This month on The Happiness Challenge, Klaudia Mitura explores the powerful intersection of kindness and happiness—two forces proven to transform lives and communities. In a world where life’s pace feels relentless and headlines can weigh us down, even the smallest acts of kindness can be a much-needed antidote.

Joining Klaudia is storyteller and author Bernadette Russell who in her book In Conversations on Kindness describes a year-long challenge to see if kindness could change the world.

Together, they unpack why kindness truly matters, how it impacts our well-being, and practical ways we can all nurture more kindness in everyday life.

Tune in for science-backed insights, inspiring stories, and simple steps to boost happiness and build a more compassionate world.

Hello, happiness seekers. Welcome to the Happiness Challenge podcast. I'm Klaudia Mitura and I'm on a mission to explore the best happiness habits that science has to offer.

Like so many others, the pandemic cut me off from my family and work. So I decided to use my training as a psychologist to discover what science can tell us about the art of happiness.

What I found set me on a path to joy, and now I'm ready to share my journey with you.

Each month I'm publishing three linked episodes where I'm speaking to a leading expert, putting their tips to the test and sharing my findings and feelings.

From mindfulness to exercise and random acts of kindness, I'll be shining a light on the simple happiness habits that can bring more joy to our lives. So join me as I embark on my challenge, and together we can become more successful, resilient and happy. Hello, happiness seekers.

Welcome to this month's Happiness Challenge where I'll be exploring the important intersection of kindness and happiness, two forces that have the power to transform not only our own lives, but the world around us.

And in a time when the pace of life can feel overwhelming and the news cycle often heavy, acts of kindness, no matter how small, offer a powerful antidote. And helping me with this topic is Bernadette Russell, who is a storyteller and the author of a fantastic book, In Conversations on Kindness.

Together we'll be diving into why kindness matters, how it affects our well being, and what can we all do to cultivate more of it in our daily lives, to not only boost our own personal happiness, but to create a more compassionate world. Welcome, Bernadette.

Hi. Thank you very much. What a lovely welcome.

I am so excited, especially when it comes to your book, because in your book, In Conversations on Kindness, you embark on pretty extraordinary 366 day journey. So my first question to you is, tell us, what was the journey and what did you learn?

And that summer in London, there had been riots and the response to the riots, it was very depressing. And I was in the post office and I helped somebody by giving them a little bit of money to pay for their stamp.

And I saw that in that moment, even though it was a tiny little bit of money, in just a moment of my time that had made a little bit of difference.

So by the time I got home, I decided impulsively and a ridiculous date to start a year long challenge to try and do it every single day for a year to see if kindness could change the world. And it was 366 days because it covered a leap year.

Brilliant. Okay, so I love it. It's like very simple moment in the post office. I'm going to try the acts of kindness and see if it's changed the world.

What's your one biggest learning through the journey?

Acts of kindness do have the power to change the world. I think I was genuinely curious. I went into it genuinely curious and see let's see what can happen.

What I didn't expect was how much it would change me.

So I think the journey as well as consciously doing acts of kindness every day which was great fun and also sometimes exhausting I also noticed kindness more in the world around me. So that increased my. It took me away from despair. I always say it redelivered me back to hope.

And also I noticed when people were kind to me which was really lovely and let myself enjoy that and I saw how much kindness there was to actually in the world. Even though as you said or you referred to it isn't reported on that's.

Not the news we hear so important. And also I love the phrase redelivered to hope.

Almost seeing that kindness around us definitely almost restores the faith in humanity that it's not only negative news but it's also very much we have that individual kindness day to day.

So that's your personal journey and the story and we'll come back to it because I have few more questions especially around that idea of exactly exhaustion when it comes to kindness.

But the scientist in me wants to know first the most important aspect of all which is how does practicing kindness impact our brain and overall well being from that scientific point of view?

Yeah, it's a great question. It was an interesting journey for me as well because I'm not from a scientific background although I'm interested in all of that.

I'm from a creative artistic background but the journey of it brought me to the work of people like Dr. David Hamilton and also connected me to the University of Sussex and their kindness exploration.

So for the first time I heard of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, so these sort of feel good hormones which you'll be very familiar with. I'm sure that your body's way of rewarding you when you do good deeds and oxytocin actually was the first one I heard of. I hadn't heard of it at all.

And just to find out that oxytocin lowers your blood pressure, it's heals wounds faster. And my favorite thing about oxytocin is learning that it's cardio protective.

So that literally doing something from the goodness of your heart protects your heart was both scientifically pleasing but also poetic, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So Thomas, it's not a metaphor. It is actually literally happening, which I absolutely love.

