When seeking to help others, your mind and body take notice. One way giving back positively affects our health is through what experts call a “helper’s high.” Allan Luks, former executive director of the Institute for Advancement of Health and executive director of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of New York City, refers to the helper’s high as “phase one” of the benefits to givers in his book “The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others.” Luks describes this initial response as, “the powerful physical reaction that begins with a burst of energy and good feelings and is a sign that unhealthy, fatiguing stress has decreased in our bodies.”

Luks conducted a national survey of more than 3,000 people, and 95 percent felt the physical reaction of the helper’s high. Of those fuzzy feelings, 54 percent of people said they felt sensations of warmth, 29 percent felt increased energy, 21 percent felt a drug-like euphoria, and more than half of the volunteers experienced additional physical and emotional advantages. These uplifting sensations are most likely drawn from the release of endorphins, neurotransmitters that help to create a sense of well-being and diminished pain in our bodies.

“There’s no question that there’s a link between the giving behavior and the physiological expression that people have,” Ashcraft says. “The gift of giving helps the giver as much as the beneficiary.”