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Helping the elderly doesn't have to be hard. Here are 5 ideas you may not have considered.

seniors, volunteer, time, kindness, joy

Photo by Vladimir Soares on Unsplash

Sharing your time with the elderly doesn't have to be hard.

True

Being a caretaker for an elderly loved one is a full-time job. It's tough. It's rewarding. It's life-changing.

So let's take a second to give it up for all the people who are taking care of their elderly loved ones and friends today.

The happiness and love these caregivers bring to the lives of the elderly can't be overstated. But it's not just transformative for the senior who's getting the help that they need — it impacts the caregiver's lives in a big way as well.

Unfortunately, however, there are many seniors who aren't lucky enough to have that compassion in their lives.

As life expectancy continues to rise, many of us can look forward to living well into our 80s, but that can also lead to new stresses, especially for those who don't have loved ones around to help when everyday tasks become difficult.

For example, what happens to the senior who doesn't have children to take care of them? Or perhaps their spouse who carried out most of the day-to-day chores suddenly passes away? That's why it's important for community members not to forget the senior citizens who might need a little help, kindness, compassion and emotional support.

You may have already thought about wanting to lend a hand to the aging population, but perhaps you don't know where to start. You might also be familiar with the hard work caregivers do, and feel like you're not exactly cut out for something like that.

Here's some good news though: despite what you might think, you do have what it takes to help. And you don't have to be a full-time caregiver in order to make a real change in a senior's life.

Here are just five ways that you can give back to your elders and enrich your own life as well.

volunteer, groceries, elderly, struggle, help

You can help the elderly with their groceries.

Photo from Pixabay

1. Volunteer in your community, even if it's unstructured.

No matter where you live, there are senior citizens who need your help. A great way to get started giving back is to simply be mindful of opportunities that appear in the moment. Do you see an elderly person struggling to get their groceries to the door? Ask if you can help. Is there someone in your building who may be delighted by a short visit or an invitation for a walk? Spend some time with them. Offer to mow their lawn or water their plants. See if they need some help washing the car. Make and share a meal with them.

It's often hard for older people to ask for help themselves. But if you just show up and say, "I'm here if you need me," it takes the onus off of them. Even something as small as giving an elderly person a ride to the store or bringing a them their mail makes an impact.

seniors, technology, care home, tutorial

Volunteers share time and tutor how to use technology.

Photo from Burst taken by Nicole De Khors

2. Spend time at a senior center or a care home.

Did you know that many folks who live in senior care facilities have very few visitors? In fact, recent research suggests that approximately 6o percent of residents may have no visitors at all. The reasons why are far too many to enumerate here, but the reality is that the seniors who live in such residences may feel lonely or out of place, which can certainly take a toll on both their mental and physical health.

That's where you come in.

Most senior living facilities welcome volunteers. And there are so many things you can do, though just spending time with residents is an excellent first step.

Do you have a skill that you could teach or a service you could offer? You can turn a few hours a week into an experience that both you and the seniors you bond with will remember forever. In Raleigh, North Carolina, for example, a group called Senior TechEd teaches the elderly how to master the latest technology.

If you're frustrated by the fact that your own grandparents didn't get how to use a smartphone before you came along with a tutorial, consider reaching out to a care facility to see if you can provide the same service to other seniors in the area. Not only will they thank you for it, they'll probably stop using "lol" to mean "lots of love."

3. Support your elders by listening to them. You might learn a thing or two.

It may feel like people who are older don't have to worry about the same things you do. But once you hit retirement, life isn't just a pleasant existence of taking walks, watching TV, and getting the best deals at restaurants. Older folks worry about the same things anyone under the age of 65 do — money, friendships, the stress of day-to-day life. They just might not have anyone to discuss their concerns with.

One way to help is by looking for opportunities to be that obliging ear for them. Believe it or not, there are actually organizations, like The Friendship Line at The Institute on Aging in San Francisco, that help you do just that. The program connects volunteers with seniors who need someone to talk to. In some cases, these volunteers may be the senior's only point of social contact, so the service they provide is invaluable.

You don't have to live in San Francisco or even be a member of an organization like The Friendship Line to help, though. Consider doing your own outreach. There's likely a senior in your community who would love to hear from you. Pick up the phone, dial their number, and ask how they're really doing. You might be surprised by the bond that forms out of it.

social interactions, volunteers, nature walk, seniors

Taking a senior out for a nice nature walk.

