Wellbeing and Volunteering

January 2022 has already passed us by, but that doesn’t mean that our resolutions have to disappear with it. 

We’ve posted before about how volunteering can benefit our careers and help us to gain new skills, but it’s also important to highlight how rewarding volunteering can be in terms of our mental and physical health.

Generally, our resolutions are related to improving our overall well being. Whether it’s improving our mental or physical health, everyone has some area of their life that they want to improve upon. As the year moves forward, it’s really important not to lose sight of that. Wellbeing is important any time of the year!

So if you’ve found yourself letting your new year's resolutions fall by the wayside, don’t worry. Volunteering can be a perfect pathway to self-improvement, and it is a fantastic way of minding your wellbeing.

Emotionally Rewarding

Volunteering is extremely emotionally rewarding. Have you ever heard of the ‘helper’s high’? It’s a psychological theory that was coined in the 1980s, and has been verified by a number of studies since. Essentially, it’s been proven that the ‘feel good’ neurotransmitters, such as oxytocin, that are produced when we volunteer, give money, or various other ‘pro-social’ activities,, can actually become addictive.

So it’s scientifically proven that volunteering can lift your mood tremendously. We all know that the last two years have been particularly hard in terms of maintaining our mental wellbeing. 

Social Connections

We all know that maintaining a strong social circle is integral to building long-lasting mental wellbeing. However, we also know that life can often make this more difficult than you would think. People move, find themselves busy with their family or their job - and Covid-19 made socializing even more difficult than it was before. A healthy friendship group takes effort to maintain, and volunteering can be a huge help with this. 

Volunteering helps us to meet new people, and to deepen our connections with those in our local community, all in an uplifting environment. No matter what kind of volunteer work you’re doing, you will be working with a team of people who are all working towards the common goal of giving back to your community. Knowing that you can contribute to this is a very uplifting feeling. Not to mention, volunteering can help you to make new friends, or even strengthen old ones. If you have a friend who’s been thinking about volunteering, why not start together? 

Physical Wellbeing

So, we’ve looked at the benefits of volunteering for our emotional health, but what about our physical health? This isn’t something that immediately springs to mind when you think about the benefits of volunteering, but there certainly is potential for improving your physical wellbeing while giving back to your local community.

If you’re interested in sports, it would make perfect sense to offer your skills and knowledge as a coach for a local team, or perhaps a Special Olympics club. And if you don’t, there are still ample opportunities to get outside and get some fresh air. Tidy Towns, walking and recreational clubs, beach cleanups, and even Scouts and Brownies - these organisations are always looking for new volunteers, and they require lots of physical activity and time spent outside. 

Time spent outdoors, focusing on something you care about, alongside other people who are motivated by the same thing as you - the physical and mental benefits are immediate, and they are incredible. 

If you’d like to find an opportunity like this, you can do so using i-vol.ie. On the home page, click the ‘More Options’ button, then input your county, then scroll down and select the ‘Sports/Outdoor activities/Coaching’ option. This will show you all of the outdoors volunteering opportunities in your county.

So if you feel that you’ve fallen off with your new year’s resolutions, don’t give up! Any time is the right time to work towards improving your wellbeing, and there are always voluntary organisations who are searching for people who can help them.

So happy 2022, and happy volunteering!

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