Key Takeaways
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Older adults who volunteered—even as little as 1 to 49 hours per year—showed slower “epigenetic age acceleration,” meaning their cells appeared biologically younger than their chronological age.
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The strongest effects were seen in people who volunteered 50 to 199 hours annually (about 1–4 hours per week), especially those who were retired and may be replacing lost social roles and routines.
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Volunteering also supports healthy aging by increasing physical activity, reducing loneliness, restoring purpose, and providing mental stimulation—all factors linked to better brain and overall health.
Giving back to your community by volunteering doesn’t just help others: it may also slow down the aging process, according to a recent study. The researchers found that the effects of volunteering between 50 and 199 hours per year—or about one to four hours per week—were strongest for retired people.
“It’s quite possible that the act of volunteering provided a sense of social and meaningful interaction, and physical activity, that those who were still working were already receiving,” says Cal Halvorsen, an associate professor at Washington University and co-author of the study, in a statement. “Those qualities have separately been linked to less rapid epigenetic age acceleration.”
So, how does volunteering contribute to healthy aging? And what’s epigenetic age acceleration? We tapped some experts in aging to find out.
What Is Epigenetic Age Acceleration?
Epigenetic age acceleration is basically the difference between how old your DNA “acts” versus how old you actually are—and they don’t always match, says Sanam Hafeez, PsyD, a neuropsychologist and director of Comprehend the Mind.
“Your cells carry chemical tags called ‘methylation marks’ that change in predictable patterns over time, and scientists use these patterns to estimate your biological age,” she explains. “When your biological age runs ahead of your chronological age, that gap is called ‘age acceleration,’ and it’s been linked to things like chronic stress, poor sleep, smoking, and metabolic disease.” The good news is that some of these changes appear to be reversible, meaning lifestyle choices can actually slow down, or in some cases walk back, how fast your cells are aging.
What Did the Study Find?
This study found that older adults who volunteered showed slower biological aging than those who didn’t, even after the researchers controlled for many factors we’d expect to explain that difference—like existing health, socioeconomic status, education, and physical activity levels, says L. Grant Canipe, III, PhD, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist and assistant professor at The Chicago School.
“What’s particularly noteworthy is that even relatively modest volunteering—as little as 1 to 49 hours per year—was associated with decelerated epigenetic aging on several of the clocks they used,” he explains. “At the higher end, 200 or more hours per year showed consistent benefits, especially on the newer-generation epigenetic clocks that are most strongly linked to disease risk and mortality.”
These benefits appear even stronger for retirees specifically, likely because volunteering steps in to replace the social roles and routines that disappear when someone leaves the workforce, Hafeez notes. “The researchers believe this is significant enough that volunteering could actually be promoted as a public health strategy, not just for community well-being, but as a real tool for slowing down the aging process at a biological level,” she says.
How Else Might Volunteering Help With Healthy Aging?
Potentially slowing down the aging process is only one of the benefits of volunteering. First, it keeps you active. “Volunteering often gets you moving, whether it’s setting up an event, working at a food bank, or walking a shelter dog, and that physical activity adds up over time,” Hafeez says.
Volunteering can also help combat loneliness, which is a major risk factor for depression, anxiety, and other medical conditions, says Ashok Yerramsetti, MD, board-certified psychiatrist with Mindpath Health. “The Surgeon General in 2023 even declared an ‘Epidemic of Loneliness’ and cited how it was associated with greater impacts on health than smoking or obesity,” he says. “Therefore, I emphasize volunteering in group settings and other activities that involve interacting with others as an essential part of maintaining health after retirement.”
There’s also the social role piece, which Canipe thinks gets underestimated. “Developmental and lifespan psychology tells us that a sense of purpose and social role is not a luxury—it is a fundamental human need,” he explains. “When people retire, they don’t just lose a paycheck: they lose a daily structure, a social identity, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Volunteering can restore that.” And there’s growing evidence that having a strong sense of purpose in life is independently associated with slower biological aging, better immune function, and reduced mortality risk, he notes.
Finally, volunteering can provide mental stimulation, which can promote brain health and reduce cognitive decline, Yerramsetti says. “Many volunteer roles require planning, problem solving, interpersonal communication, and learning new information,” Canipe says. “These are exactly the kinds of cognitively demanding activities that help maintain neural plasticity and may protect against age-related cognitive decline. The brain is a use-it-or-lose-it organ, and volunteering provides the kind of complex, real-world cognitive stimulation that a crossword puzzle simply cannot replicate.”
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