5 Reasons Giving is Good for you this Christmas

I was thinking about a talk we ran at City Bible Forum a few years ago, "In Pursuit of Happiness" with Darryl Cross where we discussed the ideas and scientific research behind what makes us happy. Over the last couple of years I've recalled many times the counter-cultural ideas that giving and being thankful massively increase our likelihood of being happy.

So I searched for some of this research and found this article 5 Ways Giving is Good for You by Jason Marsh and Jill Suttie of the Greater Good Science Centre, University of California, Berkeley.

Here's a summary of what they said

Reason 1. Giving makes us feel happy.
A 2008 study by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton and colleagues found that giving money to someone else lifted participants’ happiness more that spending it on themselves (despite participants’ prediction that spending on themselves would make them happier).

Reason 2. Giving is good for our health.
A wide range of research has linked different forms of generosity to better health. In his book Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Stephen Post, a professor of preventative medicine at Stony Brook University, reports that giving to others has been shown to increase health benefits in people with chronic illness, including HIV and multiple sclerosis. Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan saw similar results in a 2003 study on elderly couples where those who provided practical help to friends, relatives, or neighbors, or gave emotional support to their spouses, had a lower risk of dying over a five-year period than those who didn’t.

Reason 3. Giving promotes cooperation and social connection.
Several studies, including work by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer, have suggested that when you give to others, your generosity is likely to be rewarded by others down the line. What’s more, when we give to others, we don’t only make them feel closer to us; we also feel closer to them. “Being kind and generous leads you to perceive others more positively and more charitably,” writes Lyubomirsky in her book The How of Happiness, and this “fosters a heightened sense of interdependence and cooperation in your social community.”

Reason 4. Giving evokes gratitude.
Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a gift, that gift can elicit feelings of gratitude. Research has found that gratitude is integral to happiness, health, and social bonds. A study led by Nathaniel Lambert at Florida State University found that expressing gratitude to a close friend or romantic partner strengthens our sense of connection to that person.

Reason 5. Giving is contagious.
A study by James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, shows that when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person.

And while science is catching up... I'd like to add that God has been trying to promote this for thousands of years and has himself inspired many millions of people to give of themselves after he gave his son Jesus. Here's some examples:

"A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed." (Proverbs 11:25)

"The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." (Proverbs 22:9)

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.... We love [and give!] because he first loved us." (1 John 4:7-12 &19)

So why not give it a go this year. Don't just buy the gifts you "have" to buy, but consider contributing to a charity, volunteering your time, visit that lonely neighbour or inviting someone over for Christmas drinks or dinner that find Christmas a tough time. You might get back more than you expected.