Warm glow effect

What would you like for your birthday? The question is almost always met with, 'You don't have to give me anything.' Sometimes, the person you wish to give something to, has everything she needs and more.... In such cases, the best gift could be the gift of your time and/or a shared experience.

The elderly want nothing more than their children and/or grandchildren spend a day with them, eat meals together, chit-chat, doing anything at all, together - these are precious moments enriched with a lot of caring and love. With children busy with school, examinations and games, and adults caught up with their job demands, and the digital universe gaining dominance, they end up so strapped for time that they fail to make memories with their older family members and friends in real time.

Picnics at the beach, public garden or park, on a river bank or at any other nature destination are a great way of spending a lazy Sunday with family and friends - playing board games, eating, strolling, engaging in lively conversation or simply sit in comfortable silence, watching birds, the sky, flowers, trees, telling each other stories, laughing, napping....


These kind of life experiences and also the act of giving to strangers without nursing expectations nor seeking publicity, and being kind to one another, are all activities that are said to create what is now being called the 'warm-glow effect' that generates general well-being and feelings of joy and peace. It is also accepted that experiences that add to happy memories, make for far better gifts than material things.