Kathleen Hillers posted this on a website called The Intention Experiment:

I just read a book called 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker. The author of the book has ms and was seeking natural healing. She was told by a “wise woman” from South Africa that if she gave a gift everyday for the next 29 days that it would have a healing effect in more ways than one. It’s a great bookbut if you don’t want to read itstart giving a gift everyday and make a journal of every gift you give and the circumstances involved. If you miss a dayyou have to start over because you have to keep the flow of giving constant. The gifts do not have to be materialistic. You can give some one a phone calla rideencouragementwhatever. I just started doing this on Feb 1st and my life is already getting better. The day before I startedI was in a panic. I couldn’t sleepand I was completely broke . The day I startedi actually started feeling much betterand things are already looking up.

Regression to the meanmaybe. But maybe not. The idea has some plausibility: The Chinese character that means “happy” is a combination of a character that means “owe” and a character that means “again”.