Centennial students participated in the Great Kindness Challenge January 28-February 1st. Each student was encouraged to perform as many kind acts as possible during the week. For each act of kindness, students filled out a heart that was hung on our Kindness Tree. We got to watch our tree bloom with the compassion and thoughtfulness of our students all week long. By Friday, approximately 625 acts of kindness were represented in the hearts on our tree.
In addition to helping create a safe and positive school atmosphere, kindness has a lot of biological and emotional benefits. Kindness encourages the production of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps with healing, and feelings of calmness and happiness. Kindness increases serotonin in the giver, the receiver and the witnesses of kind acts - how cool is that?! Kindness also boosts endorphins (the brain's natural pain killer) and oxytocin (which helps with social bonding, and increases feelings of trust and generosity). Compassionate people also have lower levels of cortisol, the body's stress hormone. Kindness is pretty amazing and powerful stuff, and our students benefit both physically and emotionally when we encourage and value kindness in our school.
Let's keep that tree growing, Centennial!!!
In addition to helping create a safe and positive school atmosphere, kindness has a lot of biological and emotional benefits. Kindness encourages the production of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps with healing, and feelings of calmness and happiness. Kindness increases serotonin in the giver, the receiver and the witnesses of kind acts - how cool is that?! Kindness also boosts endorphins (the brain's natural pain killer) and oxytocin (which helps with social bonding, and increases feelings of trust and generosity). Compassionate people also have lower levels of cortisol, the body's stress hormone. Kindness is pretty amazing and powerful stuff, and our students benefit both physically and emotionally when we encourage and value kindness in our school.
Let's keep that tree growing, Centennial!!!