this reason, researchers can’t say if specific types of helping activities promote stronger cognitive benefits. Also, participants self-reported their helping activities and time devoted to them, which always opens the door to potential recall bias. The study authors also note that while the cognitive assessment used has been validated, it’s not a clinical assessment. For these reasons, they can only draw associations and cannot make any conclusions regarding causation.

How Does This Apply to Real Life?

Retirement presents several challenges for many people. Besides financial worries, there is an increase in loneliness among retired individuals. And the World Health Organization reports that loneliness and social isolation are key risk factors for mental health conditions later in life.

In addition, there is evidence that links loneliness with a 31% higher risk of dementia. Volunteering or engaging in helping activities may be one viable solution to combating loneliness. And it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. This study saw substantial benefits for those who volunteered or engaged in informal helping for two to four hours per week. 

There can be a caveat to helping activities—when the intentions of the helper are to earn love and acceptance or helping is done at the expense of the helper’s well-being, helping becomes people-pleasing, which has been shown to have detrimental effects on mental health.

Besides being socially engaged, brain health involves a team effort from several other lifestyle behaviors, too. This includes eating a diet rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. The MIND diet encompasses all of this and has even been shown to reduce dementia risk by as much as 25%. And yes, we have a meal plan for that. 

In addition to a healthy, varied diet, engaging in regular physical activity is also important for brain health. There is evidence suggesting that 35 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week may reduce dementia risk by 41%—and the benefits just go up from there with more exercise. 

Our Expert Take

This study suggests that helping activities, whether formal volunteering or informal, may help reduce the risk of cognitive decline. There was an accumulative effect of these activities, so the longer people engaged in them, the more benefits they experienced. And when they ended their involvement in helping activities, they experienced a decline in cognition; this was worse for those who abruptly ended their involvement.

Besides getting and staying involved in helping others, it’s also important for our brains to pay attention to nutrition, physical activity, managing stressors and getting plenty of quality sleep. If we all do our part, we may help change the prediction that dementia rates will double by the year 2060.