Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat. Emma never realized until today how noisy an MRI machine was. Just as she got used to the high-pitched, machine-gun sound, it changed to a softer, even higher-pitched bi-bi-bi-bi-bi-bi-bi. She tried to ignore the sounds as one by one she answered the questions.
Sarah, the researcher, smiled as she watched Emma through the window. Sarah asked Emma a list of questions. She asked her to make choices to keep certain things or be generous and give them away. She was trying to see what happens in the brain when a person is generous or stingy. Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat. Bi-bi-bi-bi-bi-bi-bi went the machine.
On the MRI computer screen, Sarah could see the lumpy bumpy lobes of Emma’s brain. The MRI used a powerful magnet to line up the protons of her brain cells and produced an amazing picture of her brain activity with little flickers of light in the part of the brain being used.
Different kinds of thoughts are produced in different parts of the brain. The same brain region that is activated when a parent cares for a child is also activated when a person is generous. Sarah drew closer to the screen, intrigued. When Emma chose to be generous, there was decreased activity in the part of her brain called the “amygdala.”
The amygdala is a small area that is the center of charged emotions, and anxiety lights it up. When under stress, the amygdala sounds the alarm and kicks off the fight-or-flight response in the body. People with anxiety, phobias, or PTSD have a storm of activity in this area of the brain.
In this study, whenever the people in the MRI would choose to help others, the amygdala would chill out and be calmer. When the subjects were not generous, there was no change in the amygdala.
Sarah was excited to see with the MRI actual changes in the brain associated with giving. She could add this to many other studies showing the health benefits of being unselfish. One study showed generosity lowered blood pressure as much as medicine and exercise. Another showed a reduced risk of dementia and chronic pain. Yet another showed that giving time and money triggered feel-good chemicals like endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin. And finally, there was a study that showed that people who volunteered actually lowered their risk of dying!
Sarah knew that ideally, people should good things for others because it is the right thing to do, without expecting a return; however, she thought it was nice that our brains give us a little gift anyway. We help others, and our brain lowers our stress levels. Win-win.
When Sarah arrived home that night, she picked up her Bible and opened it to Acts 20:35, where the apostle Paul said, “I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
Paul said we are blessed by God when we give. It is fun to see how science shows that when we are generous, we are also blessed physically and emotionally.
The science in this story is real. Emma and Sarah are not. I put them in to hopefully add a human aspect to the science.
Did you know it’s not just Paul who encouraged us to give, but there are over 80 verses in the Bible that talk about giving? Here is a link to a list of them if you are interested.
