Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.
Doing good for others benefits our own minds and bodies, as well. We explore the science of kindness.
Summary: On this episode of The Science of Happiness we explore how everyday acts of kindness strengthen our sense of connection and belonging, and why our brains are built to feel good when we support others. Drawing from both research and lived experience, we examine how even small gestures can reduce anxiety, increase purpose, and ripple outward through our communities. We also look at why kindness flourishes when it’s spontaneous and genuine, and how practicing it can open us to deeper presence, vulnerability, and joy.
How To Do This Practice:
- Set an intention: Take a moment each evening to reflect on the day ahead and choose a general theme for how you want to show kindness. Like offering gratitude, being more present, or supporting someone who comes to mind.
- Keep it flexible: Rather than creating a rigid checklist, identify a few broad “buckets” of kindness so you can let opportunities arise naturally.
- Notice moments to connect: As you move through your day, look for organic openings to offer warmth. Whether through a sincere compliment, a helpful gesture, or simply slowing down to truly listen.
- Act on what feels genuine: Choose gestures that feel authentic to you and appropriate to the moment, aiming for sincerity over perfection.
- Reflect briefly: At the end of the day, jot down the acts you did and how they felt—for you and for others—paying attention to small emotional shifts or moments of connection.
- Stay gentle with yourself: If you miss a moment or a day feels off, reset without judgment; the practice is about cultivating awareness and kindness, not completing a task list.
Today’s Guests:
DANA MERWIN is a progressional clown and performer based in San Francisco.
Learn about Dana’s Work: https://tinyurl.com/bd6ew95a
Follow Dana on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/dspstzrk
DAVID CREGG is a clinical psychologist at South Texas Veterans Health Care System whose research specializes in positive psychology.
Find more of David’s work here: https://tinyurl.com/ajay6n6a
Related The Science of Happiness episodes:
Why Compassion Requires Vulnerability: https://tinyurl.com/yxw4uhpf
The Contagious Power of Compassion: https://tinyurl.com/3x7w2s5s
Who’s Always There For You: https://tinyurl.com/yt3ejj6w
Related Happiness Breaks:
Tap into the Joy That Surrounds You: https://tinyurl.com/2pb8ye9x
A Meditation for When Others Are Suffering: https://tinyurl.com/2tcp2an9
Fierce Self-Compassion Break: https://tinyurl.com/yk9yzh9u
Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.
Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap
We want to hear from you! Take our quick 5-minute survey to tell us what you love, what you want more of, and how we can make the show even more inspiring and useful. Everyone who completes the survey can enter a drawing to win a copy of The Science of Happiness Workbook: 10 Practices for a Meaningful Life. Click the survey link in the show notes wherever you’re listening, or go directly to: https://tinyurl.com/happyhappysurvey. Thank you for helping us make the podcast even better!
Transcription:
DANA MERWIN: I think at the root level that humans are kind and are meant to be together and to be in communion, and there are innate feelings to want to love and be loved and to be seen and to see doing good feels good. Feeling good feels good. But those simple truths get so buried by so many things like everyday decisions and choices, because you can really get broken into the patterns, and it's hard sometimes to be creative and reinvent everyday life, you know, everyday drama. But I think there's some universal, you know, things that do make us laugh and do bring us joy, like, whether it's with friends or strangers, like there's love and seeing someone light up. And so then the question is, how do we live a life of kindness? You know, there's such joy in that discovery.
DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner, our guest this week is Dana Merwin, a clown and improv performer in the Bay Area. Who knows what it takes to work and play with others. For one week, Dana made sure to perform three nice things each day for other people. Lots of studies show that doing good deeds for other people isn't just a good thing to do, but it also has psychological and health benefits. It can boost self confidence and deepen a sense of meaning, as well as helping people feel socially connected. We'll hear about her experience and also from David Cregg. He's a psychologist who has studied the science of kindness and has used it to guide his own work with veterans who suffer from really difficult mental health challenges.
