Don’t Overlook the Best Personal Goal of All

Journalist Marta Zaraska asked a couple of scientists to help her conduct an experiment. She wanted to find out if acts of kindness would affect her on a biological level. The researchers mailed her plastic tubes that she would use to collect her saliva three times a day (morning, noon and night) for seven days.

Ms. Zaraska then mailed her spit back to the Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Lab at King’s College in London, where the scientists measured her cortisol levels.