A UNIQUE AND SCIENTIFICALLY-BASED WAY TO UPLIFT PEOPLE
IN HIGHER STRESS ENVIRONMENTS
The burden of stress
Even before the pandemic, people have been shouldering a lot of stress. On top of their own personal stressors, they also experience stress in many places, particularly in health care offices and hospitals, workplaces, transportation hubs, and schools. That stress can change how people treat each other, feel about their own lives, or how they can trust and feel connected to others. It also affects their mental and physical health.
COVID-19 made all of this worse.
What if there is a scientifically proven, rapid, simple, and unbiased way to uplift people in stressful settings? To help them connect better to the humanity of others and to themselves? To be happier and more generous and manage their own stress better?
Now there is.
Envision Kindness is excited to introduce EnSpireTM, a unique digital portfolio of kindness media, to be streamed directly into your health care, workplace, school or other setting. Based on the neuropsychology of kindness and connection, as well as how media impacts people, EnSpire draws upon a crowd-sourced collection of thousands of diverse and inspirational images from around the world. Crafted into video format along with other inspiring kindness media, EnSpire is a one-of-a-kind innovation that can uplift any environment. No training needed.
EnSpire is easy to bring into your organization. Essentially turnkey.
Want to learn more? Read on. Want to see sample films that markedly inspire viewers and were used in our study? See the sample reel lower down on this page.
Photo by Laura Silva
The Story Behind EnSpireTM
Positive interpersonal connection is a natural and powerful antidote to stress. It’s been known for a long time that feeling connected to others in a meaningful way promotes resilience. It buffers the response to life’s stressors or challenges. It builds trust and optimism. It affects how we treat other people.
Kindness is a path to meaningful connection. Kindness connects people. Being kind to someone else conveys the message: “I see you. You matter. And we are connected.” It feels good because we are “wired” to respond to it.
Seeing kindness creates connection and uplifts people. Positive psychologists have known for sometime that seeing kindness, in-person or through media, elevates people. They feel more connected to other people, including of other races or cultures. There is less dehumanization of others and more humanity.
Seeing kindness has many of the biological and psychological effects that are the opposite of stress.
That’s why we created EnSpireTM. To lift people up wherever they are. To create stronger connections. And to do it simply, quickly, and regularly. To help people live a higher quality of life.
We started in healthcare and showed that it works really well. Beyond health care, EnSpire is for higher stress settings that can benefit from having people help each other, cooperate more, and trust one another.
We’re Starting With Health Care
Did you know that health care providers have high rates of burnout, depression and suicide?
Many of the doctors, nurses, dentists, and others who are dedicated to improving the health of others, are suffering. Their suffering shows up in high rates of burnout, depression, and suicide that are about double that of the general population.
In addition to affecting them, their suffering is understandably linked to medical errors. So when providers experience these negative emotions, it affects their patients too.
Patients also have stress that affects them. They have their own problems and worries that can create new illnesses, worsen existing diseases, or even inhibit them from taking care of themselves. Patients, like providers, need to be uplifted.
That’s why we chose health care settings to launch EnSpire.
Would uplifting both providers and patients, promoting connection and lowering stress be beneficial to your organization?
Health care providers entered the profession because they want to help people. EnSpire* is designed to provide daily inspiration that stirs their innate humanity and reminds them of the reasons they do this work: because they care about others and want to be of service.
We want patients to benefit from it, too. Patients are often very stressed going even making a routine visit. They are asking questions like: will the doctor find something wrong with me? Will they care about me and listen to me? And since stress affects patient satisfaction and the way they think (and listen), inspiring them similarly can be of benefit.
And because emotions are contagious, stress in the healthcare environment spreads subconsciously, affecting patients, providers, and all staff. This can affect the quality of health care experience for everyone.
The video teaches about what EnSpire is and shows some samples of the content we are sharing with the world. And it works–see below.
Spread the Word
EnSpire Uplifts Viewers In Healthcare
Recent study documents the effects of EnSpire to positively shift emotion and increase caring behavior
In a randomized, comparator-controlled study in a pediatric health care clinic (dental), parents and staff were assigned to watch either EnSpire or commercial children’s television. In comparison to children’s television viewers, those who watched EnSpire were:
Happier
Calmer
More grateful
Much more inspired and
More generous, more often donating to a family need
People tended to be more optimistic and staff were less irritated. More than 8 out of 10 viewers of EnSpire (83%) wanted the clinic to continue to show it. A more detailed description of the study results have been published here.
Why Does Something So Simple Work So Well?
Kindness media taps into the innate need to connect with and care others. That is, living, sentient beings, including humans, are social animals. Evolutionary biologists have explained that in order to survive, we need to help each other and cooperate with one another. While self-preservation is a strong driver of thoughts and behaviors, so is helping others. Nature has given us mechanisms to reinforce this behavior, including the long-standing observation that being kind or even seeing kindness feels good. It is pleasurable.
Seeing kindness activates this neuropsychology of kindness and caring. Multiple laboratory-based studies have shown that short kindness videos can positively change emotion, increase donations, and improve the sense of being connected to other people. This last point has ramifications for diversity and inclusion and the social and political polarization we are now experiencing.
It is also well known that feeling more connected to others in a meaningful way (not solely via social media) is a potent antidote to stress. So the promotion of kindness can promote better mental and physical health through connection. It can help with loneliness, anxiety, and likely many of the disorders that stress causes or worsens. To learn more about this, please see this paper published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, entitled “Kindness as a stress reduction-health promotion intervention. A review of the psychobiology of caring.”
How Does Kindness Media Differ From Relaxation Media?
Relaxation media is generally characterized by scenes of nature. Forests, sunsets, plants, beaches, etc., all have a very relaxing quality that has been established sometime ago.
Kindness media appears to possess the same feature of relaxation media to help instill a more calm and peaceful feeling. In addition, kindness media does something else: it uplifts or elevates the viewer and promotes happiness, optimism, gratitude, and trust. It also promotes positive interpersonal connection. Beyond self-reports of emotional shifts, the most evident sign of positive interpersonal connection is generosity. Viewers are consistently willing to donate or volunteer after exposure to kindness media.
CONTACT
Let us know if you would like to bring EnSpire to your local health care center or other organization.
SET UP
We will work with you to integrate this programming into your health care center. We have a turn key solution.
BROADCAST
EnSpire can be broadcast to patients and providers in waiting areas, clinic corridors, and patient rooms in hospitals.
BENEFIT
Everyone will feel the benefits of increased kindness, happiness, and trust in their lives. Organizations can see the difference it makes.
Are you interested in learning more about EnSpireTM?
If you would like us to notify you when EnSpire is available for subscription, please sign up here. We look forward to the possibility of bringing kindness, joy, and connection to your work environment.