29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life

29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life
by Cami Walker

29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life
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Book Summary Information

Author: Cami Walker
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-10-06
ISBN: 073821356X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books

Book Reviews of 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life

Book Review: This makes sense
Summary: 5 Stars

Cami Walker got an unusual prescription from a holistic health educator to treat her multiple sclerosis: Rx = "give a gift a day to someone else for 29 days." The gifts didn't need to be expensive: save a piece of cake for her new husband, make a phone call to support a friend, send an email complimenting a friend for an accomplishment, etc.

The Rx didn't cure her MS, of course, but Walker believes it helped her cope with fatigue, insomnia, pain and preoccupation with her disease. This practical, straight forward book explains how well it worked for her.

She writes: "My first reaction was that I thought it was an insane idea. But it has given me a more positive outlook on life. It's about stepping outside of your own story long enough to make a connection with someone else."

A recent Well blog in "The New York Times" describes a number of scientific studies that support the effect. "In one, a 2002 Boston College study, researchers found that patients with chronic pain fared better when they counseled other pain patients, experiencing less depression, intense pain and disability. Another study, at the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, Calif., also found a strong benefit to volunteerism, and after controlling for a number of variables, showed that elderly people who volunteered for more than four hours a week were 44 percent less likely to die during the study period."

Ironically, my wife received a copy of this book a few weeks ago from a friend who suffers from a variety of serious issues. She's been following the Rx for a few weeks, and she reports that she feels better, and certainly her gait and mental state has improved.

As a long term care giver for my wife, this little book makes a great deal of sense. I've been following a similar approach: each day I write down three things I'm grateful for. At first, they were big things; now even small pleasures appear on my list.

Gifting or remembering pleasures -- both have the same purpose -- putting one in a happier frame of mind. Getting outside of one's personal problems certainly makes us feel better and may help us improve our personal health as well.

What, after all, do you have to lose?

Robert C. Ross 2009

Summary of 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life

At age thirty-five, Cami Walker was burdened by a battle with multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological condition that made it difficult for her to walk, work, or enjoy her life. Seeking a remedy for her depression after being hospitalized, she received an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman:Give to others for 29 days.

29 Giftsis the insightful story of the author?s life change as she embraces and reflects on the naturally reciprocal process of giving and receiving. Many of Walker?s gifts were simple —a phone call, spare change, a Kleenex. Yet the acts were transformative. By Day 29, not only had Walker?s health and happiness improved, but she had created a worldwide giving movement.

The book also includes personal essays from others whose lives changed for the better by giving, plus pages for the reader to record their own journey. More than a memoir,29 Giftsoffers inspiring lessons on how a simple daily practice of altruism can dramatically alter your outlook on the world.

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