Ep 336: The Teen Brain on Kindness

Introduction to Talking to Teens --- Andy Earle: You are listening to Talking to Teens, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle. We are talking today about the neuroscience of altruism and how we can foster more of that in our teenagers. It is good for our health, for our brain power, for our happiness to be contributing to something that feels important to us. For teenagers, altruistic endeavors can help them in coping with stress, developing a positive self-image, and looking attractive to colleges. There really aren't many downsides to raising kids who want to get more involved in their community, but how do we encourage this way of thinking? Meet Our Guest: Nicole Karlis --- Andy Earle: Our guest today is Nicole Karlis. She is a health and science journalist. She writes for Salon. And she's the author of Your Brain on Altruism. Nicole, welcome to the Talking to Teens podcast. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Nicole Karlis: Thank you for having me, Andy. Andy Earle: Yes. Really looking forward to talking all about altruism, but specifically altruism in the brain. Fascinating topic and looking forward to diving into it. I've read your book on the topic, Your Brain on Altruism: The Power of Connection and Community During Times of Crisis. And there's so much to dive into here. Nicole's Journey into Altruism --- Andy Earle: What got you interested in this as a topic? Nicole Karlis: Yes. So, the beginning of this book really starts about 10 years ago, when I was at a yoga teacher training in India. And I was feeling anxious about returning to the United States and where I was in my life. I went to see a Vedic astrologer. He read my birth chart. It was just something fun. But I did confide in him and say, I'm feeling anxious. What would you do? And he wrote down a prescription of acts of kindness. And I thought that was really interesting because here I was at this yoga retreat and we were doing a lot of meditating, a lot of yoga, which was wonderful. Then I had this moment where I was prescribed acts of kindness and I did them and noticed how it got me out of my own head and stopped me from ruminating about the anxiety I was feeling. That's what really kicked off my almost decade long investigation into the science of altruism. I interviewed psychologists, neuroscientists, and other researchers. That's what really got me into the topic. Andy Earle: Wow. And what was surprising about what you found as you started embarking on this journey? The Science and Benefits of Altruism --- Nicole Karlis: Well, ultimately what I found is that altruism can serve as a catalyst for the deeper connections we need to be resilient to face our own personal crises and crises we're bound to face as a society. So that's in a nutshell what I've found. There are both personal and physical and mental health benefits of altruism. Some that I discuss in the book, like how volunteering can be linked to lower blood pressure, increased lifespan, fewer hospital visits for older people, a sense of purpose. Those are just a couple examples of what I found. Andy Earle: All sound like good things. Nicole Karlis: Mm-hmm. Andy Earle: What is your, main question, in the book with regard to altruism? Nicole Karlis: Taking a step back, I just shared my, personal story about being in India and having the list of acts of kindness. Bounded Solidarity and Community Resilience --- Nicole Karlis: When I returned to the United States, I started to really notice how after a crisis, people come together in unprecedented ways. After a natural disaster, like a wildfire or a hurricane, I found out that this is a sociological term called bounded solidarity. People are bounded by this crisis they've gone through. But the way our society is set up it can't actually support this strong sense of community that people feel after some sort of crisis, which ultimately leads people to being more altruistic in their everyday lives. People put all of their differences aside and really come together as a community to help each other out. Instead of how you might think, like, going and hiding in their homes. This so-called survival of the fittest world that we think we live in. But actually as I talk about in my book, we need to be thinking about survival of the kindest. Because we actually, in order to survive as a species need to come together. And altruism is a catalyst for that kind of resilience that we need to survive as a species. So this is all to say that I started to ask the question why does bounded solidarity fade? And can it be sustained? That's the main question that kicks off the research of my book. And that's what led to me investigating the science of altruism. Andy Earle: You visit people who have been through really difficult situations like fires or natural disasters that have caused lots of damage and look at what they're doing in the aftermath. What was interesting about that? Teenagers Making a Difference --- Nicole Karlis: Well, one interesting story is the book begins after the wildfires in Napa in 2017. I was living in San Francisco at the time. So I saw firsthand how the North Bay community came together. There was a group of teenagers I interviewed for the book, exploring like what was that like to be in high school at that time? And it was interesting that one of the teens, he's now no longer a teen, he's in his mid twenties, told me that it was the first time he really felt super connected to his community. And