I have been delighted to write this column for Gulf News for the past eight years, but as this week’s one is to be my last, I thought I would address the issue of ‘the art of giving’ for my last contribution.

It is important to note that giving is not necessarily in the form of money. It can be giving your time volunteering for a charity, giving your energy to a campaign or even giving your time to read this column.

Giving makes you feel happy: When you give something of yourself or your time, you experience the pleasure of social connection with others. Such altruistic behaviour releases endorphins in the brain that produces positive feelings, which some call a ‘helper’s high’ and this ‘warm glow’ can stay with you for a long time.

Helping others at work can boost your own feeling of fulfilment and encourage others to emulate your example. Giving has also been linked to the release of oxytocin, a hormone that induces in you feelings of warmth and connection with others.

Giving is good for your health: Research has shown that people who provide social support to others have lower blood pressure than those who only help themselves, thus suggesting a physiological benefit.

Giving promotes co-operation and cements social connections: When you give, you’re more likely to receive something back. Your generosity is often rewarded by others ‘down the line’, sometimes by the person who received your help and sometimes by someone else.

These inter-personal exchanges promote a sense of trust and co-operation that strengthens our ties to others — and it is known that having positive social interactions is central to promoting good mental and physical health.

Giving is contagious: When we give, we not only help the immediate recipient of our gift. We also promote a ripple effect of generosity through our community. When one person behaves generously, it inspires others to do the same.

Each person in a network can influence hundreds of people, some who are known to them and others being links in a chain that may be in another sphere or even another country.

Giving can help promote you to be a role model: Generosity is, of course, one of the key factors for a happy relationship as individuals are more content within themselves when they are an integral part of a partnership, whether in business or as part of the social fabric of their community. Such people often become role models to their children as they observe their parents’ behaviour during the formative years.

Giving often gives more satisfaction than receiving: Thinking about those times you have given a bit of yourself imbues you with a feeling of selflessness compared with those times when you have been the recipient. In other words, thinking about those occasions when you have been of assistance will encourage you to want to give help again. What can be better than that?

Giving is beneficial for the greater good: Generosity trumps selfishness when it comes to personal satisfaction and happiness. So whether you buy gifts, volunteer your time or donate money to charity, your giving is much more than just a task to tick-off of your to-do list. It may help you build stronger social connections and even jump-start a cascade of generosity through your community.

And don’t be surprised if you find yourself benefiting from a large dose of happiness in the process.

So my gift to you, as a reader, is my personal thanks and appreciation. Thank you for reading this column and for your many emails and comments.

For you to have shared your time with me, and vice-versa, has, I am sure been beneficial to us both.

I hope that some of the issues that I have written about have been of relevance to you and highlighted situations in the workplace that you can improve to achieve personal satisfaction, better working conditions, a healthier work-life balance and the maintenance of a competitive advantage for your organisation.

I wish you well.

Key points

* Giving affords more satisfaction to the giver than to the recipient.

* Generosity will always trump selfishness.

* Helping others simply makes you feel good.

The writer is CEO of an international stress management consultancy and author of Show Stress Who’s Boss!