Dr. David Hamilton On How Kindness Heals Your Body And Mind | EP 623

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Coming up next on Passion Struck.

One of the key things that I've explored is that kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress.

And when I say the opposite of stress, I know people might think, well, stress is a feeling, a state, and kindness is a thing that you do.

So let me reword that, which fits nicely with what Daker's research says, is the opposite of of an experience of stress.

So what that experience is psychologically for you and therefore what happens inside the body, the opposite of that experience of stress is an experience of kindness and what that is like psychologically, therefore all that happens inside the body.

If you chart the many of the physical effects in the body of stress and those of kindness, you'll find that they go in the opposite direction.

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Welcome to episode 623 of Passion Struck, where intention meets impact.

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And tomorrow, I'll be releasing a solo episode on Taylor Swift and the art of valuing others.

with lessons on authenticity, belonging, and what it takes to build genuine human connection in a performative world.

But today we shift our lens to the science behind kindness and why it's more than a virtue.

It's a biological necessity.

Let me ask you this.

What if the most powerful medicine for your mental health, your immune system, even your sense of meaning wasn't found in a bottle, but in how you treat people?

My guest today is Dr.

David Hamilton, a scientist, best-selling author, and one of the leading global voices on the mind-body connection and the biology of kindness.

After earning his PhD in organic chemistry and working on cutting-edge pharmaceutical research, David made a radical shift from drug development to human development.

His mission?

To explore how the power of thought and kindness can shape our health, our relationships, and our collective future.

In today's episode, we explore the 21-day kindfulness experiment and how combining mindfulness with kindness can rewire your brain.

We explore the immune-boosting, stress-lowering, heart-protective biology of kindness.

We discuss why small intentional acts can ripple outward in life-altering ways, and why kindness may be the ultimate antidote to loneliness, stress, and social disconnection.

Whether you're seeking better well-being, deeper relationships, or simply a more grounded way to show up in the world, this episode is packed with actionable wisdom that will change the way you think about kindness and its impact on your life.

Now, let's dive into this inspiring conversation with the one and only Dr.

David Hamilton.

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I am so honored today to welcome Dr.

David Hamilton to Passion Struck.

Welcome, David.

Thanks for inviting me, John.

It's a real pleasure to be chatting with you today.

Well, I'm so excited for this conversation.

You have really pioneered

the work around the science of kindness, which is going to be a core aspect of what we talk about.

But before we get into that, your journey is interesting.

How did you go from being in the pharmaceutical industry to becoming an advocate for kindness?

What inspired that shift?

I had a fascination with the mind-body connection because part of my job allowed me to observe the results of medical trials.

And I was fascinated by, I wanted to understand the placebo effect.

Why is it that people getting placebos, sugar tablets, were seeing some improvement.

So I began to research while I worked in the industry, just in my spare time, I began to research the mind-body connection and find a whole lot of research showing how beliefs and mind and emotions could have physical effects in the brain and on the body.

And that was absolutely captivating for me.

And I would say the reason why I was probably so interested, my mom and I, when I was a kid, used to talk about...

the mind.

My mum called it the magic power of the mind because she was going through postpartum depression and I'd found a book in a library called the magic power of your mind.

It was really helpful for her.

So all through my childhood and teenage years growing up, mom and I would talk about the magic power of the mind.

So I guess probably why I became fascinated with the placebo effect more so than all my colleagues was because I had that background and interest.

So I eventually left the industry with a passion really that I wanted to write and educate people on the different ways that mind and emotions could impact our health.

And if we could somehow understand this and even harness it, mind and emotions in some way by the way we think and the way our attitudes, for example, then we might have bring about health-giving effects.

And that led me into kindness because kindness naturally falls into that whole genre of the mind-body connection.

Because when you have an experience of kindness, a whole heap of different things, because of how it feels, a whole heap of different things happen in your brain and body.

Well, I think since you've laid that out, it's important to maybe go into how do you define kindness and why is it such a transformative force in human relationships?

For me, I would say kindness is usually

something that you do that's usually rooted in empathy or compassion.

It's something that you do that helps another person.

in some way.

It could even be something that you say.

And I say rooted in empathy and compassion because empathy is often the starting point of compassion.

So you can think of

the starting point of kindness.

You can think of empathy as I feel with you.

So I'm sharing your pain.

I'm here with you right now.

And then empathy evolves naturally into compassion, which can be thought of as I feel for you.

So I'm here with you, sharing your pain.

But now part of me wants to see you free of that pain, free of that suffering.

So I feel for you.

And that's compassion.

And then compassion naturally evolves into something that you say or do to support or assist or help this person in in some ways.

So that's how I would define kindness.

Sorry, I forgot the second part of your question.

I was so into the definition there.

So the second part, David, is really why is kindness such a transformative force in human relationships?

So I would say it's such a transformative force because I think it cuts through a lot of the stuff that we have swirling in our minds that sometimes blocks connection for example if you reach out it say something kind or do something kind i think it just cuts through to the very basis of what makes us human and so i think it kind of has a deep penetrating effect and i would say the reason why i say it's what makes us human is because we actually have kind genes like we're supposed to be kind in fact our kind genes are some of the oldest genes in the human genome they're at least 100 million years old, but go back much further than that.

And our ancient ancestors learned through experience that helping each other, looking out for each other, supporting each other was better in the long term in terms of safety and thriving than trying to go things alone.

So we naturally evolved genes associated with that tendency to care and to help each other and genes that ensured the process was a pleasurable one.

So kindness is something that's deeply ingrained in the human psyche and in the human nervous system.

So I think when we say or do something kind, I think people hear it and feel it on a much deeper level than purely a surface superficial level.

And I always like to try to incorporate stories into these podcasts.

And as I was doing my research on you, I was reading your blog post.

And I came across this one where you were describing that you used to be a bartender way back earlier in your career and you had this patron named Jack who had served in World War II and he tells this story of

this moment where he faced a life or death situation and a German soldier ended up displaying an act of kindness.