that was when him and his friends just got in their car. And keep in mind that the air quality is so bad. There's like huge black clouds of smoke. Their friends' homes are burning down. They don't know if their home is next. There was a massive power outage. They didn't have cell phone service. They just start going to these centers in evacuation zones and being like, how can we help? At first, one evacuation center said, no, we don't need any help. But then the next one said, yes, can you start bringing supplies from here to another evacuation center? So they spent the next few days delivering supplies. Michael, in my book, tells me how he felt a sense of purpose, more connected to his community, more connected to his friends, and he felt a lot less lonely. And I thought that was really interesting that as a teenager that was how he felt. Fast forward five years, my question is how, usually bounded solidarity fades. Actually, these teenagers created a nonprofit, to help in the wake of disasters. And it's really amazing. They're still going strong and they're a big part of the beginning of my book. And some of the teens were saying like, sometimes I have to decide between volunteering with the Hero Foundation it's called or doing my homework. And I think it's better for my mental health to volunteer with the Hero Foundation. And yeah, I thought that was really telling and really cool to hear from these teenagers. After the Covid pandemic, they were helping vaccination sites. It's incredible. They're still going strong. Andy Earle: It's a powerful story and you really dive deep and interview the people and really take us back there. But it's really interesting to me too, thinking about how amazing it is that it's continued and grown since then. What parent wouldn't want your kid to be involved in something so positive like that. Encouraging Altruism Without Crisis --- Andy Earle: But then it makes me wonder, how do you encourage that without the disaster? Or do you need the whole town to burn down in order to create something like that? Or can this kind of feelings emerge without having to go through such hardships? Nicole Karlis: Yeah, that's a good question and definitely a question I was thinking a lot about when I was writing the book. I did have researchers tell me the altruism that people experience, that sense of connection to their community doesn't have to happen in the wake of a crisis. We don't necessarily need a crisis to make it happen. However, we live in a society built on scarcity. Built on fear. So fast paced that people don't have the time and the resources to actually build that sense of connection and purpose we seek in our communities. So then I started to think who is out there actually doing this work right now? Who's building a culture of caring. That's a big theme of my book. So, a society that prioritizes caring, a society that sees caring for others as a strength, not a weakness. And I find a lot of different organizations and people who are doing that as well. The Role of Loneliness and Technology --- Andy Earle: You talk about loneliness in the book and some of the things that we might not realize that loneliness can cause, disrupting regulation and key cellular processes deep within the body. You dive into some interesting research coming at loneliness from different angles and looking at how it affects people in different ways. What was interesting about that? Nicole Karlis: Right. So loneliness comes in because I started to ask what holds people back from being kind to each other? And why have people gravitated so much towards the wellness industry and this idea of self-care? When self-care has been very self-focused in our society and consumption based. The Hedonistic treadmill theory says that we have a baseline of happiness and then we seek. Experiences or things of pleasure to lift our happiness, but eventually we're on this treadmill and go back to the baseline. Yeah. So it's giving us those hits of dopamine, but it's not actually giving us this deeper sense of fulfillment. So, why have people been focused on self-care? My argument in the book is that a lot of people are really lonely and that we're seeking something like a deeper connection to our communities and our society. That self-care, the way that it's being presented to us right now, can't actually deliver and fulfill. So, that's where I talk about loneliness. People might say, oh, if you're lonely, just join a club. And that's not actually what's going to help you. What's going to help is having a sense of purpose and feeling cared for by your community and therefore having the space to reciprocate. That's where I talk about loneliness lot and I talk about how technology has also been behind the loneliness crisis that we're in right now. Andy Earle: It's gotta be playing a role, huh? Nicole Karlis: Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, just like when we're out at restaurants, we're on our phones. We're in our own isolated worlds, less likely to communicate with each other. I even tell the story in my book about how I was going to interview a researcher on a college campus and I was sitting at a restaurant excited to maybe talk to some strangers, get a vibe for the college campus. And I didn't even have a human waitress. I had one of the computer waiters to take my order. And it just felt sad to me. I always find those computer waiters, it's another moment where you're not having that human connection. And because everything has been