A body of research shows that helping others can significantly reduce stress and enhance personal health. This helping requires personal contact with those helped, repetition at least every other week, and involves helping strangers rather than people you know. Such volunteers, scientists say, are focusing outside of themselves.
Right now, only about 13 percent of Americans help others face-to-face. Lack of time is the most common reason given. A survey by Big Brothers Big Sisters in New York, however, shows no difference in the amount of time spent on working or leisure between volunteers and non-volunteers of similar backgrounds.
A few people are self-starting volunteers, but most people say they considered volunteering for years before they did it.
A survey by Spirituality & Health magazine shows that a majority of Americans would become person-contact volunteers if they could do it while at work. Others would do it if they received health insurance deductions.