Lots of benefits for us, for our well being in that respect. We're giving from the heart but we also protecting our heart as you said. How wonderful is that now how kindness then extends to other people?

Can it be contagious? What does research says about this idea that kindness can shape more compassionate positive world around us?

Yeah, it's interesting and encouraging that so much research is being done in this area. That it's being done is encouraging and hopeful. So I know fairly recently Harvard, which again Dr.

David Hamilton wrote about at length, Harvard University did research around this and they discovered through their research that there's a radius of three social steps in terms of kindness.

So if I was kind to you, that would encourage you to be kind to the next person you met and that would encourage them to be kind to the next person they met. So actually the radius of it travels outwards and they did this with careful scientific research and study.

So there's a kind of social contagion and that can equally apply to when people witness acts of kindness, that doing it encourages them also can give you confidence. I think if you see things, this is what a lot of researchers have discovered.

You see it and you're like I could do that or that's a good idea or that looks like fun. So it can be fun and we recognize that it's going to make us feel good, it's going to connect us to our community.

So lots of research through the University of Harvard and also I have to give a big heads a big up to Sussex University who are also doing loads of amazing research around all of these subjects.

The contagion of kindness, how it ripples out, how important weak ties like the daily interactions we have with people are to building community and spreading out. So I'm really encouraged that it's being taken seriously by scientists.

Yeah and I think that's really important aspect because when we think about kindness we may be thinking oh something vague.

Of course we all been brought up to be kind and actually it's such a well researched as you said, era of the science of happiness and so important to us, but also to other people. Now I'm curious actually to Know what type of random acts of kindness have you engaged with through your 360 day journey?

But of course, not all of them. But some of your favorites that actually.

Worked, we'd be here for a long time because I carried on doing it. So I'm now in my 11th year when I started, because I started so impulsively, I didn't have a plan.

I didn't like a spreadsheet like some organized people would do. But basically how it panned out was I looked out for opportunities to help.

For example, helping some with a heavy suitcase, helping someone with a buggy down some stairs, helping someone reach a high shelf, helping people carry their shopping. But I also carried around a lot of things. So I made, I'm a crafter. I made homemade cards and presents that I gave to people.

I was like, valentine's Day is this homemade festival of love. Homegrown festival of love. But it's a bit naff because it's just centered on one one, a couple at a restaurant.

So we went out, me and my friends, on Valentine's Day and we delivered 50 homemade Valentine's cards, 50 heart shaped cakes and 50 heart shaped balloons to random strangers all over London. We dashed everywhere and they were. And there was a fantastic response. It was funny, it was heartwarming, it was really beautiful.

So that was a good kind of big scale one. And then another one that I really enjoyed was my friend asked me to phone some twins that she knows to sing them both Happy Birthdays.

That was a sort of smaller one, but it was. So I was nervous and it was brilliant and strange and they were, they were both, they were intrigued, surprised. So yeah, quite. Extremes.

I love that. I love that.

Doesn't matter how small or how big, as you said, from picking up a phone and singing Happy Birthday to people who might not expect it, to dashing across London with all those Valentine's presents again, still creating that ripple effect, creating that positive feelings and creating that happiness, you know, they're equally important. Even the one might be on such a bigger scale. Now let's have a think about kindness burnout. As in, now I'm playing devil's advocate here a little bit.

As in, what about the times when it did not work, when your kindness maybe was rejected rather than accepted. I think you already mentioned that sometimes we may not be sure what to do or how to do it well. So it is reset received with that intent.

So how have you had any random act of kindness where it didn't go according to the plan?

Yeah, lots of. Yeah, it's very interesting. And obviously I was. Because I didn't plan it, I was discovering, as I continued. So there's a couple of things there.

So one was a surprising thing, was the very vast majority of them were accepted.

And that was because, really early on I learned to say, excuse me, I hope you don't mind me interrupting you, but I'm doing a good deed, I'm doing a good deed every day. And because that's an expression that people understand, they were interested and then I'd start talking to them.

And I also think that during the course of the year, I got better at thinking, I think that person's going to be approachable. There was an occasion at Euston Station, I tried to give this woman a bunch of flowers and she just really didn't want them.

And it was surprising because I'd given away quite a lot of flowers and people usually wanted them. And I just thought to myself, actually, people are in a rush, they might be late for their train.

This isn't a good place to interrupt people whilst they're on route.

The second learning from that, apart from choose carefully, the second learning was what I think of kind isn't necessarily kind to someone else, so you have to be prepared for that. And thirdly, to not anticipate a response, which is hard, but that's just to protect yourself.

