10 Days of Happiness: Daily practices for joy & wellbeing

As humans, we all share a basic psychological need to connect with others. This happens right from birth, when babies instinctively attach to and create an emotional bond with their caregivers.

People who have better social relationships tend not only to be happier, but physically healthier too. Relationship skills that help when connecting with others include being able to communicate your needs and feelings, being open and vulnerable, being empathetic and supportive, and telling others that we appreciate them.

Having more positive than negative interactions with others is correlated with both happiness and relationship success. Positive interactions include things like praise, support and encouragement, whereas negative interactions might include arguing or criticism. Research suggests that the magic number for success in romantic relationships is 5:1 – meaning five positive interactions for every negative interaction.

Your task for today is to make a positive connection with someone you care about. This doesn’t have to be a romantic partner – it can be absolutely anyone! It could be as simple as texting a friend to ask how they’re doing, or you could try writing a letter to someone to tell them how much they mean to you.

I hope you enjoy having a positive interaction today. See you again tomorrow for more happiness!

We often think being happy means being in a good mood or feeling joyful, but happiness – in terms of positive psychology – is about a much wider and more overall sense of wellbeing, contentment and flourishing.

Happiness isn’t just about being in a good mood or having positive emotions, because negative emotions are a normal part of life and pushing them away isn’t usually very helpful. But having positive emotions certainly is part of the bigger picture of what makes a life meaningful and happy. Doing activities that bring joy also top-up your brain with happiness chemicals such as endorphins and serotonin.

So today’s task is to do something that gives a sense of pleasure or joy. This can be absolutely anything – such as watching a film, speaking to a friend, having a relaxing bath, or taking a walk. You can take things further by doing a joyful activity that gives a sense of achievement (such as reading a book or doing some yoga), as achievements also tend to boost feelings of happiness and wellbeing.

Have a joyful day, and see you again tomorrow for more happiness!

There’s a famous John Lennon quote that says “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day life and worries, rather than considering what’s actually meaningful and where we really want to spend our time and energy.

Happiness is generally considered to have two main components: hedonia, which is about positive emotions and joy; and eudaimonia, an overall feeling of thriving and contentment. Tuning into what’s meaningful fits in with eudaimonia, as it means we can live a satisfying life that’s in-line with our values.

The great thing about meaning and purpose is that it’s not one-size-fits-all. What gives you meaning may be very different to what gives meaning to someone else – the key thing is to focus on what’s important to you and make this a priority.

Today’s task is to imagine yourself many years from now. Imagine you're looking back and reflecting on your life as a whole – including your relationships, work, achievements, joys and worries. What advice would your future self give? What would they say to you now about how to live a meaningful and happy life?

See you again tomorrow for more happiness!

Mindfulness is all about being present in the moment. It means being fully aware of what’s going on right now, rather than getting lost in our thoughts.

By practising mindfulness, we can train and rewire our brains to focus our attention where we choose. This means we can feel more in control, enjoy the present moment (without getting lost in the past or future), and fully engage with life and others around us.

We often have an image of mindfulness as someone sitting in lotus position and meditating. But mindfulness doesn’t have to look like that – it can be as simple as taking a moment to notice your breath while you’re waiting at traffic lights, or taking a mindful couple of minutes while you're eating a meal.

Today. we’re going to do a one-minute mindfulness practice together - just follow along with the video. If you want to get more mindfulness during the day, simply tune into your breath at any moment.

Have a great, mindful day, and see you again tomorrow for more happiness!

Positive thinking doesn't mean pretending that everything's brilliant or not allowing ourselves to have real feelings. It's about realising that just because we have a thought in our head doesn’t mean it’s true or we have to listen to it.

We often believe our thoughts and the way we’re seeing the world is accurate, but we actually have all kinds of shortcuts in our brains, and these can cause problems to our wellbeing and happiness.

For example, we have a negativity bias (as mentioned in a previous video), meaning we tend to focus more on the negative than the positive. We also often make assumptions and expect things to be the same as our previous experiences.

In practice, this means we can end up spend a lot of energy predicting the future and believing our predictions are accurate. We often tend to imagine bad future outcomes, rather than considering what a positive or neutral outcome might look like.

Today’s task is to imagine your thoughts as a story you're telling in your head. What would it be like if you told a different type of story, with a different ending, instead? How would this affect how you feel about yourself and your life right now?

If you want to deepen your experience further, you can try writing down your thoughts as a story on paper, or you could write a journal entry reflecting on how it felt to do today's exercise.

