How to Have Your Happiest Year Ever

The secret to happiness turns out to be notso-secret. Family. Relationships, love, human connection - that’s basically it! So here are some quirky and fun tips taken from the science of positive psychology that will help your family towards the happiest year yet!

Get Huggy

Over the festive season, chances are, you will have been giving and receiving more hugs than usual. So why not continue the hugging habit all year and use this scientific fact that might just change your life: apparently, the average hug lasts 2.1 seconds. However, for the love to really transfer a hug has to last 7 seconds or longer. So a top hugging tip is to treat the ones you love to the full 7 seconds that really says “I love you.” Everyone wins. Hugging releases oxytocin (a happy chemical) in you and the one you’re hugging.

Be a Hygge Spotter

The Danes have a word – hygee (pronounced ‘hooga’) – that has no direct translation in English. The closest I can give you is ‘comfort.’ For me hoo-ga is sitting by an open fire, drinking hot chocolate, while a storm rages outside. Work out what your hoo-ga moments are, and then get good at spotting them, all year round. This is linked with mindfulness and improves your happiness by enabling you to better appreciate more wonderful moments.

A Year of Experiences

Get everyone in your family to write an early Christmas list for December 2019. The exact question is this: What 20 things would you would like for Christmas? That aren’t things. Share the ideas and schedule them to actually happen (where you can) in 2019.

Play

As we grow up, we get weighed down with responsibilities and life can lose its lustre. Stop seeing yourself as a ‘responsible adult’ and start being an ‘inspirational adult.’ Rewind to when you were age 6, a time when everything was new and exciting. Start jumping in puddles and playing on the swings… Your children will love it!

Celebrate What Hasn’t Happened

Have you ever asked yourself, what hasn’t happened that I didn’t want that I haven’t celebrated?

Sadly, unless you’re a black belt happiness ninja your children don’t sit in a maths lesson thinking how lucky they are to have a nice school and a wonderful teacher. They curse because they have to remember stuff. And when you’re stuck in traffic you don’t sit there marvelling at the sunglasses compartment and cup holders, you mutter and swear under your breath at the delay.

The opposite of savouring good experiences is to notice the many things that could have gone badly, but didn’t. Of course, it’s hard to notice something that didn’t happen. But it’s helpful to sometimes switch your thinking to all the bad things that could have happened, but didn’t. And then celebrating the positive result. Share it with your children and get them to think of examples. The chances are theirs will be much more creative than yours!

Dr Andy Cope is a positive psychologist and bestselling author. His latest book Diary of a Brilliant Kid is available now on Amazon.

For more information, visit www.artofbrilliance.co.uk