I was hoping you might be able to explore this.

and maybe use this to introduce this concept of kindness.

So this was several years.

In fact, let me think exactly when.

It it would have been about 23 years ago.

And I worked in a little, a little bar, a little wine bar actually in the west end, the west side of Glasgow, a city in central Scotland, in Scotland.

And this gentleman, Jack, he was in his 70s at the time, came in.

And I used to chat with him.

I used to chat with other patrons in the bar, but I didn't really know much about him.

And one day he told me that he used to be in the war.

And he said, one of the most memorable experiences of his life

was that he got separated from his company, from the rest of the people in his in his company his troop and he found himself hiding out in a bombed out town and he was like the only person there and he'd spent a few days there just hoping and praying that they would recognize he was missing and they would come back and rescue him and pick him up

and

he said one day his worst nightmare came true because a troop of German soldiers were one were walking through and they were checking all the buildings and he was absolutely terrified because he said i was just a kid he was only 17 years old so he really wasn't even long out of high school and here he found himself on the front line in i believe it was in france that this particular thing that happened and he found himself on the front line just literally out of school a few months earlier and he said i was absolutely terrified i was absolutely so afraid and then i eventually i could hear them coming into the building and he could hear the footsteps walking over rubble and broken glass and he said i was standing there and I was in this room and I said, I stood behind the door a bit and I was holding my gun and I was literally shaking with fear because he was thinking, what will happen?

He will see me.

And what if I raise my gun?

If I shoot him, then they'll know I'm here.

And the rest of them will come and they'll shoot me.

And he said, I was absolutely panicking because I was just a kid.

and I didn't really know what to do.

And he said, I was just absolutely, my whole body was shaking with fear holding my gun.

And he said, I heard the footsteps and the soldier walked into the room.

And he turned round and he held his gun and he saw me and he pointed his gun right at me and he said he could see me shaking and then he said i wet myself it just lost control and he wet myself and he said the german soldier looked and he could see that i was a kid and he could see the urine coming out the bottom of my leg and had his gun and he put his gun down and he looked at me and he said he smiled and he went

and he made a kind gesture and then he walked away out of the room and out of the building and signaled to the rest of the of his troops that the building was clear.

And Jack said, and here I am, like nearly 60 or so years later,

or 50-something years later.

And he said, it's funny, despite everything that happened in the war, that is what I most remember.

about the war is that particular thing.

He said, that changed his life.

It made him, he said, it made me a better person, a different person as I went through my life.

And I think that captures what I said a moment ago about the roots of kindness, empathy.

You could see that the soldier empathized.

I feel with you.

I share your pain.

I understand.

We're two human beings and I understand what it must be like for you right now.

And that the soldier must have taken that position and said, I can't do this, and showed an extraordinary act of also bravery to lift his own gun and put his own gun down.

and walk away.

He actually turned his back, Jack said.

He turned his back and walked away.

That was an act of courage and bravery, but exceptional kindness.

And then he walked away.

So that for me captures that story of kindness, empathy, to compassion to a physical act, but it starts with feeling.

I share, I feel your pain.

Well, I think it was a great story.

And I, over the holidays, I happened to watch Saving Private Brian, which I hadn't seen in many years.

And it reminds me of some of the scenes from that movie.

where almost the same thing happened where a German soldier lets an American live and the American had previously helped that same soldier to get out of a sticky situation.

So it's an interesting example how in the heat of battle, even we can still show kindness and empathy to a person from the other side.

Absolutely, John.

And I reckon it probably happened a lot during these terrible wars that we've had.

I bet there's been a lot of displays of compassion between seeming different sides because when it comes down to it, we're human beings.

And I think we've heard that we saw some in that film, and saving Private Ryan, I've heard of Jack's story, but there's probably lots of similar experiences people have had in these sorts of situations.

I can't remember what movie I saw and whether this is true or not, but it was World War I.

And they would blow the whistle at times and take a pause where neither side was fighting.

And I remember in one of these scenes, a bunch of the English soldiers got out of the trenches, the Germans got out of the trenches, and they started playing a game of football in the middle of the battlefield.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it was Christmas Day.

Yes.

And it, to me, was so ironic because it made me remember a moment when I was in the military and it was our holiday, Thanksgiving, and we were in the middle of riding.

running this turkey trot on this ship that I was on doing laps after laps.

And above us, a sortie of Allied aircraft came overhead because they were using our ship as one of the liaison points for their missile run.

And they come screaming overhead.

And it just was this interesting moment where here we are celebrating Thanksgiving,

but we're in the middle of this war and it just brought the whole situation back to me, this game of soccer that at one sense, we're sharing our mutual humanity and the next moment, we're back to fighting each other.

It's an interesting world we live in, isn't it?

It really is.

And again, it comes back to what I think is

supporting each other and being kind and having these displays of, you know, affection and love and real human qualities.

These are what make us human.

And I think sometimes we just need a little

trigger like Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, something that reminds all of us, this is what makes us human.

This is who we are.

This is what we're supposed to be like.

And it's just things get in the way, like wars, for example, and even wars between people and things get in the way.

But this is who we are and this is what we're supposed to be like.

I believe we all have moments when we question whether we matter to others.

How does kindness influence this sense of self-matter?

I share a wee, but a scientific example.

I'm not sure if it'll answer the question exactly, but finding this scientific study helped me me one day.

I was writing on kindness.

And I think we all go through, I've written 12 books.

And I still have moments, John,

where you lose your way a little bit.

And I still have these little moments from time to time where I'm not quite feeling myself, not quite feeling connected and wonder if what I'm doing is mattering at all.

And then a few years ago, I came across some research into the contagiousness of kindness.

And it was learning that kindness, an act of kindness most of the time, has a ripple effect that goes out to what's called three degrees of separation.

But more so than that, kindness has an R number.

And we know the R numbers from Covid times, which means reproducibility rate.

And it's the higher the number, the more contagious, the more infectious something is.