Photo from Burst taken by Avelino Calvary Martinez

4. Seniors love having fun. Join them.

Kindness is important, but so is fun. Sometimes, we forget that older people like doing fun things just as much as anyone else. Sure, they may not be able to ride as many roller coasters (so maybe put the Six Flags excursion on hold), but if you're thinking of volunteering, don't mistake "helping" for "just sitting there quietly and doing nothing except drinking tea."

Here are some other, less traditional ideas: organize a nature walk for the seniors at a local center, lead a 45-minute-dance club for seniors once a week, teach a craft class, or start a drama group or book club. Whatever your passion is in life, why not see if you could turn it into an opportunity to brighten the lives of the seniors in your community? (Except if your passion is riding rollercoasters. The inner ear isn't what it used to be at 70!)

dog, cat, safe animals, animal organizers

Opportunity to bring in the right kind of chill and safe pets.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

5. Send in the animals (but only the chill, safe ones)!

Did you know that animals can help reduce stress? Just stroking the soft fur of a dog, cat or even guinea pig can make people feel a little bit better. Not every senior citizen can take care of a pet full-time, but that doesn't mean that they can't or shouldn't enjoy the benefits that being with one provides. In fact, some care facilities have joined forces with local animal organizations to connect seniors with valuable animal time. Not only can this help seniors feel more connected, it allows those who have a hard time interacting with people experience an important bond.

If this sounds up your ally, see if you can bring some animals to seniors who live in a local facility. Do you have an chill animal of your own? Call up one of the local organizations that help seniors and arrange for some time for your pet to visit (but make sure it's okay with the facility first).

Many of us believe that for kindness to be effective, it has to be all sacrifice and grand gestures.

But that's not true at all. Spend a few minutes a day or an hour a week helping the people around you. It can be as little a gesture as just say "hi," to your elderly neighbor when they go out to water their garden. The act may be small — the difference you'll be making won't be.

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One simple word makes children 30% more likely to cooperate. It works on adults, too.

No, it's not 'please.'

Photo credit: Canva

Jonah Berger explains how appealing to someone's identity makes them more likely to agree to a request.

Human psychology really isn't that complicated, if you think about it. Everybody wants to see themselves in a positive light. That’s the key to understanding Jonah Berger’s simple tactic that makes people 30% more likely to do what you ask. Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of “Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way.”

Berger explained the technique using a Stanford University study involving preschoolers. The researchers messed up a classroom and made two similar requests to groups of 5-year-olds to help clean up.

One group was asked, "Can you help clean?" The other was asked, “Can you be a helper and clean up?" The kids who were asked if they wanted to be a “helper” were 30% more likely to want to clean the classroom. The children weren’t interested in cleaning but wanted to be known as “helpers.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Berger calls the reframing of the question as turning actions into identities.

"It comes down to the difference between actions and identities. We all want to see ourselves as smart and competent and intelligent in a variety of different things,” Berger told Big Think. “But rather than describing someone as hardworking, describing them as a hard worker will make that trait seem more persistent and more likely to last. Rather than asking people to lead more, tell them, 'Can you be a leader?' Rather than asking them to innovate, can you ask them to 'Be an innovator'? By turning actions into identities, you can make people a lot more likely to engage in those desired actions.”

Berger says that learning to reframe requests to appeal to people’s identities will make you more persuasive.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

“Framing actions as opportunities to claim desired identities will make people more likely to do them,” Berger tells CNBC Make It. “If voting becomes an opportunity to show myself and others that I am a voter, I’m more likely to do it.”

This technique doesn’t just work because people want to see themselves in a positive light. It also works for the opposite. People also want to avoid seeing themselves being portrayed negatively.

“Cheating is bad, but being a cheater is worse. Losing is bad, being a loser is worse,” Berger says.

The same tactic can also be used to persuade ourselves to change our self-concept. Saying you like to cook is one thing, but calling yourself a chef is an identity. “I’m a runner. I’m a straight-A student. We tell little kids, ‘You don’t just read, you’re a reader,’” Berger says. “You do these things because that’s the identity you hold.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Berger’s work shows how important it is to hone our communication skills. By simply changing one word, we can get people to comply with our requests more effectively. But, as Berger says, words are magic and we have to use them skillfully. “We think individual words don’t really matter that much. That’s a mistake,” says Berger. “You could have excellent ideas, but excellent ideas aren’t necessarily going to get people to listen to you.”