DAVID CREGG: We had people who reported moderate to severe levels of depression and anxiety symptoms, and when they did random acts of kindness for five weeks, they showed a significant improvement in their symptoms. People seemed to just be happier and flourishing in their life from doing these acts of kindness.
DACHER KELTNER: More kindness right after this message.
[Ad plays]
I'm Dacher Keltner, welcome to the science of happiness. Today, we're focusing on the benefits of kindness and how doing simple acts for others can have a profoundly positive effect on our own state of mind. Our guest today is Dana Merwin, the professional clown and Live Performer based in San Francisco who's been entertaining audiences for nearly two decades. She joins us after trying a practice where she performed three acts of kindness a day for other people. Literally hundreds of studies show that there's a profound connection between doing good for others, which often activates dopamine release and a sense of pleasure with better health and happiness. So we asked Dana to try this practice out in her own life. Thanks for joining us, Dana,
DANA MERWIN: Hey. Thanks for having me.
DACHER KELTNER: You tried this practice for the Science of Happiness based on a study from these Polish researchers, where you journal the night before about performing three acts of kindness, and then the next day, you take a shot at doing those three acts of kindness. How'd it go?
DANA MERWIN: So I'd say day one, I made the list, but because I was on the road, it already put a spin on it for me. That made me feel out of sorts, because I'm like, I don't know what each day is going to be in the seven day period, it wasn't a normal day. I was often either going to be on the road with my partner or at a camp out with people that I, you know, maybe knew but didn't know well.
DACHER KELTNER: Right.
DANA MERWIN: So I'd say day one, I made the list.
DACHER KELTNER: What was on your list? Like, what three acts of kindness?
DANA MERWIN: Compliments came up fairly quickly.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, cool.
DANA MERWIN: And not in just a, like, pithy way, or, you know, that, like, how can they be genuine? And what felt genuine to me? Not just like, cool hat, you know.
DACHER KELTNER: You got this list. So how'd it go?
DANA MERWIN: Yeah, it didn't go great. Like, every day I would put three things, you know, I'd even struggle with thinking of those. It felt like such a task, like homework, and, you know, this pressure would mount. Like, halfway through the day, I would be like, Oh, this isn't, these aren't happening. Or, like, I had a list to call a relative and, you know, and the phone was busy, and I get like, oh, you know, I'm failing at the list. Like, call aunt Mona was on the list for give or take all seven days, and it eventually did happen and I'm so happy that specific one drove me, because there were a lot of things attached to that call and maybe why I was not doing that.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, so what'd you do? How do you did you shift strategies? Or did you just stick with it?
DANA MERWIN: I shifted
DACHER KELTNER: Good.
DANA MERWIN: Yeah, yeah. I was. Like, this isn't working, and that's okay. And I thought about what the assignment was, and I was like, Okay, it's really just being a seed, and it's really like looking through the lens of it throughout the day. And I found that more exciting than checking off a list. So then having bigger buckets of like, give genuine, deep, authentic compliments.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.
DANA MERWIN: Like having that and then encountering them organically with an acquaintance or with a new interaction became easier and lighter.
DACHER KELTNER: So tell us an example of a genuine compliment.
DANA MERWIN: So at the end of this kind of camp out retreat with some folks, there was a person that I had really enjoyed being around in group situations. And so at the end, we were saying our goodbyes, you know, and it's easy to just like, slap backs and like, say, you know, goodbye, see you later. This was great, right? And then, because of this practice, I really paused, and I said, you know, Eli, you have been a real light in groups this weekend, and you're such a gifted storyteller, and I really enjoyed being around you.
DACHER KELTNER: I see you almost tearing up as you think about this.
DANA MERWIN: Yeah, you know, it's vulnerable for me to, like, connect with, vulnerable, like us sitting here right, like looking at each other is like a practice in itself.
DACHER KELTNER: Totally Yeah.
DANA MERWIN: So yeah, to take that breath, and we have rituals of saying goodbye, and different cultures, and ours is usually often, you know, quick and see you later, and but yeah, it felt important for that moment and that person to thank them, yeah, and to give them that compliment.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, what a wonderful example.