And it turns out that kindness has an R number somewhere between three and five.

That's a reasonable estimate that's based, that's grounded in science, but also estimated a bit more.

And the thing is, in terms of the fact that kindness has this replica three degrees of separation, this is what it means.

Let's suppose that you do something kind for someone today, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing thing.

Most of the kindnesses that really matter are the small things, the little shows of support or encouragement, the little acts of assistance, these tiny little things we do every day.

But let's suppose you do something kind,

and because of how you made that person feel, that person has an experience of kindness, because of how you made the person feel, that person will probably be kinder to five people over the course of the rest of the day.

That's the R number of five, simply because of how you made them feel.

If you were to follow that person around, not that you would, but if you did, you would probably find they would be kind or kinder to about five people, give or take a wee bit.

Now, these five people are at one degree.

of separation from you they're one social step separate from you now if you had a wee drone and you tracked the locations of those five people, not that you would, but if you did, then what you would probably find over the course of the next day or so is that each of those five people would also be kind or kinder to five people.

And so, what you now have is 25 people who are now at two degrees of separation from you, two social steps away from you.

Now, if you happen to have a swarm of drones, not that you would do it, but if you did and you tracked all these people, then what you would probably find on average, it's not an exact thing because it depends, it's an average, that each of those 25 would also be kinder to five people.

So what you now have at three degrees of separation from you is 125 people experiencing an act of kindness because of something small that you did.

And I put it to the people who are listening today is whenever, if ever you feel small, if ever you feel you're not having an impact,

every act of kindness matters.

You just don't see it because what happens is we do something or we say something, even a little show of support or encouragement for someone, and then we walk away, we get on with the rest of the day.

What we don't see is what happens next.

And what happens next is the ripple effect.

It's if you're passing a pond and you casually flick a pebble into the pond and you hear it plop.

But then you walk away and you get into your car and you go into a shop or you go to work, whatever you do.

You're not really looking at what happened.

But what did happen is a pebble landed in the pond and it plopped and it created a little set of waves.

And then the waves moved out and at the other side of the pond there's lily pads rising and falling.

Now they don't know why they're rising and falling but they're rising and falling because of the wave and what set the wave in motion was the pebble dropped in a pond.

Now the pebble is a metaphor for an act of kindness and it's not a

lily pads that are rising and falling.

it's people's spirits, it's people's smiles and people's faces, it's the quality of people's days.

So I wanted to say that because even on those days when you think that you don't matter or what you do doesn't matter, every little thing that you do to support another person matters.

You just don't notice what happens after you go away because there's always, almost always a ripple effect.

And so every small thing that you do matters much more than you realize.

And you matter much more than you realize because you're always having these effects, even though you probably don't notice most of the time.

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I think that whole explanation of ripple effect is really important to understanding this.

And one of the books I wanted to mention that you wrote is The Little Book of Kindness.

And in this, you're talking in the beginning about the world today.

And I'm going to just read what you wrote here.

You say, our world is becoming more interconnected and seemingly smaller.

The currency of the future is not Euros, dollars, or yen.

It's empathy, the ability to understand and relate to another, to understand their needs, to understand what life is like for them, and to share their pain.

Only through empathy can we actually solve our problems together.

And as I was reading that, David, I'm not sure if you've ever read any of the research by Emile Bruno, but it reminded me of his his research.

If you're not familiar with him, he is deceased now, but he was a University of Pennsylvania professor who was really looking at dehumanization and how do we use empathy

to help the other side see the commonality that we have in each other.

Is that kind of what you were referring to here?

Exactly.

And I wasn't familiar with his research, so it's great to hear this.

But that's exactly what I was referring to, because the world is becoming smaller in the sense that compared to a long time ago, it's easier to travel and it's easier to communicate with people.

We do it on like we're communicating right now.

And these kind of things 20, 20, 30 years ago wouldn't be possible.

So the world's becoming smaller, and we're recognizing the interconnectedness.

So much of what happens in the world is founded upon relationships and the ability then to understand and relate to another person.

And the ability to do that is based on empathy.

And I want to research this a little bit more, but before i go there i wanted to explore the gap that you bring up which i call the epidemic of disconnection you say our world is becoming more interconnected yet seemingly smaller and those two things seem like they would be the opposite we're more inconnected we're more together but why are we experiencing such a void?

I think that there's a disconnect that's happening that's related to an over focus on doing and productivity.

I've got to do this, I've got to get that done.

And I think there's so much focus at the moment on just stuff that we have to do that I just think we lose touch a wee bit with,

as I say, some of the things that make us human.

It becomes so important to get all these tasks done nowadays because the world seems, especially with social media and we're scrolling on our phones and everything seems to be fast paced all the time.

And I just think I've noticed it myself, that we just sometimes forget, we lose touch a wee bit with the things that make us human, which is the importance to take time to help each other, to empathize, to be kind.

And so I think that for me is something that I've noticed.

And I think kindness is one of the ways that we can help to

really to connect a wee bit better again.

Thank you for sharing that.

And I think it's a good lead-in to discuss empathy in more detail, because you describe empathy as the path into knowing what type of kindness to show.

This is really interesting.

I love to cite the work of Daker Keltner, who studies awe and compassion.

But as I was interviewing him about his most recent book, The Power of Awe,

he brought up that his research found that people experience awe the most

when they're witnessing what he calls acts of moral beauty, which is really

us performing acts of kindness, demonstrations of gratitude towards another person, etc.

How does this tie into your own research?

And do you, yeah.

Very much so, because I often talk about that there are neurological and physiological effects of kindness, and it doesn't really matter whether you're the giver of the kindness, the receiver of the kindness, or even the witness to it.

And I think what Dakar was there is when you witness kindness, you're in a state of awe.

And so you're having an experience of kindness.

And that brings about many of the same effects inside the brain and inside the body as actually doing an act of kindness itself.