This article originally appeared last year. It has since been updated.

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A 92-yr-old former ballet dancer with dementia wrote this achingly beautiful poem about aging

Poetry can help people with dementia find their voice, and the results are incredible.

Photo credit: Canva

"I am still a dancer made of song."

Poetry is an oft-misunderstood, but incredibly powerful art form. Humans have been writing poetry for thousands of years, communicating feelings and ideas in beautiful, powerful ways that prose just can't quite reach. Poetry can be hard to define, but you know it when you see it—or rather, when you feel it.

Emily Dickinson once wrote, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” A poem hits you somewhere—your brain, your heart, your gut. And one poem that packs an incredibly moving punch has come from an unlikely source—an elderly woman with dementia.

elderly woman, dementia, caregiver, poetry, former dancer A woman with dementia wrote a poem with one of her children and it's bringing people to tears. Photo credit: Canva

Poet Joseph Fasano shared a message from a fan who shared that they had brought his book, "The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone," to their mother, a 92-year-old former ballet dancer living with dementia. The mother was excited to write a poem, and they slowly worked through a prompt from the book together aloud.

This poem was the result:

— (@)

"Let the days be warm

Let the fall be long.

Let every child inside me find her shoes

and dance wildly, softly, toward the world.

I have a story I have never told

Once, when I was small,

I looked up at the sky and saw the wind

and knew I was a dancer made of song.

I am still a dancer made of song."

Wow. What a testament to the power of poetry to reach beyond our usual modes of communication, which dementia so cruelly disrupts. In a few simple lines, we're able to see this woman as she might see herself, as the human living under the veils of age and disease: "I am still a dancer made of song."

Poetry prompts can help people express themselves

The person who shared the poem thanked Fasano for "helping people find their voices," which is exactly what his book of poetry prompts was meant to do.

The Magic Words book by Joseph Fasano, poetry prompts "The Magic Words" is a book of poetry prompts from Joseph Fasano. Amazon

In the book's introduction, Fasano shares that he'd been invited to speak to a class of second graders in New Jersey in 2022 to share "the craft and magic of poetry." As part of his efforts, he came up with a poetry prompt that could "help guide their imaginations" and "unlock the images, thoughts and feelings inside them, without asking them to worry about how to structure a poem." He called the results "astonishing." When he shared one of the students' poems on social media, it and the prompt took off like wildfire, as people who never thought of themselves as poets felt empowered to share their imaginations within that framework.

From 7-year-olds to 92-year-olds, anyone can benefit from the self-expression that poetry facilitates, but many people feel hesitant or intimidated by the idea of writing a poem. Fasano writes, "Poetry is what happens when we let ourselves be," and this idea seems so clear than in the former dancer's poem above. Dementia can create roadblocks, but poetry provides a different avenue of communication.

Caregivers try many different ways to communicate with people living with dementia. Photo credit: Canva

The arts can be a powerful tool for people with dementia

Using poetry to help dementia patients communicate and express themselves isn't just wishful thinking. Studies have demonstrated that cultural arts interventions, including poetry specifically, can be beneficial for people with dementia. In fact, the Alzheimer's Poetry Project (APP) aims to use poetry as a means of improving the quality of life of people living with dementia by facilitating creative expression. "We do not set boundaries in our beliefs in what possible for people with memory impairment to create," the APP website states. "By saying to people with dementia, we value you and your creativity; we are saying we value all members of our community."

Fasano has shared that a team of doctors has begun using his poetry prompts to "give people with dementia a voice again."

— (@)

Poet Gary Glazner, who founded APP, shared a story with WXPR radio about how he came up with the idea while studying poetry at Sonoma State University:

“I applied for a grant and got a grant to work at an adult care program. The moment I love to share with people is there was a guy in the group, head down, not participating and I said the Longfellow poem. ‘I shot an arrow into the air’ and his eyes popped open and he said, ‘It fell to earth I know not where.’ And suddenly he was with us and participating. It was just this powerful moment to see how poetry could be of use to elders but specifically with people with dementia."

Whether we read it, write it, speak it or hear it, poetry has the power to reach people of all ages in all kinds of mysterious ways.

