Volunteering, even just a little bit, can really slow down aging, both for folks who are retired and those still in the workforce. A fresh study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis highlights this.
“We found that moderately volunteering — like 50 to 199 hours a year, which is roughly one to four hours a week — has the biggest benefits for retirees,” said Cal Halvorsen, an associate professor and co-author of the study titled “Does volunteering reduce epigenetic age acceleration among retired and working older adults?” This study will be featured in the upcoming January issue of Social Science & Medicine.
Cal explains, “Volunteering may give retirees that social interaction and sense of purpose they might miss out on, unlike people who are still working and getting similar benefits.” Those social connections and physical activities have been linked to slower biological aging.
When researchers tapped into data from the national Health and Retirement Study, they found that volunteering could actually slow down biological aging. Among retirees, those who volunteered at a moderate level showed a notable slowdown in their biological age compared to those who didn’t volunteer.
“In simpler terms, people who volunteer tend to age just a bit slower than those who don’t,” Halvorsen noted.
The more you volunteer, the more significant the benefits. Once individuals crossed the 200-hour mark in volunteering, both retired and working folks enjoyed impressive health perks, indicating that a higher level of volunteering can boost well-being, no matter your job status.
“In general, volunteering more than 200 hours a year — so about 4 hours a week on average — seemed to provide the biggest benefit in slowing age acceleration,” Halvorsen shared. “This consistent involvement is likely what delivers a higher ‘dose’ of all those good vibes from social interactions and physical activities.”
Even those who volunteered less, say 1 to 49 hours a year, felt the positives, especially retirees.
“This might be filling the gap left by the beneficial effects of paid work that retirees are no longer part of,” Halvorsen suggested. “So, overall, we can agree that volunteering in later life is definitely good for you. But more research would be helpful to dig deeper into these findings.”
The authors did consider other health factors beyond just the hours spent volunteering.
“We took into account various health elements when conducting our study, which gives us more confidence in our findings,” Halvorsen explained.
To ensure the groups were fairly comparable, the researchers worked hard to equalize the volunteer and non-volunteer profiles.
“To accurately estimate the impacts on biological aging, we included self-reported health and the number of depressive symptoms in our analysis,” he said. “We also controlled for a range of health variables that are closely linked to biological aging, like physical activity levels, smoking habits, binge drinking, obesity, and more.”
The study’s other authors included Seoyoun Kim from Texas State University, Claire Potter from Queen’s University Belfast, and Jessica Faul from the University of Michigan.
