Volunteering does a body good. For the heart and the spirit, experts say, give a little and you will get a lot back.

rooke Ellison could have been bitter, rendered a quadriplegic at age 11 when she was struck by a car while walking home from her first day of junior high. Instead, she's living a fuller life than she could have imagined when doctors told her she'd never walk again. The secret, says Ellison, 31, of Stony Brook, N.Y., is helping others cope with their own life-altering challenges. "My mother tells me it makes me glow, and I feel it. I feel invigorated," she says. "Where I've gotten over the past 20 years—and my ability to continue moving forward, living my life as fully as possible-is a direct result of what I feel I can give to other people." And she has gotten far: Ellison graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in cognitive neuroscienoe in 2000 and a master's in public policy in 2004. That year. The Brooke Ellison Story, directed by Christopher Reeve, premiered on the cable channel A&E. Today, Ellison is pursuing a doctorate in sociology at Stony Brook Universify. All the while, she says, reaching out to others has improved her own well-being, which researchers say is no surprise. Why volunteering makes us healthier is rooted in biology, says Stephen Post, coauthor of Why Good Things Happen to Good People (2007) and director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University. "One of the best ways to get your mind off your aches and pains is to get your mind on somebody else," he says. "This is a new science, but it does seem that we involve the brain, we involve the immune system, and we probably involve certain hormones, like oxytocin—the compassion hormone." A variefy of studies over the years suggest that, no matter where they begin healthwise, volunteers reap physical and emotional benefits, including less stress and depression, and longer lives. Volunteering is particularly beneficial to adults 65 and older and those who serve more than 100 hours each year. In a survey of more than 4,500 adults released in April by UnitedHealthcare and VolunteerMatch, 68 percent said they felt better physically since they started volunteering; 29 percent said giving back was helping them to manage a chronic condition. And volunteers were more likely to report