You can follow Joseph Fasano on Twitter and Instagram, and find his books on Amazon.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Woman's whimsical 'Wheel of Fortune' guess is so bad it made her an instant legend

People prefer her guess to the actual answer.

@Rick_Life_Coach/X

Can you solve this "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle?

Watching a game show from the comfort of home is easy. Being on one is a totally different ball game. The lights, the cameras, the pressure. It's enough to make anyone's brain freeze up. And is there any game show that allows contestants to royally embarrass themselves on national TV quite like Wheel of Fortune? There’s always someone going viral for taking a big swing and missing on a phrase that seemed pretty apparent to the casual viewer. And when you take a big loss on a WOF word puzzle, there are a lot of folks shaking their heads at home. More than 8 million people watch the game show every night. Yikes.

One rather notorious of the wheel was Gishma Tabari from Encino, California, whose fantasy-inspired whiff of a common phrase back in 2023 earned her a lot of groans and some support from those who thought her imagination was inspiring. The 3-word puzzle read: “TH _ _ RITI _ S _ GR _ E,” and Tabari offered the answer, “The British Ogre.” The guess surprised host Pat Sajak, who responded, "Uh, no.” Tabari must have missed that there was a space between the R and the E in the puzzle, so ogre would have had to be spelled with 2 Rs.

She also probably wasn’t aware that England isn’t a place known for its ogres. The correct answer was: “The Critics Agree.”

— (@)

The answer inspired a lot of activity on X, where people couldn’t believe someone could come up with such a fanciful answer to a puzzle with such a straightforward solution.

— (@)

— (@)

— (@)

— (@)

First the British Ogre than a P?! This show never fails to LOL with contestants #wheeloffortune
— Jennifer (@capzie) December 13, 2023

— (@)

One person even created a lovely image of what could be the British Ogre.

— (@)

Although…not everyone had a problem with the guess.

"OK, the puzzle was clearly THE CRITICS AGREE but to be honest I prefer THE BRITISH OGRE because the puzzles could use some more wacky originality sometimes.#WheelOfFortune"— Pasha Paterson (@zer0bandwidth) December 13, 2023

— (@)

On the bright side, the incorrect guess is an opportunity for the world to learn that ogres aren’t a significant part of English folklore. Sure, there are characters in English myths and legends that have ogre-like qualities, such as Grendel from "Beowulf," the monstrous creature that terrorizes the mead hall of King Hrothgar. There’s also the Boggart, a mischievous spirit much like a hobgoblin and trolls, which appear in some English tales although they originate in Scandinavia.

If you’re looking for ogres in Europe, France is the best place to go.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The word ogre is of French descent and comes from the name of the Etruscan god of the underworld, Orcus. Orcus is a large, ugly, bearded giant who enjoys consuming human flesh. Ogres are primarily known for eating children, which they believe will give them eternal life.

As for Wheel of Fortune, the show will undergo significant changes over the next few years. The show’s host, Pat Sajak, 76, stepped down from the show at the end of the 2024 season after hosting it for 41 years. In September 2024, radio host and “American Idol” emcee Ryan Seacrest took over the hosting spot.

Although, it was just announced that Sajak would be making a special guest appearance on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, performing what he called "Final Spin."

And in case you're wondering how Tabari is doing: on her Instagram she wears her "Wheel of Fortune Flub Girl" title with pride, declaring she is "British Ogre for life."

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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School threatens mom with CPS after missed calls when child was sick. They never called dad.

Other parents echo the mom's frustration and offer support.

Photo credit: Canva

School threatens mom with CPS after missed calls. They never called dad.

Being the default parent can be tough all on its own, but society places an additional burden on mothers to be the default parent. One of the places this shows up is in phone calls home from school. One mom claims that the school threatened to call Child Protective Services (CPS) on her if she did not answer her phone and retrieve her child from school. But the mother works a job where she is not permitted to have her phone on her person, which is why she has the child's father listed as the first contact.

Every year parents register their children for school, they fill out a form for emergency contacts and people permitted to pick up your child in the event a parent can't be there. Parents generally take great pains to fill this information out as accurately as possible, with the preferred parent at the top. This is to ensure the child is never stranded on school grounds if a parent cannot be reached.

default parent; parenting; mom; dad; motherhood; fatherhood; school calls CPS Student daydreaming during class lecture.Photo credit: Canva

Even when parents are divorced or were never married, typically, both the mother and father are listed. Yet schools often default to the mother, no matter what the circumstance. In cases of split custody, the school is generally given a copy of the custody agreement, and the teachers are often made aware of which week or days belong to which parent. In the event the teacher gets things mixed up, most children will inform the teacher which parent to call if they're sick or need to be picked up earlier than usual.

