The Happiness Museum - What makes us happy?

On a trip to Copenhagen at the beginning of the year I visited the Happiness Museum. Set up by the Happiness Research Institute which is a research centre focusing on wellbeing, happiness and quality of life. Meik Wiking founded the institute in 2013 and is also a New York Times and Sunday Times best selling author. He's been on my radar for several years because I have enjoyed many of his books and have recommended some of them in the past (I've shared them at the bottom of this article). All of his work centres around how and why Denmark is regarded as the happiest nation in the world and how we can try to replicate this in our own lives. I was really interested to visit the museum and understand more about why Danes seem to be the happiest people. Here's what I learnt:

Most of us know that our day to day happiness is influenced by lots of things including our environment. Let's start with Hygge which is front and centre in Scandinavian life. What is it? Well, the best way that I can describe it is how we create a warm, welcoming atmosphere full of comfort and feel good experiences. It's about being with people we love, feeling safe and relaxed. Where we can make the most of what we have. It's celebrating the small things rather than the big things in our lives.

"Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom"

American Philosopher Benjamin Franklin

So what do Danes associate with hygge? The museum displayed a list of the most popular. Here's the top ten:

Hot drinks

Candles

Fireplaces

Christmas

Boardgames

Music

Holidays

Sweets/Cake

Cooking

Books

All of these top up our happiness levels. Hygge definitely resonates with me. When I think about my own home I have been subconsciously creating an environment conducive to comfort, warmth, safety and relaxation for years. I really should be Scandinavian!!

Acts of kindness are also known to positively influence our mood. I loved this saying which was displayed in the museum:

"The cool thing about happiness is that it doesn't become smaller by being shared.

It's happiness, not pie."

Never a truer word said. Think about how we feel when someone we don't know smiles at us, or a fellow driver lets us out into the road. We're much more likely to smile back, smile at another person or be compassionate to the next driver in need whilst getting that warm fuzzy feeling inside our gut. There is a domino effect.

Happiest memories

One area that I absolutely loved in the museum was about our happiest memories. Visitors are encouraged to share on a post-it note a memory that epitomises happiness. It was impossible to read them all but the ones I did read were so simple and positive. There was one that really stood out which I took a photo of because I wanted to remember it. It details a girls memory of her mums coffee cafetière and how, when she moved away from home, her mum gave it to her. She didn't like coffee to begin with but grew to love the taste and even began to carve out a coffee making ritual every morning which she looked forward to. This reminded her of her mum. So simple, but so heartwarming. It really is the small things we should focus on when it comes to happiness and joy.

Where do we feel happiest?

As we know, being out in nature is so good for our contentment and pleasure. The London School of Economics 'Mappiness Team' conducted a study to track happiness. Participants in the study were contacted via their phone at least once a day and asked about their happiness. They were also asked who they were with, what they were doing and where they were. They had more than three million responses. This study backed up how our environment effects our happiness. Being at home was the original point of comparison. Unsurprisingly birdwatching or any sort of nature watching, walking and hiking increased happiness. As did being with a partner or friends. Sadly, the individuals in the study were most unhappy at work. This is where many of us spend a large chunk of our time. So there's still a lot to work to do in this area of our lives in order to feel fulfilled and happy. The Nordic countries have some of the best balances between work and family life.

Those walks in nature are doing us good!

Politics

Politics also influences our happiness. I found it really interesting reading about another study that featured at the museum. The London School of Economics conducted it in the UK where participants were asked on a daily basis how they felt and how happy they were. In 2016 the happiest day in the UK was Christmas Day. But the unhappiest day was 9th November. You might not recall why this day was so significant. It was the day we learnt that Donald Trump had been elected as US President. This was actually the unhappiest day ever measured since the study started in 2010!

Natural light

The reoccurring theme throughout the museum was the unparalleled significance of nature and daylight on our happiness. This was illustrated with a study on SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) which is sometimes known as winter depression and the effect of light exposure on patients moods. In the winter months less serotonin is produced in our bodies. Serotonin has a positive impact on our mood. It's essential to our happiness. At the same time, more melatonin is produced to regulate our sleep and ensure we feel tired at bed time. We need these hormones to work in unison in order to feel balanced. Light therapy is sometimes used as a treatment for SAD. Thirty minutes of intense artificial light for a couple of weeks is often recommended. The main hospital in Copenhagen, Rigshospitalet, recently found that patients with depression placed in rooms with windows facing north west, which had less light, spent an average of fifty nine days in hospital before being discharged. Compared to an average of twenty nine days for patients placed in south east facing sunny rooms. Hospitals are now doing experiments with 'dynamic light' that the brain interprets as natural light to further see how this can benefit patients with depression.

Emoticons & emojis

I didn't expect to see emojis and studies into how they connect with our happiness levels. Emoticons (a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters i.e. punctuation marks, letters and numbers) and emojis (a small digital image or icon) communicate tone or emotions in text messages or emails. They can effect our mood positively and negatively. Harvard Business School carried out a study that concluded that those of us who use many and diverse emojis (positive and negative meanings) experience greater joy during digital conversations. I found it interesting to know that the first emoticon was in 1982 - :-). and :-( to indicate humorous posts and more serious posts on a message board by American computer scientist Scott E Fahlman. Emojis have been around since 1999. Designed by Shigetaka Kuritaan, an Interface designer at NTT DOCOMO, a Japanese mobile phone company. The term 'emoji' comes from the Japanese 'e' meaning picture and 'moji' meaning character. The 'face with tears of joy' emoji was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2015! This is my most used emoji!

Converting Wealth into Wellbeing

It was illustrated that the richer countries, on average, are happier. But some are better at converting their wealth into wellbeing by investing in their collective infrastructure enabling citizens to collectively thrive socially, physically and mentally. The United States is the18th richest country in the world with a GDP per capita higher than Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland. But the US reports lower levels of happiness than all of the Nordic countries. So while it seems like money matters, it isn't all that matters. It's not all about the amount of money we make but what we do with it that really has a positive impact.

What's also really interesting is the correlation between trust and wellbeing. Research shows that Nordic countries enjoy high levels of trust. That there is a link between levels of happiness and levels of trust in society. A study of people who trust their neighbours as well as their government and public services are on average happier.

Taxes

This was super interesting to me. The idea that paying high taxes can equate happiness. Contributing to the collective good. People living in Denmark pay on average 50% tax on their income. You might think this is a bad thing. However, 88% say they happily pay their taxes, the highest in the world. Happy because of these taxes, not despite them. Healthcare is free for all and so is care for the elderly. There are no tuition fees for schools or universities. Also, every citizen is entitled to economic support if out of a job, just to name a few benefits.

This section of the museum talked about the societal understanding of the link between the good life and the common good. For example, everyone you know and love will be supported in their time of need and this is much more important than individual wealth. So it seems that 88% of people living in Denmark are happy to pay their taxes, collectively investing in quality of life. ! I don't know if you agree but this seems like a refreshing take on society.

My overall take away

The main thing I took away from visiting this museum was how we should all be looking out for and looking after each other rather than just ourselves as individuals. Spending time with our loved ones, outside in nature, cultivating a warm inviting home and appreciating the small things contribute to our overall happiness.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Thanks for reading x

Meik Wiking books:

The Little Book of Hygge - The Danish way to live well

My Hygge Home - How to make home your happy place

The Little book of Lykke - The Danish search for the world's happiest people

The Art of Making Memories - How to create and remember happy memories

The Art of Danish Living - How to find happiness in and out of work