Because when I often talk about and write about for example, the impact of kindness on the heart and on the immune system i am explicitly stating that it's not an act of kindness itself that does it it's the experience of kindness, it's what that experience is like.

And so, you can have an experience of kindness if you're giving the kindness, or even if you're witnessing it, you're aware of an, as Daka would say, an act of moral beauty.

It moves us in the same way, so it generates more or less these same physiological effects inside.

inside the brain and inside the body.

And I put my hand on my heart here because some of the most profound effects are on the heart.

In fact, often

one of the key things that I've explored is that kindness is physiologically the opposite of stress.

And when I say the opposite of stress, I know people might think, well, stress is a feeling, a state, and kindness is a thing that you do.

So let me reword that, which fits nicely with what Daker's research says, is the opposite of an experience of stress.

So what that experience is psychologically.

psychologically for you and therefore what happens inside the body the opposite of that experience of stress is an experience of kindness and what that is like psychologically therefore all that happens inside the body if you chart the many of the physical effects in the body of stress and those of kindness you'll find that they go in the opposite direction but the only reason that explanation works is because it's not the act of kindness itself it's the experience of kindness which can be giving or having an experience of watching, observing or learning of an act of moral beauty.

And it's a bit like stress because again, two people can be in the same situation.

One of them could have an experience of stress and the other person have an experience of calm because they could be stuck in traffic.

For example, one person's feeling stressed, the other person's quite relaxed about it.

So it's not the stuck in traffic that's causing the physical effects of stress.

It's the experience.

of being stuck in traffic.

So similarly with kindness, it's not kindness itself that brings about the neurological and the physiological effects.

It's what the experience is like, whether you're the giver, the receiver, many times, or even the person who's witnessing, who's in awe, witnessing an act of moral beauty.

Man, I love that explanation.

It leads me to want to go into this next area.

I saw in your most recent book, The Joy of Actually Giving a Hoot, that our mutual friend of both of ours, Sharon Salzberg, gave you an endorsement for the book.

And one of the things that Sharon is most well known for is her book, Love and Kindness.

And this is something you have really dived into.

Research has shown that this Tibetan Buddhist meditation, loving kindness, really encourages us to generate feelings of love, kindness, and compassion for all beings.

And really where you go into is just like you have to practice tennis and I know you're a big tennis player.

If you want to be a good tennis player or a good golfer, which i know they love to do in scotland as well you need to practice compassion for it to show up can you go into loving kindness and neuroplasticity and how these things are like a muscle that needs to be constantly trained so it's a bit like mindfulness if someone does mindfulness any for those of you listening who have never tried it before might think of this as mindfulness 101 so let's suppose you were to breathe which I'm assuming most people do, but let's suppose you were to breathe and then notice that you're breathing.

The moment you notice that you're breathing, you'll find a lot of the activity in the brain changes.

So if I was to scan your brain while you breathe normally, there'd be activity dotted all over the brain.

But the moment you notice you're breathing, in other words, you're mindful.

of the experience of breathing you're mindful you're aware of the sounds and the sensations of breathing now you'll find that of most of the activity is now at the frontal part of the brain, just above your eyes.

And that literally gets a workout.

Literally, because the activity is there, it gets a workout.

It's if you go to the gym and you work out a muscle.

You'll notice if you do reps, maybe for a couple of weeks, you'll notice three things happen to the muscle.

It becomes firmer, larger, and more powerful.

And everything you use that muscle for, therefore, becomes easier.

So similarly, when you work out a region of the brain, and we're talking here of mindfulness, so you're working out this frontal region of the brain, it also becomes firmer, larger, and more powerful.

Obviously, neuroscientists don't call it muscle growth, like to sound really clever, so we call it neuroneuroplasticity.

But the idea is more or less the same.

And when I say it becomes firmer, larger, and more powerful, what's happening is a growth in the number of neural connections.

So, it's becoming more connected and they're more powerful.

So, everything you use that frontal part of the brain for becomes easier, which is why mindfulness is associated with more better concentration, more self-control, the ability to manage your state, because these are governed by this frontal part of the brain.

But where I'm going with this is let's suppose instead of mindfulness, you do what I broadly like to call kindfulness, of which the loving kindness meditation practice is one of a kindfulness meditation.

A kindfulness practice is any mindfulness-based technique where at least some part of the focus is in the direction of thinking kindly or compassionately of someone.

Now what happens if you scan the the brain is yeah you're working out the frontal part but now there's a bias to the left hand side and a little bit deeper in and these also become firmer larger and more powerful now the point i'm making here is this is a physical change to brain networks you know being kind and thinking kindly isn't just something that you do it's an experience that you have but this experience is actually causing physical changes in some of the fine structure of the brain and incidentally that these regions of the brain are associated associated with not only empathy, but happiness and joy.

And what that means, as these regions become more powerful, it means happiness and joy become more accessible to us.

Doesn't mean, obviously, if you practice a loving kindness, you'll always be happier, of course, because life happens.

But because that muscle is stronger, it's more powerful, it just means that against the backdrop of life as it happens, these states, happiness and joy, become a little more accessible to us because the brain networks that can access it are more powerful than they were prior to a consistent practice of loving kindness.

See?

Well, one of the things that I love about the way you talk about this is you connect kindfulness to intentionality, which that's something I really explore on the podcast is our life is really about being intentional about the micro choices that we make in the moments that make up our days.

The way I interpret this is kindfulness focuses on intentional kindness.

It's really training our brains to become more mindful of opportunities to practice kindness.

One of my definitions of kindfulness is to be mindfully kind.

In other words, intentionally kind as you go about your day.

So kindfulness can be a mindfulness-based meditation practice, or it can be being intentionally kind, i.e.

mindfully kind in the micro moments of your life.

This made me really think of the Mother Mother Teresa effect study that you showcased in the little book of kindness, which found that witnessing kindness boosts the immune system.

And maybe you can go into a little bit more about the study, but why do you think kindness is so contagious and impactful?

