Stay positive
Random acts of kindness
Sometimes the smallest things can lift our mood. It might be somebody being kind to you, or you being kind to them. On this page we introduce you to a global movement to ‘make kindness the norm’.
It made people think and show kindness. A young couple arrived at our door to offer goodies (vegetables). We live on a small road and the community seemed to come together.
A person with dementia talking to our researchers about the COVID-19 pandemic
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, based in America, wants to make kindness the norm in our schools, workplaces, homes and communities. We all stand to benefit from such a model.
The Random Acts of Kindness website has lots of resources which are free to download and print at home. These include monthly calendars which have daily prompts encouraging you to practice kindness. There’s even Kindness Bingo cards which you can print off and play with friends!
If you want to be inspired and be able to choose from a range of different topics, try The Kindness Blog. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation posts on lots of different topics. You can choose what interests you.
Kindness helps improve our mood. One of Mind’s ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ is Give – participation in social and community life. Our research similarly shows that people enjoy helping others, feeling useful and valued. So kindness really can help us to stay positive.
If you’re not sure where to start…
The Mental Health Foundation have created a list of 50 random acts of kindness. If you click the generator, it will give you a random number. Find that number on the list and try to complete the corresponding act of kindness.
Age UK also promote random acts of kindness and offer some great ideas. As the kindness movement grows and more people know about it, random acts of kindness can be a great thing to do with family and friends as well.
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Random acts of kindness
You can print a paper version of this resource by clicking the button below.
