The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness

This groundbreaking and lifechanging work based on the latest research effectively demonstrates the profound impact that love, connection, and kindness have on our health (Mark Williamson, PhD, director of Action for Happiness).When Columbia University doctor Kelli Harding began her clinical practice, she never intended to explore the invisible factors behind our health. But then there were the rabbits. In 1978, a seemingly straightforward experiment designed to establish the relationship between high blood cholesterol and heart health in rabbits discovered that kindnessin the form of a particularly nurturing postdoc who pet and spoke to the lab rabbits as she fed themmade the difference between a heart attack and a healthy heart.As Dr. Kelli Harding reveals in this eyeopening book, the rabbits were just the beginning of a much larger story. Groundbreaking new research shows that love, friendship, community, and our environment can have a greater impact on our health than anything that happens in the doctors office. For instance, chronic loneliness can be as unhealthy as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; napping regularly can decrease ones risk of heart disease; and people with purpose are less likely to get sick.At once paradigmshifting and empowering, The Rabbit Effect illuminates vital public health research showing kindness in our daytoday lives can make the world a healthier, happier place. I recommend this book highly for anyone who wants to live more healthfully (Christy Turlington Burns, and CEO of Every Mother Counts).