While parents work to coordinate, schools seem to fall into the societal expectation that the mother of the child is the default parent, throwing all instruction out the window. In the original post shared on Reddit, the frustrated mom explains that the school called her a whopping 16 times, though they're aware that her job does not allow her to have her phone. She thought there was some sort of tragedy. Never once between those 16 phone calls did they bother to call her husband.

default parent; parenting; mom; dad; motherhood; fatherhood; school calls CPS Cozy nap time: catching some Z's on the couch.Photo credit: Canva

"I assume she’s been hospitalized or there’s been an active shooter. Something horrible that warrants sixteen calls to the parent they were told not to call. I call the school frantically before even looking at my voice mail and find that they called me because she threw up. Threw up. Blood? Nope. Regular throw up. But because I didn’t answer this woman considered it ‘abandonment’ and made a call to CPS. I asked if they’d called my husband. Nope. Just me! And I didn’t answer, which isn’t allowed."

I've experienced this personally, minus threatening to call CPS. My job requires me to travel to Los Angeles at least once per year. During that timeframe, I inform the teacher in writing that I will be out of town and that my husband will be the primary point of contact for our son. Still, it never fails: at least once while I'm away, I receive a message on Class Dojo informing me of a paper that needs to be signed, a missing library book, or some other trivial thing.

default parent; parenting; mom; dad; motherhood; fatherhood; school calls CPS Focused work in a modern, plant-filled office space.Photo credit: Canva

When this happens, I become the middleman instead of the teacher, going directly to the "parent on duty." This phenomenon appears to be common, given the response to the woman's post, and it's driving both moms and dads insane.

One frustrated mom laments, "You know how many times I’ve had the school say 'your daughters sick' ok, well she’s at her dads house this week and I’m at work 'yeah, your daughter said she was at her dads, but figured you’d want to know' ok well her dad and I do actually talk soo… if she’s not dying, call the right parent??"

A military mom shares, "I was literally deployed and they tried calling me. Sure, that's going to work. Let me just tell my superiors that the school doesn't think I should be deployed when my kid has a fever."

default parent; parenting; mom; dad; motherhood; fatherhood; school calls CPS Multitasking mom: working, baby in arms, and a curious pup.Photo credit: Canva

One dad says he struggles with getting the school to call him first, "I'm supposed to be our main contact. They have my phone number, can text me, we have the school app (like 4 different ones!), they have my work number. I have always been the one in the office, I have always been the one to call them. Annnnnnd; they call my wife"

Another parent says, "It seems like this is common, I work at a car dealership and my wife is a nurse so it's obviously easier for me to leave work. We put my number as the primary contact and they'd still call her, we went as far as to not give her phone number and only give mine and they've still gone out of their way to find her number and call her instead. Now she's the primary contact since that's what they're going to do anyways."

default parent; parenting; mom; dad; motherhood; fatherhood; school calls CPS Caretaker comforts an unwell child with a thermal strip on her forehead.Photo credit: Canva

This dad is the primary parent and the school still doesn't call him: "It’s an absolute fight to get them to call me. I have my kids 2/3 of the time, take them to all appointments and extracurriculars, pack all the lunches, pick them up when there’s an emergency, sign all the paperwork, volunteer in their school and they STILL ALWAYS call their mom."

Clearly, this is societal stereotype that should be put to bed. Dads have become more involved as a whole as each decade passes, splitting domestic labor with their parenting partner more equitably. There are plenty of very capable fathers who care for their children just as well, if not better in some cases, than the mother.

Thankfully, in the case of the original Reddit post, the mother doesn't believe the school actually called CPS, but her experiences highlight the need for a shift in perspective when it comes to who can be the primary parent.

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There are 3 central types of empathy and we all need to understand them much better

Here's what cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy mean.

Photo credit: Canva

Empathy is different than sympathy.

Is empathy a real thing? Is it even possible to feel what another person feels if you've not experienced what they are going through? What differentiates it from sympathy or compassion?