When it comes to the immune system, what happens is having an experience of kindness in this Mother Teresa effect that I'll describe in a moment was literally witnessing.

It's a coming back to what Daker was saying, it's you're in awe of an act of moral beauty.

And partly what that does is it takes some of the stress pressure off the immune system because kindness is the an experience of kindness is the opposite from an experience of stress.

So when you have an experience of kindness, so witnessing, for example, an act of someone else being kind, then it takes some of that stress pressure off the immune system, thereby allowing the immune system to work more optimally.

But other research, before I talk about the Mother Teresa effect, other more recent research compared people doing acts of kindness over a period of time with people just acting as normally, so

not being intentionally kind.

And they looked at blood samples and then they looked at white blood cells of the immune system inside our blood.

And what they found is those people being intentionally kind caused effects on the genetic activity.

inside these immune cells that more or less meant a kind of anti-inflammatory effect inside the immune system, inside the blood, isn't that absolutely amazing, simply through being kind.

But the Mother Teresa effect was volunteers were asked to watch a video that lasted about an hour long of people, oh sorry, of Mother Teresa.

on the streets of Calcutta showing acts of kindness.

This is why it was called the Mother Teresa effect.

It was done back in the 80s and that was the video they happened to use.

If they'd used the video of Gandhi, it would be called the Gandhi effect.

They happened to use the mother, a video of Mother Teresa.

And it showed over this hour, she was really caring for people on the streets of what was then known as Calcutta.

And they had their immune system sampled before and after, then a little bit later again.

And what the researchers did is they measured the levels of an antibody in the saliva that lines our mucous membranes.

It's called SIGA, and that's short for salivary or secretary immunoglobulin A.

That's for the test at the end of the podcast.

I'm only kidding.

Part of the immune system, it lines the mucous membranes.

It's the first part of the immune system that responds if you say, eat.

or inhale something that's contaminated so the immune system reacts to it so levels of sig a are a good proxy for overall immune function and what they found is just by watching that video that one hour video levels of siga went up by 50 on average isn't that amazing and they stayed elevated for several hours.

And the reason why they stayed elevated is because people kept referring back to it.

They were still being moved by this, these acts of moral beauty.

They would say something like, oh, remember that scene where Mother Teresa sat beside that elderly man and she didn't say a word.

She just took his hand and laid her head against him just so that he wouldn't feel alone in the world.

at that moment and they felt so moved by even though they watched the video an hour ago they still remembered that they still had an experience of kindness and the levels of SIGA were kept up for that reason.

So part of the reason is that the relieving, having an experience of kindness releases some of these stress pressure on the immune system.

So the immune system can work.

more optimally as it's supposed to work.

And secondly, there's actually a direct impact on the immune system right down at the genetic level that's related to experiences of kindness.

Man, I love that you just went into that.

And one of the things that I think is so profound about doing the podcast is how much I get to learn week in and week out about things I didn't really know.

And one of the key findings for me reading your work was that we all have a kindness gene

and there's no exception.

The kindness gene,

as you point out, is one of the oldest in the human genome.

It's approximately 500 million years old.

And it's integrated itself because of that into many key systems of the body.

So, I really found that fascinating, along with what you just talked about.

It's actually why kindness has physiological effects.

As I pointed out,

our ancestors learned through experience that helping each other was useful.

In fact, it was the right way to go, because there's no convenience shops at the bottom of the road.

And we've also, they also had to protect themselves from other tribes or from predators or from things that happened in a world that wasn't quite as safe as ours is for most people these days.

So they learned through it.

So they had these experiences of just helping each other out, living in communities, looking out for each other, supporting each other, sharing, caring for each other.

So over time, we evolved genes that ensured that was a key practice.

So nature wanted to make sure that we kept doing that.

because it was going to save our lives.

So that's what we call nature selected genes for kindness because nature understands through experience that helping each other is going to make us survive.

But because it's such an ancient gene that we have, it through that time has integrated itself into a huge number of healthy systems from impacting our mental health, making our minds clearer and sharper, and making us feel happier and protecting us to a degree against depression and anxiety, to lowering blood pressure, to supporting the immune system, even to helping us digest food, to helping wounds heal faster.

So, all of these things happen as what I call side effects of simply caring for each other.

It's extraordinary.

It's one of the most beautiful and magical things I've ever came across in science is how kindness actually does this.

So that's why I've been exploring it in my books because it's been so fascinating to me and it makes so much sense.

It does.

And when I reached out to you in December, making sure that we were still on for this conversation that we're having today, you mentioned to me that you were in in the middle of a 21-day kindfulness experiment.

And I wanted to make sure we got this into the episode.

So can you talk about what inspired it and

what the results were of this experiment?

Sure.

So I realized that most of the research published around kindness is when people are asked to do intentional acts of kindness.

And then I wondered what would happen if I didn't ask people to be kind.

I just got them to contemplate it.

If people were were aware of kindness, thinking about it, would they then go and be kind?

And would that lead to improvements in their happiness, in their connection with others, in their sense of overall well-being?

And that's exactly what I found.

And what I did every day for 21 days is I sent people two videos.

One was a very short video, about a minute or two long, just asking them to consider or notice something.

So, for example, on day one, I just asked people to notice acts of kindness that you see around you as you go about your day.

Just notice if you see someone being kind to someone else or someone saying something kind, just don't, I'm not asking you to be kind, just notice things.

And then on another day, I ask people just to notice when you notice,

have an experience of kindness, notice how it feels.

psychologically and then another day notice how it feels in your body do you feel any different in your body and then other days i'll ask them to notice something else so basically a different theme for 21 days but something really small not go out and be kind just notice something.

And each day, I also sent them a kindfulness meditation practice.

So, as I pointed out earlier, a kindfulness meditation practice is a mindfulness practice that

some part of it points the mind towards thinking compassion that they are kindly.

So, I guided people through meditations between six and 11 minutes long, a different one each day for 21 days, just thinking, encouraging them to think and focus on kindness.