So if you always go into something thinking, oh, my gosh, this person's going to be so happy, they're going to kiss me, they're going to hug me, it's going to be amazing, it's going to be like a Disney film. It might not. So it's best to try to manage your expectations. The least that will happen is you might get a quiet thank you, and that's fine.

And so I didn't experience, and still haven't experienced many rejections, even after 10 years, I can probably count them on two hands. It's very small. But also sometimes I don't get much of a reaction. And I've got better at just thinking, oh, that's fine.

I just tried to do it and to be careful and sensitive about who you approach with what.

And this is so important, isn't it?

Because in the end of the day, this supposed to be, as you said, a good deed, random acts of kindness, a Small something that you want to engage with. But you're right, we just need to take it with that realism.

Often we may not get the reaction that we expecting and that's okay, we still engaging in that positive emotions. But again, as you said, majority of times people are overjoyed and it is a very important and positive aspect now you've been doing it for so long.

So again, coming back to this idea of kindness burnout. How can we practice kindness in a sustainable way so we don't without feeling drained?

Yeah, I really appreciate you asking this question. It's really important and it took, I don't really know why, but it took me the longest time to realize that I had to look after myself in this.

It was partly because I'd responded at the time to as many as I'm sure you and many of your listeners will do. We get so much bad news. I was thinking, well, I have to carry on pushing the kindness outwards.

I can't, haven't got time to have a bubble bath because there's so much trouble in the world. I was a bit caught into that. And then about 2/3 of the way through the first year I was just exhausted.

I was running on downstairs carrying things and it was all really good fun, but it was really tiring. And that was the beginning, just the beginning of my learning to take care of myself and take self kindness seriously.

I don't know why it took me so long, but the good news is that I so I did a really lovely course with an organization called the Museum of Happiness who, whose work a lot around is centered around the same sort of work you do with the Science of Happiness. And so I learned some just really useful tools which were mainly about getting to know myself and what self kindness looked like for me.

So I would say absolutely, do not exclude yourself from that list of acts of kindness.

And if there's a day when you're just, you're tired or you just fed up or it's just one of those days you want to stay in bed, be kind to yourself because the world doesn't benefit from you being tired or sad, but it will benefit from you being happy.

And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that we make in life, right? That yes, we very much want to engage on this journey, but what about ourselves?

And I love that she's saying specifically, yes, you can be on that random acts of kindness list yourself. You actually should be to really make sure that you're resting, that you have the energy to give to other People I definitely like.

For me personally, like, it's always so much easier to be kind to other people than to myself. I don't know whether you have one tip or one practical thing you do to ensure that you are kind to yourself.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's quite common for people to find it easier to be kind to other people.

So I think I will say that I think it's really individual and so it's getting to know yourself in the same way as you get to know your. It's as individual as our fingerprints. Someone like my friend Jules really loves a bubble bath. Bubble baths are not for me.

So I think it's worth putting aside a little bit of time and write yourself a list. Write 10 things that make you happy.

If you struggle with writing 10 things, ask someone that loves you to help you write the list of 10 things and just keep that somewhere and pay attention to how you're feeling. So if you're starting to feel frazzled or sad or anxious or stressed, have a look at your list and see if there's anything you can do.

Even that takes 30 seconds off that list. But the other thing that's really worth noticing is noticing when you glimmer. So it's like the opposite of trigger.

So it's noticing when things really light you up. Like for me, I really love being out in nature. It's a common one, I know.

Particularly I love being around trees and birds and lucky I live quite close to a park because I know that's one of my glimmers.

I'll quickly go to the park, sit under a tree, don't have my phone with me, just sit and breathe for a couple of minutes or I go and feed the birds and watch the birds careering around. So give yourself the gift of getting to know yourself and noticing and what works for you. That's perfect. It doesn't matter.

That could be dancing in your kitchen, that could be jumping in puddles, whatever it is. But I think it's important to gift yourself the opportunity to find out what that is for you.

And I think that way, if we apply it to ourselves, probably it is also easier than to give that and share that with other people. But if we're not investing that in ourselves, we don't have the time we spend with ourselves.

It's much more trickier than be like full of energy and enthusiasm for other people.

Just a way of thinking about it. If I think as well, if you find it challenging, is modeling self kindness is.

Is being kind to other people because you're showing that it's important and in a way you're giving other people permission to take care of themselves.

So I will often say on social media, oh, I stopped for a couple of hours because I was getting really frazzled and I just went for a walk in the woods. And I'll share that because I honestly believe or I know that when people have done that, I'll be like, oh yes, actually it's okay to do that.

There's this presentation of ourselves, the way we create our presence on social media, like we're always doing and producing and actually it's a kindness to say I'm looking after myself. You can.

Oh, I absolutely love that. And I agree so much about that. Especially in the workplaces. As a manager I have this temptation all the time.