DANA MERWIN: And they received it, you know, I could see, you know, the person in that case, Eli, you know, stopped and said, thank you.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.
DANA MERWIN: That means a lot.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.
DANA MERWIN: Like they verbalized it. Not everyone can do that. Some people are gonna, like, give you a smile, give you a hug, you know, whatever their way of receiving it is.
DACHER KELTNER: Well, that's where humans get really interesting, because we know when you practice kindness, right? And there's an area of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, and it's the dopamine circuit which gives you pleasure. And it's really cool that producing acts of kindness makes you feel good, it activates dopamine release. And there's this study from Chicago showing that we underestimate how much our acts of kindness impact other people's well being, how much they lift them up. It's one of my favorite findings in the kindness literature that you're pointing to. Dana with your examples, is just the spreading of kindness. And Christakis and Fowler did this research where if you give something to somebody else, they're more likely to give to the next person, even if you're not there and so on.
DANA MERWIN: The hardest thing, you know, with shelter in place was we lost those connections. We lost those moments of spontaneity, of misconnections, of the magic that comes with just human chemistry, like whether it's, you know, with friends or strangers, like there is love and seeing someone light up, and no matter how it lasts, I feel love from that.
DACHER KELTNER: I love your statement, Dana, of loving strangers. And you know the there's really cool research coming out of Berkeley that you know, just striking up conversations with strangers, as long as it's safe, obviously, and you know you're in the right context, it brings you all these joys. It opens you up to slices of humanity that you wouldn't know were there. I'm curious, Dana, in your list of kind things to do, you know, one was call aunt Mona. And I think we all have a relative we really want to connect more to and be kind to. But it seemed like it was hard to get to that call on the trip, it took you a while, and I'm just curious, what was the call like?
DANA MERWIN: So aunt Mona is my great aunt, the last of the sisters, the youngest of the sisters, at a ripe age of 89 she had lost her sister, and I had lost this person who was very deep and caring with me and and yet there was this hardship and fear of what it would be like.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, what was the call like?
DANA MERWIN: Well, when she picked up the phone, the first thing she said, I said, Hi, this is Dana. And she said, Oh, it must be the end of the world. And then she was like, it's so great to hear from you. Oh, and we talked for like, an hour. We talked for an hour, and I didn't lead with, you know, talking about Aunt Mary and talking about the death. And she said, you know, she used to call me every day. We had a time every day we would talk to each other. And all three sisters had that. And she's like, you know, I miss her so much because we would talk. So now I said to her, in that moment of also keeping this practice, I said, I can't be, obviously, I can't be aunt, Mary. I will never be your sister in that relationship, I said, but if you ever want to call me at the same time, you would call her. If you want to call me, I would love that.
DACHER KELTNER: Wow.
DANA MERWIN: And she said, what's your number? And so she wrote down my number. It feels good to feel good and make others feel good. And yeah, sometimes it takes energy, right? But it's not hard. Like that doesn't take a lot of effort. To be silly and to be playful. And that doesn't mean you have to be, you know, trained. It can be when your partner walks in and you play a song that you think they love, or you put on the candle, you do something that, like atmospherically, changes the thing, and that feels good, whatever feels good to you. There's no, you know, script.
DACHER KELTNER: Well, you've just summarized the science of happiness and kindness in particular, of finding what lights you up, let it ripple and do it in a way that's kind to yourself. That's about the depth of the wisdom from science too. So thank you.
DANA MERWIN: Sweet. I got it right, yeah.
DACHER KELTNER: [laughs] In the end, we gave an A plus.
DANA MERWIN: Oh sweet. Thank you so much. Thank you.
DACHER KELTNER: Up next, we'll learn more about the science of kindness, why it's good for you, and interesting ways this science is being applied. But first a short break.
[Ad plays]
Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. This is Dacher, and we're talking about the power of good deeds today. And to learn more, we reached out to an expert on this topic, psychologist David Cregg. David came to the study of kindness when he set out to understand how to best thrive and flourish in life.