Anyway, we measured at the beginning and at the end happiness connection with others and overall well-being and got significant substantial increases in happiness connection with others and overall well-being and that was not asking people to be kind just asking people to think about it to consider it to notice it and i figured that they would probably

because they feel

because they're having they're thinking about it they would then because it's on the surface of their attention they would intentionally be kind.

And that's exactly what happened.

People were being kind all over the place and receiving kindness, having noticing it, having experiences by witnessing other people's kindness.

And it all had an impact on their happiness, connection with others, and their overall sense of well-being.

And incidentally, I've left the entire

playlist on YouTube.

So if anyone wants to do it themselves at any time, the entire 21-day playlist is on my YouTube channel.

So it's open, it's free.

Just click on it and you can work through it at your own pace.

David, I'm interested, and thank you for sharing that.

Were the results even more profound than what you expected?

Yeah, absolutely.

I got more than 30% improvement in happiness, connection with others, and overall well-being.

That's way more than I thought, because that's more than you would get from taking antidepressants, for example, over that period of time.

So, in just 21 days, it was a substantial change in people's state, how they feel, but also their relationships with other people and their overall sense of psychological and emotional well-being.

These were way more than I expected.

I don't really know what I expected, to be honest.

I expected a gain, but not maybe not quite in the ballpark that we actually got.

And

there was about three and a half thousand people that started this experiment.

So it was a fairly decent number of people.

Man, I love it.

Well, thank you for sharing that.

And I'm glad we could tape this so close to you completing it.

Yeah, literally, just finished a few weeks before, just actually a week or so after Thanksgiving, it finished.

So I ran it up through the middle of November to early December kind of thing.

Awesome.

Well, one of the areas I wanted to take our discussion is I recently had Dr.

Allison Wood Brooks on the podcast.

She's a professor at Harvard who studies how we converse with one another.

And as I was interviewing her, she was talking about the lost art of active listening and how listening is really one of the most powerful ways that we either show someone that they're seen or unseen.

Active listening is also one of the most powerful ways to show kindness.

And I wanted to ask you through that lens, what does truly listening to someone look like?

And when they do it with kindness, how does it affirm both self-worth and the value of the other person?

Absolutely.

I would say when you're really active listening is kind, because you're sharing this space with someone and you're being fully present.

in the moment with this experience with the person and you're showing them that I'm respectful of you.

I value what you're saying.

And by actually really, truly paying attention, by giving that person your maximum attention, you're showing empathy and you're showing kindness for them.

And it really, for a lot of people, when you're on the receiving end of that, it can feel like an affirmation of your value.

I know when someone's actively listening to me, they're really paying attention.

It feels really nice.

And I say it feels nice because it doesn't always happen, does it?

In general, and you can tell when it does, and you feel, God, what a great, and you walk away thinking, what a beautiful person she or he was.

And all they actually did was really give you that space.

And I think it taps into something really important in us.

Some human, I think human connection grows, it gets a little bit stronger when you're really actively listening.

And it is, like you said, it's like an affirmation of our value, of our self-worth.

And it's a demonstration of kindness and respect.

I agree with you.

And one of the things she talked about is that we often think of conversations as being spontaneous, but there's a level of preparation that we can do to make them more rewarding, especially if we know we're going into a setting with certain people.

How do you think we can be more intentional about preparing conversations through this lens of kindness?

That's a really good question.

I think if you don't know a person, then just taking a little bit of time, and you know that you're about to meet them in some way, I think just taking a little time to learn a little bit about the person, but also even consider what are some of the things that we, some of the topics we could explore in a conversation.

And it just, I think it just gets around some of the little blank moments where you're not really sure of what to say and what to talk about.

I've noticed myself, if I, even if I'm going to a party,

like to dinner or something, and I don't know some of the people, if I just take even a short amount of time to even prepare myself into maybe some of the questions I might ask people that shows that I'm genuinely interested in their lives.

Like, I really would like to know

where did you grow up?

What did you do for a living?

Even depending how the conversation goes, what kind of, have you ever done anything that took a lot of courage or have you ever had an experience of kindness?

Just going prepared with a little weak things that just show that you really want to listen to a person.

I've noticed that really helps to develop a relationship and a friendship as well.

I agree with you.

And I think that is something that we really need to tap into more because it appears as we start out the whole conversation, the more

we experience this global village that we're living in, the less and less we seem to be listening to one another on a deep and meaningful level.

Yeah.

So I wanted to ask you a couple questions about how you apply kindfulness.

And one of the things I know is that you have done a lot of work with organizations like Google and the NHS and others.

What have you learned about the role of kindness in the workplace?

And do you see any tie in having kindness in the workplace to how many employees today feel like they're disengaged in the workforce?

I've certainly noticed that kindness is so incredibly important in the workplace.

And where I've worked a lot on is in the leadership side and pointing out, because I think sometimes we have in our heads that kindness and leadership doesn't go together because we think of leadership as having qualities of strength and vision and powerful thing, these sort of ideas we have around it.

And those are absolutely true.

Having strength and vision, decisiveness, these are important.

But so also, a lot of research shows also is kindness.

And it doesn't mean that you have to be overly lenient, and nor does it mean avoiding making difficult decisions.

It doesn't mean that at all.

Kindness in the workplace and in leadership especially, it simply means an approach to leadership, an approach to interaction that's based in empathy and compassion and a genuine concern for the needs,

the opinions and the well-being of each other.

And then how a person acts or reacts in any given situation evolves naturally from that space.

But that starting point is empathy, compassion, and a genuine concern for the needs, the feelings, the opinions and the well-being of other people.

It can take different forms depending on the context.

We've talked about active listening.

It can be literally giving someone your full attention so that a person feels listened to, a person feels heard, a person feels valued.

It can even be saying thank you, which I know sounds really obvious and it is for many people.

But for the person hearing the words thank you, it can be an absolute, that can make their day, it can make a person feel respected.