automated with apps and technology, we are losing throughout our daily lives all of these small, interactions with each other. And Steve Cole, he's a professor at USC, talks a lot about this in my book. And he's like, it used to be you went to your butcher and you would have conversations with him every day. But then through those conversations you would learn like maybe the butcher has a child, and then maybe one day the child is sick. And then you learn that, can you bring over something to help the family? Because we are losing those small interactions with each other we're really losing a sense of community and a sense of purpose. That could be an opportunity for you to do something nice for someone that you interact with every day. And then, yeah, you are losing an opportunity to have that sense of purpose through an act of altruism. Andy Earle: You are talking in here about joining groups, and specifically joining groups that provide people with a sense of identification, and belonging, and connection, is really important. It's not necessarily just any group, it's about the energy or the dynamics of that group, and how they do or don't support social connection. Nicole Karlis: That actually comes from a neuroscientist I interviewed who through imaging of brains and loneliness concluded that there needs to be a more novel experience to make people feel better, to lift them out of loneliness. Volunteering can act as that novel experience. Andy Earle: I love that. Volunteering and Its Impact on Teenagers --- Nicole Karlis: Another thing with volunteering and how it can help ease loneliness is that you end up connecting with people who have different interests than you. Who maybe, come from different backgrounds than you. And so that's also stimulating, 'cause it's opportunities to learn new things, to step outside of your everyday life and the people you would typically surround yourself with. Andy Earle: It gets hard when you're thinking about volunteering experiences with teenagers and how to balance all that. More time volunteering is less time spending studying for your SAT. How do you prioritize and find the right balance between those things? Nicole Karlis: Throughout writing my book, a lot of people would say, how can you write this? I'm sure a lot of teenagers when they're trying to get into college volunteer. And that's not what I'm talking about in my book. So what I talk about in my book too, it's the benefits that I do find through all of the research I do. Your intention really matters. Andy Earle: So doing it as a box checking exercise doesn't quite get you the same results that would if you really meant it. Nicole Karlis: So I would say yes and no because if you are doing something because you want to help others, if you really want to give selflessly and let's say you're regularly volunteering and connecting with other people. It's lifting you out of your loneliness. Bonus: it is a resume builder. That's great and that's totally fine and you can also volunteer and know that it's gonna benefit your health and maybe other parts of your life and that's okay. But if you're like just purely doing it to put on your resume and not actually interested and not happy and it's not working for you when you're there. Then you're not going to experience the benefits that I talk about in my book. Conclusion and Final Thoughts --- Andy Earle: Nicole, thank you so much for coming on the show today and speaking with us about all this has been fascinating and inspiring at the same time. The book is Your Brain on Altruism: The Power of Connection and Community During Times of Crisis. Highly encourage people to check it out, grab a copy, wherever you can get your hands on it. Can you talk a little more about where people could go to find out more or follow updates from you or learn more about what you're doing? Nicole Karlis: Sure, yeah. So people can find the book at Barnes and Noble, amazon, bookshop.org. And I'm on Instagram just @NicoleKarlis is my Instagram handle. And I am on maternity leave right now, but usually I'm a full-time contributor to salon.com. Andy Earle: Well, thank you once again for coming on the show and excited to share this with our listeners. Preview of the Next Episode --- Andy Earle: We're here with Nicole Karlis, talking about how to raise teenagers who are more altruistic. And we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show. Because ultimately what we're talking about is how can we train the skills of compassion and kindness? Is that teachable, and if so, how do you do that? Nicole Karlis: You can read about kindness and altruism, but it's not until you're actually doing it that it can become a habit. Researchers say that three acts of kindness two days a week is the sweet spot if you wanna regularly engage in acts of kindness. Andy Earle: People who volunteer several times per week had highest levels of executive function. Volunteering keeps a person's brain engaged. Other research finding that those who volunteered had 38% fewer hospital visits than those who didn't. Nicole Karlis: Volunteering is strongly associated with a longer lifespan. That's because it gives people a sense of purpose. Even being just a witness of kindness can be a benefit as well. Andy Earle: Want to hear the full interview? Sign up for a subscription today. It's completely affordable, and your membership supports the work we do here at Talking to Teens. You can now sign up directly on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.