Help-the key to feel good physically as well as emotionally

Kolkata, Feb 21 (UNI) A solution to the vexed issue of setting up of industries on farmlands in West Bengal may be reached if both the Left Front government and the Opposition Trinamool Congress abide by the principle--'self-help is not the best help unless one helps others.' No, it's not a formula from a political pundit but a suggestion of a research conducted by a group of biobehavioral experts here, which is likely to help soften the apparent rigid stands of the warring parties on the oft-debated subject and signal the overall development of the state balancing between agriculture and industry.

According to the survey conducted on about one thousand people across the city, the emotional and physical changes of feeling high and a sense of calmness and freedom from stress, which one experiences during and after physical exercise, can be produced with activity requiring much less exertion--helping others.

The surprising effects came to light after an analysis of the biobehavioral experiments on these people who were involved regularly in volunteering.

The research says that in most cases the 'helper's calm' was linked to relief from stress-related disorders such as headache, voice loss and muscle pain.

The helpers also reported feeling an identifiable physical sensation--stimulation, during the actual helping as one called it ''a gentle tightness in my chest and neck like an increased blood flow.'' And, the pleasurable physical calmness one achieves after volunteering was also well-defined in the submission of a woman who recollected that she treated her acute headache by shopping for the poor children of her maidservant.

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