You know what, I'm just not going to take that break. And I'm like, no, I'm going to take that break and I'm going to tell my team I'm taking that break.

So I'm giving a permission for them to take that break. So I love that. I absolutely love that. And since I mentioned the workplace, all those random acts of kindness, they feel incredible.

You may never see those people again. What about more transactional places like workplaces? How can we be kinder at workplace more often?

First of all, I really love that in your leadership role you model that. I think that's really important.

So first of all, I think if you are in a leadership role or actually if you're part of a team, modeling and demonstrating and talking about looking after yourself is looking after yourself and it's also modeling self kindness for other people. Yeah. So after the first year it was all about strangers.

Even though I've continued that has extended into friends and family and it also has extended into work situations. I'm freelancer, my work colleagues tend to change, but I often talk to people about this.

It's actually a way to think about it is it makes everything easier and more pleasant and more fun. There aren't really any negatives. Obviously it's really important to set boundaries because you mustn't be kind to people.

To the extent that you're carrying all the heavy workload and you're letting people go for seven hour lunch breaks, there has to be sensible parameters in place. But actually being kind by saying, good morning, would you like a cup of tea? How's the weekend listening?

It's also a way of being kind to yourself because even though that relationship is professional and transactional, it makes the day go better and easier. It improves concentration, improves communication. And we spend a lot of time at work, so we may as well be happy there.

And a route to happiness and a more easeful work experience is by being kind to ourselves and each other, so.

Important and we create a very positive environment and people want to work with us and they want to be around us. So, yeah, as you said, so important, but maybe on just a different scale. And I love the fact that you're mentioning it can be even as casual as.

Would you like a cup of tea? Shall we go for a walk? How's your weekend? So we're showing that we're caring and therefore we are engaging in that kindness.

Now, Bernadette, on the Happiness Challenge podcast, I type of hacks and also I dare other people to try those hacks. So what dare would you prescribe me and my listeners to harness the power of kindness?

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna actually hook into something that you mentioned early, which is about the news, because the bad news in a way also was a trigger for me and it's a negative trigger for many people.

So I would say this is a way of being kind to yourself and being kind to everyone that you connect with is in the next 24 hours, find a piece of really positive, hopeful news about a person, an individual or an organization anywhere in the world who is doing something positive and progressive, taking positive action towards changing the world for the better. It really works very well.

If you find something that's particularly worrying you like, I subscribe to lots of things like eco positive eco news and things like that to help with climate anxiety. So I would say the next 24 hours, find a piece of positive, hopeful news.

Give yourself time to read it and sit with it so you can really enjoy it and share it either in person, do social media, on social media, send it out in an email. It's a simple pleasurable thing to do which will deliver you to hope of this.

I'm also a big fan of positive news. My favorite publication is Fix the News from Australia, but they do global positive news across the globe.

But you write the idea here is that we find out more about something that we care about and also you adding this extra elements of sharing it with other people. So inspiring sharing and therefore being kind to other people as well. Well, very good, very practical. Definitely going to enjoy that.

Final question because hey, this is a podcast about happiness and Bernadette, what makes you happy?

I think I'm gonna have to say being silly is quite high. Up there. So, yeah, playfulness and silliness.

So that for me would include playing with my dog, playing with, playing stupid games, and making me and my nephew and niece make up disgusting pretend recipes for each other. Yeah, playing games with friends and being in nature. I really like watching birds. Anything kind of playful.

Yeah, anything playful. I love that playfulness and silliness. Just to get start with a joy, live through a joy, finish on a joyful moment after. Absolutely. So inspiring.

Thank you so much, Bernadette, where listeners can find out more about you. When we were connecting into this podcast, you mentioned this is your sixth book, so there is so many other books to be discussed.

And also, as you mentioned, you are a storyteller, so where listeners can find you.

Yes, I'm in social media. I'm mostly on Instagram, which is just my name, at Bernadette Russell, also on Facebook at Bernadette Russell writes. I'm also on LinkedIn.

Anyone's welcome to reach out to me on any of those platforms. My storytelling's live and I'm in England and that tends to be all over the uk.

I teach storytelling and creative writing online via Treadwell's books. I do have a website which is just my name. Dot com. Yeah. So plenty of ways.

And if anyone wants to join me for silliness in any of those areas, they're most welcome.

Brilliant. I love. They're just like everything is your name. So that's it. We can find you. We can find you on all those platforms. You're making it very easy.

And definitely joining you for silliness sounds like a fantastic invitation. Thank you so much, Bernadette. I have learned so much and thank you so much, everyone for listening. I see you at the next episode. Thank you. Bye.