Now, kindness in the workplace or in a leadership capacity can also be offering supportive feedback.

And even if you're giving feedback where change or improvement is needed, it's just showing someone that support is available and showing them that you believe in their ability to be able to believe that they're ability to learn.

And that leaves a person feeling, I've got this.

And even if I haven't, if I'm struggling, I know that I can ask for help.

So it's rooted in empathy, and it can even be making an attempt to understand, to better understand people's opinions.

And a lot of that comes down to respecting people by giving them attention, by listening to people.

So in a corporate environment, it's about bringing your humanness and your natural empathy to the way that you do what you do.

And it's funny because research shows that organizations who make kindness visible.

in some way, whether it's through the way some of their internal practices, but they've made it visible, actually retain staff so much better than companies that don't.

Comes back to the fact that kindness is what makes us human.

And we're human in a workplace.

Whether we have a job to do or not, we're still human beings.

So we still expect and need to be in an environment that has values of empathy and compassion and kindness so that we feel human as we do what we do.

I think a great example of this is I recently did an interview with Dr.

Adam Galinsky, and he really focuses on the science of inspiration.

And he was hired a number of years ago to go into this company and to evaluate some of its leaders.

And on one morning, I think it was a Monday morning, he was observing a leader start the morning meeting with his team, and he realized that almost all of them were completely checked out.

And it goes to what you were just saying.

The reason they were checked out is that almost every single one of them had high school children.

And the Parkland high school shooting had just happened here in America a few days before.

And instead of really going into their emotional states, he just treated it like it was any given day.

And most of those employees had other things on their mind.

And he didn't even think to go into it.

And this is something that you write about in your most recent book, that you never know what someone else is dealing with.

And I wanted to just quote what you wrote because you say that the fact is that most of us are basically like award-winning actors when it comes to hiding our real emotions.

I think you and I both use this concept that oftentimes we live behind a mask that we put up.

And maybe it's society, maybe it's pride, but many of us put on a brave face even when we're feeling anything but brave inside.

That super cheerful co-worker, maybe they're having tough nights.

You're always there for your friend person.

Maybe they might need someone there to be kind to them too.

Everyone's dealing with something and

everyone's fighting their own battles and most of them in silence.

And I think that's a good backdrop to explain what you were just talking about and how we're recognizing this in others and showing kindness in the workplace.

Is that a good way to think about it?

Exactly.

I think, John, that captures for me a large part of the essence of everyday kindness.

If we err on the side of that, in other words, it's easy to judge people and it's easy to be critical and stuff.

But if we can err on the side of knowing that you never know what someone's dealing with right now or has dealt with that is contributing to the way they're presenting right now.

If you understand that, then it doesn't necessarily always change a situation, but it might change how you feel about it and how you feel about the person and therefore how you respond.

and that makes all the difference because that's how we that's how we break down barriers that's how we solve a lot of our problems we can start with that basis that you never know what the person's dealing with can i share a personal story with you john that i also wrote in the book but it captured when i the reason why i included those words that you wrote in the book the reason why i included this is because

I started writing the book shortly after I lost my dad.

My dad had had a brain tumor, a very fit and healthy man in his late 70s.

And it was one of these things that just happened right out of the blue.

And my dad had done surgery and he was undergoing radiotherapy three times a week.

And I used to most of the time take him to the appointments because he wanted, he liked me being there because

for the best will in the world, sometimes doctors use terms because you're talking to medical people all the time.

They use terms that you don't fully understand.

And if you lose a wee part of it, then it's gone.

So I used to always explain and translate exactly to my dad in everyday terms what was really happening and what things meant.

So it was like a hundred kilometers round trip to pick up my mum and dad, drive them to the appointment back and back home.

And I did it like most of the time, sometimes my sisters or someone helped out.

But there was my dad always wanted to get there really early.

He was always worried about because he knew this was his life.

He was scared of being late for traffic or what if they can take him early.

So my dad always wanted to be there like 40 minutes, something like that, really early and it was very important to my dad to be super early so i always made sure that i was picking them up in the morning in plenty of time so that even if there was traffic delays we'd still get there really early but there was one morning john and i was running a wee bit late and it was more and what i was annoyed at was it was my own fault i allowed things to to delay me and i was driving along the motorway or the free the freeway or the motorway as we call it in scotland i was driving along the road faster than i should have done and i wasn't we weren't going to be late.

We'd still be early, 15 minutes early.

But I knew that wasn't enough for my dad.

And I knew he'd be feeling anxious about the fact that we weren't as early as he wanted to be.

So I was driving along the road fast and I pulled off the road at a little junction.

It's what we call it a roundabout over in the UK.

And I wasn't paying fully attention because I was so lost in my head, John.

I was worried about being late and I was worried about how that might make my dad feel.

And I was thinking about the inevitable, what seemed like the inevitable prognosis.

And I wasn't thinking clearly nor paying attention.

And I pulled out in front of another driver.

And luckily, that both of us just put our foot on the brakes and we skiddied.

And we missed each other by a centimeter.

And now, luckily, we missed each other.

There wasn't an accident.

If we had have crashed, it would have been entirely my fault.

Now, what I expected in that moment was him to honk his horn really loud, maybe shout and offer a few expletives, maybe even an obscene gesture, because that's what happens so much in the roads.

But he didn't do that.

In fact, what he did instead is he put his hand out and he looked at me and he smiled, and his face looked really soft and compassionate.

And he looked at me and he said, It's okay, on you go.

And he smiled and it was nice, it's kind.

And I didn't know how to respond because I was so struck by the opposite of what I expected in that moment.

And I went, well,

thanks.

And I drove round and 50 yards along the road, I burst into tears.

I was so overcome.

It was like a rush.

It was like a clearance almost.

Like, I was so moved by the kindness that he showed me.

And I just suddenly came to my mind about what I was really worrying about.

Everything I was pushing inside, it came out.

I was worried about my dad being late.

