Volunteering is a great activity. Volunteering allows you to help people in need, making their lives easier or better as a result. If you didn’t know, volunteering can have loads of benefits for you as well. While you may not realize it, volunteering allows you to learn new things and gain new perspectives, as well as help those in need. Here are a few of the personal benefits of volunteering.
New Friendships
One of the best parts of volunteering is how it allows you to connect with others. This includes both the people you’re helping and the other volunteers. If you work on the same volunteer project for several weeks, there’s a good chance you’ll become friends with at least one other volunteer due to seeing each other so often. New, potentially lifelong friendships are great things, and meeting new people can give you new perspectives in life. Aside from friendships, you can gain entire new groups of friends due to how volunteering is so centered on the idea of “community”.
Good For Your Health
You might be surprised to learn that volunteering is good for both your mental and physical health in various ways. Depending on what exactly you’re volunteering to do, there can be great physical health benefits due to walking around more and are less likely to develop high blood pressure. On the mental health side, volunteering can help counter the effects of stress, anxiety due to all of the social contact you would get as well as the fact that you’re helping others. Volunteering can also help you fight depression, as well as increasing your self-confidence and making you happy due to the way helping others makes us feel.
Learning New Things
Volunteering typically has the opportunity to learn new skills and try new things, depending on what you’re volunteering to do. If you’re volunteering to cook at a community cookout, you may walk away with a few cooking tips. If you’re volunteering to build a house, you’ll likely learn all about hardware and woodworking amongst other things, as well as engage in a brand new experience. Challenging yourself to these new experiences can be very rewarding and allow you to walk away with a lifelong skill.