Volunteering to help others, like this father and daughter painting a house, is becoming a popular New Year's resolution.

Nearly half of all Americans start the year off with a list of New Year's resolutions that take everything from their health to their wealth into account.

According to a recent government survey, the three top resolutions included losing weight, paying off debt and finding a better job. But there's another resolution inching its way to the top of America's annual "to do" list: volunteering to help others.

Michigan psychologist Dr. Jim Longhurst says the big surprise isn't that people want to help others. It's the surprising scientific evidence showing that when you do reach out and help someone else it does as much for your own health and well-being as it does for those you're helping.

"That warm glow you get when you do a good deed is real," says Longhurst, citing studies that indicate a significant increase of activity in the "reward center" of the human brain when a person is performing or involved in a charitable act.

"People are born into the world with brains that are tuned for such things as generosity, altruism, and empathy for others," he says. "Our species could not have survived these past thousands of years without these very characteristics."

As head clinical psychologist for a nationally recognized organization for struggling and at-risk teens, Longhurst has a special interest in the topic.

He attributes much of Starr Commonwealth's 85 percent success rate to the treatment program's "service learning" component.

"It touches something deep and fundamental inside when you see that you have really helped someone," says Longhurst.

That's particularly true for children who have been in and out of trouble for most of their lives.

"When a child who has always been labeled a 'problem' suddenly finds himself a 'solution,' the results can be powerful."

After a devastating tornado hit near Starr's Van Wert, Ohio, campus last year, a group of Starr students showed up at a neighboring farm to help the family clear away the mountain of debris on their property.

"These kids, some of them tough, urban kids who've never seen real grass or trees, worked like crazy, shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors," says the Starr treatment team professional who accompanied the teens. "They could see they were really making a difference and were totally blown away by how grateful the community was."

Longhurst believes it's this kind of self-affirming treatment approach, along with a consistent focus on identifying and building on a child's strengths, that makes Starr's program more effective than boot camp-style programs.

"Lasting change starts on the inside," he says. "Science is also showing, through advanced imaging techniques, that when our brains are stimulated sufficiently, they can structurally change, regardless of our age. Neural pathways, once absent or weak, can develop and be strengthened."