I was worried about his health and the prognosis and what happens if we lose him, et cetera, et cetera.

And had he been, if that gentleman had been really nasty and peeped his horn and swore at me, I don't think I could have handled it.

Despite the front I put to the world, I was giving podcast interviews before and after this.

I was speaking on live stages days before, days after.

I was making social media videos.

Despite the face I, the mask I wore, the face I presented to the world, I was really fragile in the inside.

because of what was I was going through.

And I don't think I could have dealt, I don't think I could have coped if he'd been really nasty.

I think I may have burst burst into tears in front of him.

And that was the first time I can remember consciously being aware of being on the other side of those words.

Because I've said so many times and I've written so many times, try to be kind because you never know what someone's dealing with.

And I found myself that day on the other side of it.

And I understood it on a whole nother level.

Because previously, I just said the words.

But now I understood, I really deeply understood what that felt like when someone

is kind because you never know what someone's dealing with.

And that's the whole reason why the words you read, that's why I wrote that section in the book and included those words, because it was such a profound personal experience for me of receiving kindness in that form.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

And I'm so sorry about your father.

It sounded like this came about when he was about 78.

And I'm very sorry to hear.

about your loss.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Well, we last year went through one of the hurricanes and ended up having about three feet of water throughout our house.

And it just made me.

I don't think until something like that happens to you, you truly realize, like the fires in Los Angeles, other natural disasters, how much this truly impacts your life and how much small acts of kindness can change your whole perspective on things.

So thank you for sharing that as well.

Thank you.

And

David, one thing I always like to do in these episodes is to give the listeners a starting point, something that they can take away as homework.

Is there a starting point that you could give listeners if they want to embrace kindfulness, how

they could take one or two actions to do so?

Actually, John, one of the simplest things I can do, it's my favorite word at the moment.

It's a word that I think most people haven't heard of because I only came across it myself recently.

And the word's called confelicity.

And what confelicity means is sharing in the happiness of other people.

So being happy for other people's happiness and success.

I'm so pleased that you had a good day.

I'm so pleased that you got that promotion.

I'm so pleased that thing happened for you.

I'm so thrilled for you.

So you're happy.

You're taking pleasure in other people's happiness.

And the word comes from the Latin con felicitas, which means with happiness, shared happiness.

And one of the most amazing things about that is it's kindness in action.

It's not about physical going out and doing something.

It's just simply being kind in supporting other people's happiness.

And the magic of it is you feel happier as a consequence.

That's what it means, shared happiness.

Literally by being happy for someone else, you become happier.

as a consequence.

It's one of the easiest things we can actually do is just to be happy for the happiness and the successes and the well-being of other people.

So, confelicity.

It's one of the easiest ways to access kindness.

Confelicity.

Another new thing that I learned today.

I only learned it myself recently.

Or the word, I should say.

David, it's been such an honor to have you on the show today.

Where can listeners learn more about your work, your books, and the 21-day kindfulness experiment?

My website is drdavidhamilton.com and I'm active on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Tin,

Threads, basically most of the platforms.

You can access them all from my website or just Dr.

David Hamilton is my name on each of those things.

The 21 Day Kindfulness Experiment is on my YouTube channel.

So Dr.

David Hamilton, that's the title of my YouTube channel.

The playlist is called the 21-day kindfulness experiment.

So all of the videos are there.

All the kindfulness practices, all of the little teaching videos are there as well.

With wee bits of every other day, I throw in wee bits of science as well about how kindness impacts your heart or your immune system or something.

So, it's all there and it's all free for people to explore.

David, thank you so much for joining.

It really lived up to everything that I hoped it would.

And thank you for bringing so much knowledge into the world on the science of kindness.

You're impacting so many people worldwide with your message.

Well, thanks so much, John, for saying that.

And thank you for inviting me onto your podcast.

It's been a real pleasure.

I've really enjoyed chatting with you.

It's felt like a conversation between two friends.

So it's been really nice for me today.

So thank you.

I've really enjoyed it as well.

And I'm trying to bring on more people from the United Kingdom on the show because it's one of the biggest areas that the podcast has listened to.

Wonderful.

It is.

But thank you again.

Oh, thank you.

That's a wrap on this conversation with the brilliant Dr.

David Hamilton.

What I love about David's work is that it bridges science and soul.

It reminds us that kindness isn't just nice, it's necessary.

That how we treat others doesn't just shape their world, it changes our own biology, our emotions, and our sense of connection.

So as we close, I invite you to reflect on a few questions.

What's one small act of kindness you can offer today?

Not because you have to, but because it heals you too.

How might you combine mindfulness with compassion to show up more fully for yourself and others?

And what if kindness isn't something you do, but something you are?

If today's episode moved you, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating or review.

It helps us grow, and more importantly, it helps others find conversations that truly matter.

To learn more about David's books and his work on the science of kindness, visit passionstruck.com or check the show notes for all the links.

And don't forget, the Ignited Life is where I go deeper into these ideas each week.

Sign up at theignitedlife.net to get exclusive insights and tools you won't find anywhere else.

And if you want me to speak to your organization or community, then check out johnrmiles.com/slash speaking to hire me for your next event.

Coming up next on Passion Struck, I'm joined by Dr.

Anna Lemke, best-selling author of Dopamine Nation and one of the world's foremost experts on addiction and compulsive behavior.

We'll explore the neuroscience of pleasure-pain and how to build a healthier relationship with technology, consumption, and self-worth.

You won't want to miss it.

When people with addiction get into recovery, they get so good.

Like their lives are so much better.

And I don't know that we see the same kinds of incredible improvements as when we're just like treating run-of-the-mill depression or bipolar disorder.

But with addiction, people with severe addiction, when they stop using and they get into recovery, wow.

they're often really remarkable people and there's such a ripple effect because of course addiction negatively impacts not just their lives but the lives of the people who who love them and the people around them so and as always the fee for this show is simple if you got value share it and more importantly live it because ideas don't change lives action does until next time live life passion struck