DAVID CREGG: And what I kept coming across time and time again, paper after paper was that social connection really seems to be the key ingredient for a thriving life.
DACHER KELTNER: In one experiment, David and his team studied the effects of doing good for others on 122 people with depression and anxiety, some of them were assigned to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT. It's a conventional type of talk therapy where psychologists help patients challenge the basis of their negative feelings. Others were instructed to perform three acts of kindness each day for two days out of the week, and the results were striking.
DAVID CREGG: Those who did the random acts of kindness showed a much greater degree of improvement for social connection than those who did the CBT techniques. I did not expect that going in. I thought maybe it would do comparable to or a little bit worse than cognitive therapy for depression and anxiety, and I did not expect acts of kindness to do as well for treating depression anxiety, and actually surpass that. We also found that those who did the random acts of kindness showed a greater degree of improvement for life satisfaction than those who did the cognitive therapy techniques.
DACHER KELTNER: These findings are striking, but not entirely surprising. There's a whole host of studies showing the benefits of doing good deeds.
DAVID CREGG: People who are kind to others tend to report higher life satisfaction. They're more satisfied with their lives. They tend to be more socially connected.
DACHER KELTNER: And that makes sense if you're doing kind things for other people. People tend to appreciate that, and it really is a way to foster close relationships.
DAVID CREGG: People who do kindness also tend to report a greater sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. They feel like their lives are oriented towards something greater than themselves. And we know that there's a host of psychological benefits with having a sense of meaning and purpose in your life.
DACHER KELTNER: And these benefits aren't just psychological.
DAVID CREGG: People who engage in kind actions or other forms of pro social behavior like volunteering, actually have a lower rate of mortality, so in other words, living longer in life. And we also found research studies showing that people who engage in kindness show lower blood pressure, and even people with chronic medical conditions like diabetes, for example, doing these kind actions seem to, over time, lower the risk or the severity of those medical conditions.
DACHER KELTNER: The causal mechanism of these benefits isn't entirely clear, although David points to one interesting physical phenomenon.
DAVID CREGG: At a more physiological level, researchers have found that doing kind actions stimulates the release of this neurotransmitter known as oxytocin, which is involved in creating a sense of a social bond between people. And so when you engage in these kind actions, you have this flood of oxytocin in your system, and that may facilitate a greater sense of connection with other people.
DACHER KELTNER: David now uses some of these findings in his current role as a staff psychologist with the VA.
DAVID CREGG: I work with veterans that have conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and we've actually started doing some of these kindness groups at the VA with veterans with these conditions, encouraging them to go out and volunteer and do acts of kindness.
DACHER KELTNER: And the data show that this intervention is making a real difference.
DAVID CREGG: And I remember this individual told me that it felt so good to give back, because this was an opportunity for them to get out and recover that sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. And the hope is that over time, that will grow and lead into an even bigger boost to their self esteem and sense of self worth and eventually pursuing their goals for their lives, in terms of returning to their occupations and setting. The practical advice I would give for doing kind actions is these can be as big or as small as you want them to be. So if you feel like you don't have the time to do it, or maybe you're struggling with really severe depression, and just doing small things, like getting out of bed, seems like a daunting task, I would say, start small. These don't have to be big. Pay It Forward type actions, if you've seen that movie before with giving your car away to other people, it could just be something as small as telling someone your life what you appreciate about them. And I think all of us, even when we're in a really bad spot in life, can probably do something like that to get us started.
SHUKA KALANTARI: On our next episode of The Science of Happiness, we explore why we need self compassion and how to find some more of it for ourselves.
RENÉ BROOKS: In every place of your life, there's not a lot of time for self compassion, and I think had. In an exercise that gives someone a task to focus on that like if you're cynical about it, you're cynical about it, but try it cynical, because it might work out.
SHUKA KALANTARI: This episode was produced by Noam Osmond. Our associate producers are Tarini Kakkar and Emily Brower. Our producer is Truc Nguyen. Our sound designer is Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our host is Dacher Keltner. I'm Shuka Kalantari, the executive producer. Have a great day.
Comments