Win-Win: Help Others and Help Yourself

This weekend I volunteered at Effective Altruism Global: London 2024. If you haven't heard of effective altruism I'd encourage you to check out the website. Essentially, it's a community of people keen to do good in the world by thinking hard about how to address important issues.

I had a great weekend, met some very inspirational individuals and was particularly impressed by the conference nap room, which I dutifully tested on Saturday. But what does all this have to do with pain?

Pain and Giving

Well, there's some interesting UK based research that shows volunteering and/or donating to charity is associated with lower pain interference at work over 10 years of follow-up. In other words, giving your time and your money to charity are two potential ways of reducing the chance of pain interrupting your day to day work.

Macchia, L., Farmer, J., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2023). Prosocial behaviour helps to ease physical pain: Longitudinal evidence from Britain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 169, 111325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2023.111325

Now correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. Maybe it wasn't the charitable acts that reduced the chance of pain at work for these people. But it does seem to make sense - a focus outside of one's self may reduce the noise of the internal alarm bells that could drive pain given more self focused concern.

Giving What We Can

I'm a big fan of the biopsychosocial model when exploring pain drivers and it seems altruism is a social protective factor. Speaking with Grace Adams at the event I agreed to sign a Giving What We Can Trial Pledge. I was impressed by the flexibility of donation options (the Tesco rule applies - every little helps) and was convinced to take the plunge as, like any lifestyle change worth making, creating a habit will lead to the best results.

Finding any action people can take to potentially swerve pain is always exciting, all the more so when it helps others too. If you have been unfortunate enough to meet pain head on, consider booking in with me to discuss it further. You can't pour out of an empty cup; we can work together to get you back to optimal health.

P.S. I never want cost the stop people accessing the care they need. If you can't afford the fee reach out to me at edwardwalshphysiotherapy@protonmail.com and we will adjust the fee in line with your circumstance.