(CNN) Are you looking for a mental and physical boost during the pandemic? Try volunteering.
Adults over 50 who volunteer for about two hours per week have a substantially reduced risk of dying, higher levels of physical activity and an improved sense of well-being, a new study has found. And they develop fewer physical limitations than adults who don't volunteer.
The study, published Thursday in the journal American Journal of Preventive Medicine, analyzed data from face-to-face interviews and survey responses from nearly 13,000 participants randomly selected from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal panel study of older Americans. Two groups of participants were tracked over four years in between 2010 to 2016.
While the research failed to find health benefits for specific diseases, the findings echoed results from other studies about the overall health benefits of helping others.
With people out of work, food banks are stepping up
Vehicles line up for food distribution in Clermont, Florida, on November 21.
Hundreds of homeless people wait in line to receive food from the Los Angeles Mission on the day before Thanksgiving.
Volunteers prepare Thanksgiving meals at the Salvation Army in Orlando.
Two women take home free meals after waiting in a long line at a high school in South Gate, California, on November 25.
Volunteers in Denver work at the Food Bank of the Rockies on November 25.
Members of the Indiana National Guard assist food bank volunteers as they distribute Thanksgiving meals in Bloomington, Indiana, on November 20.
People wait in line to receive food at the Bay Area Rescue Mission's Thanksgiving Giveaway in Richmond, California.
Volunteers distribute turkeys and other foods in Clermont, Florida.
Cars line up as the Pantry 279 food bank hands out Thanksgiving meals in Bloomington, Indiana.
Cars line up at a food distribution site sponsored by local churches and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
A volunteer puts on gloves before packing boxes of food outside the Second Harvest Food Bank in Irvine, California, on November 19.
Volunteers direct traffic at a food distribution site in Clermont, Florida.
The Food Bank for New York City hosted a pop-up food pantry in September.
Paulina Bastidas-Yale helps distribute food at a Boston church in September.
Boxes of cereal are ready to be distributed at the Hope Rescue Mission in Reading, Pennsylvania, in August.
Volunteer Joseph Cunliffe holds a bag of bread to put in someone's car in Robesonia, Pennsylvania, in August.
Drivers line up for a pop-up grocery event in Mankato, Minnesota, in July.
A volunteer hands two dozen eggs to a Helping Harvest employee to give to someone in their car in Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania, in June.
Volunteers load plastic bags with food in Everett, Massachusetts, during a weekly food pantry service run by Grace Ministries of the North Shore.
People line up for food assistance in Waltham, Massachusetts, in April.
People wait in their cars for the San Antonio Food Bank to begin distributing food in April.
Volunteers at the Capital Area Food Bank pack up boxes of food to be distributed in Washington, DC.
Volunteers and city employees prepare to hand out bags of food at a drive-through site in Opa-locka, Florida, in April. The food was provided by the food bank Feeding South Florida.
Gladys Socop helps to bag up food while volunteering at a pop-up food pantry in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
National Guard members help pack food boxes at the Nourish Pierce County food bank in Tacoma, Washington.
A line of cars waits to receive food at a distribution site in Van Nuys, California, in April.
Bags of fruit await residents during a food drive in Waltham, Massachusetts.
A volunteer in Phoenix hands over a box donated by St. Mary's Food Bank in April. The drive-through was set up for the general public on the campus of Phoenix College.
Volunteers with Forgotten Harvest load food into vehicles at a mobile pantry in Detroit.
Volunteer Maria Cunningham sorts through bags of food before distributing them at a church in Des Moines, Iowa, in April.
Volunteers in Orlando hand out food from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
Cars line up in a mall parking lot that was the site of a drive-through food pantry in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Volunteer David Mack hands a woman food at the First AME Church in Athens, Georgia.
Donated supplies wait for distribution at the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, DC.
A volunteer holds fruit while helping to distribute food at Pantry 279 in Ellettsville, Indiana.
An employee of the Food Bank for New York City transports a pallet of groceries in April.
Treasure Coast Food Bank volunteer Lynn Goeke loads a box of apples into a vehicle during a drive-through food distribution in Fort Pierce, Florida.
People line up for food at Sharing & Caring Hands, a charity in Minneapolis, in March.
"Volunteering might help enrich our own lives by strengthening our bonds to others, helping us feel a sense of purpose and optimism, and protecting us from feelings of loneliness, depressive symptoms, and hopelessness," said study author Eric Kim, a research scientist in the department of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
That's certainly something we could all use right now, after months of sheltering from a frightening virus that is taking and devastating lives while endangering others.