While sympathy and empathy are often interchanged and overlap in meaning, the way the words are used differs. If we're looking dictionary definitions, Merriam-Webster sums up the differences:

Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional experience.

— (@)

In other words, sympathy is feeling for someone, while empathy is feeling with someone. While some might feel it's impossible to feel empathy for a person if you haven't experienced exactly what they have, that's not really an accurate depiction of what empathy entails. Digging into the three types of empathy—cognitive, emotional, and compassionate—may help us understand.

Cognitive Empathy

The word "cognitive" refers to "conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)" and cognitive empathy is "the ability to identify and understand emotions of others."

Essentially, cognitive empathy means we can look at a person's experience, use our intellect to imagine what it would feel like, and form an understanding of how the person is feeling. For instance, let's say your friend's dog died and you've never even had a dog. If you have knowledge of how close the bond can be between a human and a dog, and you've seen how much your friend loved their dog, you can imagine how they are feeling. You don't have to have lost a dog yourself in order to imagine yourself having a close bond with dog and losing them.

empathy, cognitive empathy, sympathy, compassion, emotions Cognitive empathy involves understanding how others feel.Photo credit: Canva

Another example of cognitive empathy is when you see a refugee finally get resettled after fleeing a war zone and sitting for years in limbo and being able to understand their feelings of relief and hope. You don't have to have lived with war or waited years for safety and security in order to understand the feelings those experiences would evoke.

Cognitive empathy allows us to connect with others through an understanding of emotions. It says, "I can see things through your eyes and understand why you feel the way you do."

Emotional Empathy

What sets emotional empathy apart from cognitive empathy is the role our own emotions play. Emotional empathy isn't just understanding; it's experiencing the emotions of the other person. If your friend whose dog died starts to cry and you start to cry, too, that's emotional empathy. If you see the relief on the face of the refugee and find your shoulders dropping and your heart rate slowing and a feeling of calm come over you, that's emotional empathy.

empathy, emotional empathy, affective empathy, compassion, emotions Emotional or affective empathy means feeling what another feels.Photo credit: Canva

Emotional empathy doesn't necessarily mean you've experienced what the other person is experiencing, but rather that you share the emotions of the other person in response to their experience. Tearing up when others cry, feeling joyous when others celebrate, getting angry when others are mad—all manifestations of emotional empathy.

While emotional empathy (also known as affective empathy) can creates strong connections with people, it can also be exhausting if it's not kept in check.

— (@)

Compassionate Empathy

While sometimes wrapped into the former two, compassionate empathy differs in that it's marked by a desire to act. When you understand a person's feelings and/or feel along with them and want to do something to alleviate their pain or suffering, that's compassionate empathy (sometimes also called "empathic concern").

Let's say you met that refugee while they were still in limbo and afraid for their future. Compassionate empathy might lead you to look for programs that could help them or to volunteer with refugee organizations to help others in similar circumstances.

Empathy helps us connect with our fellow humans and encourages social cohesion. Without empathy, it's much easier to turn a blind eye to injustice and suffering.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Understanding empathy is important not only for connecting with others going through a difficult time, but for all relationships with others in our lives. For instance, psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman explains the three types of empathy in the context of leadership and why having all three creates the best foundation for effective leadership.

“In general, empathy is a powerful predictor of things we consider to be positive behaviors that benefit society, individuals, and relationships,” Karina Schumann, PhD, a professor of social psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, told Upworthy. “Scholars have shown across domains that empathy motivates many types of prosocial behaviors, such as forgiveness, volunteering, and helping, and that it’s negatively associated with things like aggression and bullying.”

Empathy comes more naturally to some than others, especially considering these three manifestations of it, but it's a skill that everyone can cultivate. The American Psychological Association suggests multiple ways people can consciously boost their empathy:

- Expose yourself to differences (which helps to provide more context for other people's perspectives)

- Read more fiction (character-driven stories can help us better understand people's thoughts, feelings, and motivations)

- Harness oxytocin (increase this social hormone through more eye contact and soft physical touch)

- Identify common ground (the more we see ourselves in others the more easily we find empathy)

- Ask questions (the more we know about one another, the better we understand)

- Know your blocks (learn where you struggle with empathy and work through those struggles)

- Second-guess yourself (stay humble and open to learning, questioning your negative assumptions about people)

A world with more empathy benefits us all in the long run, so it's worth understanding what it entails and how to cultivate it in ourselves.

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