Moments of magic: 10 ways to help others in lockdown – from phone calls to milkshakes

Feeling powerless during the coronavirus crisis? Lost? You can still potentially make a positive difference, whether joining a ‘scrub hub’ or contributing to food banks

So you have failed to read Proust. Or anything really. And you haven’t learned the piano. But you have had the “Covid cut” – and posted it on social media. Likewise sourdough. But you feel empty, ratty, unfulfilled, helpless. Mostly helpless.

It could be because you are literally not helping. Lockdown has been all about you and yours, shutting yourselves in, hunkering down and protecting yourselves. But looking outwards, towards helping others, doesn’t just help them, it can help you, too. What is known in the business as win-win. A study at Stony Brook University in New York after the 2008 financial crisis found that volunteering had psychological rewards; the majority of people who did so were happier and better able to deal with disappointment and loss.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ydkH6X
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