Reinvent volunteering
"When we think about volunteering, our minds might automatically turn to a specific set of activities. However, activities that bring us in close physical proximity with others is risky during this time of pandemic," Kim said. "Now is a wonderful opportunity to reimagine what volunteering could look like, perhaps in ways that allow us to remain physically distant from others."
One of the easiest ways to do this, experts said, is by reaching out to your own neighbors, especially those who are elderly. Just knock on doors and ask how they are through screens, offering to run errands or have food delivered.
People are fostering and adopting pets during the pandemic
Animals shelters across the United States are emptying out thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, as people stuck at home are fostering or adopting animals. The Hillery family adopted Mase the pit bull from the San Diego Humane Society.
Adam Bohn, a junior mechanical engineering student at Iowa State University, plays with Aries, a 1.5-year-old domestic shorthair cat before adopting him."It was getting lonely at home," Bohn said.
Dogs awaiting adoption or foster care crowd together together inside a doghouse at a Hong Kong Dog Rescue homing center. Shelters in Hong Kong reported that a higher-than-average number were adopted in March.
Lachlan Vaughan-Taylor (center) and his partner (left) admire Pippa, a blind cat they adopted at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Shelter and Veterinary Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
Amy Tran (left) and her daughter Serene Ho cuddle their newly adopted dog Pepper in a dog park at Kai Tak Runway Park in Hong Kong.
The San Diego Humane Society's Nina Thompson holds a kitten at the kitten nursery in San Diego, California.
Honeysuckle the dog gets ready for a foster home at Animal Rescue New Orleans in Louisiana.
Morgan Miller (left) and Sarah Chan (right) play with Silvia, age 6, in their apartment in San Diego's Pacific Beach neighborhood.
A dog that has been adopted but not yet taken to its new home was one of the few animals left at the Humane Society of Westchester in New Rochelle, New York, in late March.
Layla the dog waits at Animal Rescue New Orleans as her paperwork is completed. She's heading to a new foster home.
You can also help by shopping and getting takeout from local businesses, taking home a furry friend (pets have their own set of health benefits), donating blood and making masks, among others.
Online groups such as Nextdoor also virtually connect neighbors, offering an avenue to both reach out and ask for help. Facebook just launched a community help feature in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Canada, with plans to expand to other countries.
Nonprofit groups around and the world are rising to the occasion by expanding virtual volunteering options, a movement that began in the '90s and continues to grow. Today it's often called "e-volunteering."
Points of Light, which calls itself the "world's largest organization dedicated to volunteer service," offers a search engine on its volunteer marketplace All for Good to find home-based volunteer projects across 37 countries across the globe, many of which are do-it-yourself projects.
The United Nations lists online volunteering activities supporting women and youth, many of which are coronavirus-specific virtual projects. Idealist, an online nonprofit group based in New York, has lists of various fundraising and volunteer opportunities around the world on its website.
Table Wisdom allows you to connect via video chat with an international student or an isolated person in another city who has been affected by social distancing.
Career Village uses online volunteers to share career advice with low-income youth over the internet, while Volunteer Match has ways to give back in health and medicine, children and youth, education and community building. Its site has a Covid-19 hub here.
Bookshare, which provides materials for disabled children and adults, needs virtual volunteers to take on tasks like scanning and proofreading book pages and categorizing and describing images. Translators without Borders needs people to translate medical texts and crisis responses.
The Be My Eyes app connects sighted people with blind and low-vision people who need help with everyday tasks. The idea began in 2012 in Denmark and is now available in over 180 languages. According to the Be My Eyesl website, its "the biggest online community for blind and low-vision people as well as one of the largest micro-volunteering platforms in the world."
Need for mental health assistance
With so many people facing anxiety, depression and other mental health issues in the wake of the pandemic, the need for people to volunteer as crisis counselors is rising. Crisis Text Line relies on trained volunteer crisis counselors who work from home and use active listening, collaborative problem solving and safety planning to help those in need.
In New York City, one of the areas hardest hit by the coronavirus, volunteers are needed to call and talk with local seniors who are homebound and at risk for depression because they are isolated from friends, family and neighbors.
These are just some of the amazing volunteer opportunities out there — there are many more in your own community, so reach out to your local charities, food banks and homeless shelters to see what they need and how you might help.
"I encourage people to think about their values and the causes they care most about," Kim said.
"Whatever the cause, now is a moment in history when society needs your service the most. If you are able to do so while abiding by public health guidelines, you not only help heal the world, but you might help yourself as well."