I hope you enjoy today's task. See you again tomorrow for more happiness!

Research shows that people who use their strengths in day-to-day life are happier, more confident, more resilient and more optimistic. Whilst people usually think about using strengths in terms of work, we can also use strengths in lots of different situations, such as relationships, life challenges, and parenting.

We tend to focus more on our weaknesses than our strengths. Whilst looking at (and improving) your weaknesses can be valuable, it’s also important to appreciate what you’re good at and use these skills and talents effectively.

Today’s task is to tune into your strengths. Take some time to think about what you’re good at – ideally qualities that can be applied across different situations, such as having a sense of humour, being caring, being curious or taking responsibility. Try to find three personal strengths, and think about how each of these might be beneficial and positive in your life.

If you want to further the task, choose one of your strengths and find a way to apply it to a difficult situation that comes up during the day. This doesn’t have to be a big difficulty – you can apply your strength to any small challenges, such as getting caught outside in the rain, ending up in a long queue in the supermarket, or having a disagreement with your partner.

Enjoy tuning into your strengths, and see you again tomorrow!

Today is about accepting and making friends with our emotions. This is important because we usually try to push negative feelings away, and scientific studies show that this tends to have the opposite effect, making our negative emotions both feel worse and last longer.

We're often taught as children that we have to smile, be positive and 'put on a brave face'. But negative emotions are totally normal and healthy – having a whole rainbow of emotions is a sign of a well-lived life.

Negative feelings can even be thought-of as messengers, as they can help us understand ourselves and the situation we’re in. For example, fear might alert us to danger, or anger might help us fight injustice.

Today’s task is to notice when you have a negative feeling, acknowledge that it’s there and accept it exactly as is. Allow the feeling to be present, even though it's unpleasant; remember that it will pass, and try not to push it away. Extra happy points (!) if you’re able to think about whether the emotion is conveying a deeper message and how you could respond to this.

Have a great day accepting your emotions. See you again tomorrow!

There are two aspects to kindness – doing kind things for others and being kind to ourselves. Whilst both are hugely important, today we're focusing on kindness towards others, as studies have shown that there are huge benefits in doing this.

Firstly, it can help take our minds off our own worries and difficulties. Secondly, being kind causes dopamine and oxytocin to be released in the brain, which are happy chemicals that boost mood. Thirdly, kindness increases our confidence and reduces stress. And fourthly, there are even physical benefits – as kindness has been shown to improve heart function and slow down ageing!

The important thing about kindness is that it doesn’t have to be big or financial. There are hundreds of ways to be kind that are free and fit in easily with our normal lives – such as giving kind words, paying full attention to others, or sharing our knowledge and expertise.

Your task for today is to do something kind for someone else. As always, this can be absolutely anything depending on what appeals to you. For example, you could pay for a cup of coffee for someone else, you could text a friend to tell them something nice, or you could smile at a stranger.

If you want to deepen your kindness practice and have the time, you could also explore regular volunteer opportunities in your community. Research shows that people who volunteer regularly are less likely to experience depression and anxiety, and generally feel more positive and hopeful.

Have a wonderful, kind day! See you again tomorrow for more happiness.

If you think of yourself and your body as like a battery, self-care means charging up so you can function fully and you’re not running on empty. It means taking care of both your emotional and physical health so that you can live well, enjoy your daily activities, and manage any challenges that come your way.

A key misconception is that self-care is selfish, but it really isn’t. If you don’t look after yourself, you can’t look after anyone else and you’re more likely to get unwell with both physical and mental health problems. So actually by prioritising yourself and doing self-care, you’re helping to stay well and ensure you can do a good job as a parent, friend, worker, neighbour and any other roles you hold.

For today’s task, we’re using the stress bucket model. Imagine there’s a bucket that you’re carrying around, that gets filled up as you experience different types of stress and challenge. Of course, the more stress you experience, the more full and heavy your bucket gets. But the good news is that there are little holes at the bottom of the bucket, which help the stress drain out and lighten the load – these holes are your self-care activities.

Have a think about what self-care activities you can do to release the pressure in your stress bucket. We often think of self-care as having bubble baths with candles, but it can be anything that helps you feel good and recharge your battery, like calling a friend, going for a walk, watching a film or having an early night. Choose one self-care activity and make a commitment to do it today. You deserve it!

If you can think of a few self-care ideas, you might want to write these down, so you'll have a list to return to when your stress bucket is getting full. Even better if you can make a regular commitment to self-care, and aim to do 5-10 minutes every day.