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

Written by Kelli Harding

Narrated by Kelli Harding

This groundbreaking and life-changing 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 kindness—in the form of a particularly nurturing post-doc who pet and spoke to the lab rabbits as she fed them—made the difference between a heart attack and a healthy heart.

As Dr. Kelli Harding reveals in this eye-opening 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 doctor’s office. For instance, chronic loneliness can be as unhealthy as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day; napping regularly can decrease one’s risk of heart disease; and people with purpose are less likely to get sick.

At once paradigm-shifting and empowering, The Rabbit Effect illuminates vital public health research showing kindness in our day-to-day 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).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Aug 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781508292456

Kelli Harding

Dr. Kelli Harding is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, as well as boarded in the specialty of psychosomatic (mind-body) medicine. Kelli works in the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, NPR, The New York Times, Medscape, WFUV’s Cityscape, and US News & World Report.

Reviews for The Rabbit Effect

[Martin Bortnick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful book! Give it as a gift! Absolutely fantastic!

[Bob McMillan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some great insights into individuals and there are many who have dealt with trauma and how that trauma has shaped their lives their choices and very often they're unhappiness. Less welcome were
the calls for social justice.

[Stephanie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is thought provoking and inspiring. It also offers real, actionable suggestions at the end of each chapter on how you can improve your life and health. I loved it so much that I bought it for all my friends and family. You just can’t keep knowledge like this to yourself!

[sovranty · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Soft skills, encompassing kindness, compassion, empathy, and inclusion, are argued to be just as importance as hard skills, application of knowledge and experience, when it comes to overall physical, emotional, and mental heath. To belong, to be cared for, to have someone care for you is showed to seemingly have an impact on your well being.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Haelthier With the Groundbreaking Science of Kindnessby Kelli Harding, MD, MPHdue 8-27-2019Atria Books5.0 / 5.0#netgalley. #TheRabbitEffect.Amazing book and premise. One I totally agree with. This will empower you to change not just your overall physical health, but our mental health by making choices to be more kind, accepting and inclusive. Small choices made daily and our experiences with others create a cultural fabric that has a larger effect on our health than previously thought.It began in 1978, when a Columbia University Doctor designed an experiment to establish a correlation between heart health and high blood cholesterol, using rabbits. She discovered nurturing, kindness and interaction made the difference between a heart attack and a healthy heart. Feeling supported and cared for made a huge difference in our ability to heal.The Whithall Study was started to look for biological factors for heart disease. What it uncovered was a link between mind and body, a correlation between level of education and physical health. Kindness, support and inclusion are as much, if not more, healing than medicine alone. Dr. Engels Biopsychosocial model showed The Hidden Factors in health: social experiences can alter DNA through epigenetic processes. Community and social ties can help you remain more healthy.Clearly we are missing something in medicine when in 2016, USA ranked 43rd in life expectancy. In 2015, life expectancy dropped for the first time in 2 decades. In 2017 it dropped again.In maternal care, USA ranked 46th, the worst rate or maternal deaths in the developed world. And out of the 32 wealthiest countries in the world, USA is 32nd, last place, on the health-wealth inequality.Clearly, as a country that spends so much on health care, we are missing something.I believe the mind body connection is such an important idea and premise for our future, our health and our well-being.Kindness is a healer.Acceptance is a healer.We need leadership in this country that we can have confidence, dignity and pride in following. A feeling of hope, camaraderie, different but equal. It's not to late.Small choice,every day. It matters.Positive energy and acceptance. It matters.It's time to get with it.At the end of each chapter is a Tool Box of ideas, suggestions, support and help.This is truly a revolutionary thought, and book. I highly recommend it for every single person!Thanks to Netgalley, Atria books and the author, Kelli Harding for sending this requested e-book ARC for review.