How good do you feel when you do something for another person? It may be your partner, your child, your parent or a complete stranger. It may even be a colleague at work! We all know, well there may be one or two Ebenezer Scrooge’s amongst us, that giving is good for us. But now we have the evidence!

Through three studies researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Harvard Business School found that individuals report significantly greater happiness if they make charitable donations or give gifts to others rather than spending on themselves (March 21 edition, Science).

In the first study the researchers looked at a nationally representative sample of more than 630 Americans, of whom 55 per cent were female. They asked participants to: rate their general happiness; report their annual income; and provide a breakdown of their monthly spending, including bills, gifts for themselves, gifts for others and donations to charity.

It was found that regardless of how much income each person made those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.

Study two measured the happiness levels of employees at a firm in Boston before and after they received their profit-sharing bonus, which ranged between $3,000 and $8,000.

What affected the employees' happiness was not so much the size of the bonus but how they spent it. The employees who devoted more of their bonus to gifts for others or toward charity consistently reported greater benefits than employees who simply spent money on their own needs.

In the third study researchers gave participants a $5 or $20 note and asked them to spend the money by 5pm that day. Half the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves, and half were assigned to spend the money on others. Participants who spent the windfall on others reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves.

What is even more amazing is the physiological link between giving and brain activity. In 2006 researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, looked into the brains of 19 volunteers who were choosing whether to give money to charity or keep it for themselves. The volunteers were each given $128 and told that they could donate anonymously to a wide range of nonprofits. Volunteers could either give away money that "cost" them nothing or make a donation that was subtracted from their $128 "pot."

Using magnetic resonance imaging, which maps the activity of different sections of the brain, researchers found that the part of the brain that was active during this experiment was the mesolimbic pathway, the "reward center" of the brain that provides the euphoria associated with sex, good food and what the Germans call "gemutlichkeit." In other words, making a financial contribution to a charity triggered the brain's pleasure centre.

Looking for happiness? You still have time. Why not make a donation to your favourite charity – you have until 30 June to benefit from a tax deduction as well. Not only will it make you feel great, it will help someone out too.

Charities, I encourage you to update your websites and post some interesting information on people (or causes) you are trying to help in our community.

Until next time, be happy!