9 Best Tips to Be Happy
Happiness is your natural state of being, but it is often lost under all the stress and worry that we tend to accumulate every day.
I’ve compiled a list of the 9 best tips to be happy so that you can release some stress, worry and expectations about your life, and be left with more peace and happiness.
Finding lasting happiness will require a change in your beliefs and the way you view the world around you. It will also require you to drop your expectations about what you really want and need in life.
Easier said than done, right?
Even so, it’s easy to start and build a habit out of some of these best tips to be happy.
Best Tips To Be Happy
What is best is of course subjective, but that’s just the point.
Find the methods that work best for you, and then implement them to your daily routine.
I mentioned that happiness is your natural state of being. This might be a new way to view happiness but think about it for a moment.
When you were a baby, you did not need very much to be happy. When your basic needs were met, food, shelter, and being cared for, you were happy.
As you grew up, you learned that there are more things that you need if you want to be happy. Money, education, a big house, family etc.
You also learned to stress and worry, maybe even developed an anxiety disorder.
These are all things we have learned that prevent us from remembering that happiness is really our natural state.
So the trick to finding happiness is to unlearn what you have come to believe and uncover your true, innate, happiness.
So with that in mind, here we go. These are my 9 best tips to be happy.
1. Breathing Exercises
There are a plethora of these to be found, but relaxing and letting go of stress does not need to be more complicated than taking a few deep breaths.
Releasing stress is one of the best tips to be happy, since stress causes all sorts of physical and mental problems.
Sit comfortably or lie down.
1. Take a deep breath in through your nose.
As you breathe in, try to fill your lungs from the bottom up. Start all the way down from your lower abs, as if air flowed down there expanding that area. Imagine the air flowing to the middle abdominal area, then upper abs and diaphragm. As you keep drawing breath, expand the middle of your chest and then the top of your chest until your lungs are full.
2. Hold your breath for a few seconds.
3. Exhale through your mouth, pushing the air out with your muscles in reverse order as when breathing in. First your upper chest, then the middle. Then diaphragm and down through the abdominals.
As you exhale, at the same time imagine the stress leaving your body. Don’t worry about the details, just use your imagination: images, feelings, whatever you imagine stress leaving your body might look like. Anything that works for you, use it.
4. When your lungs are empty, relax your whole body. Let every muscle loose. Pay close attention to the muscles in your face, since they tend to get tight during the day.
5. Hold your breath for a few seconds, whatever feels comfortable, and then repeat the process.
Bonus tip: for extra effect, time your breathing so, that inhaling, holding, exhaling, and holding again, all take the same amount of time. For example, count slowly in your mind to five as you inhale, then count to five as you hold your breath, count again to five while exhaling, and count to five while your lungs are empty before you inhale again.
2. Tapping
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or ‘tapping’ as it is more commonly known, is one of my all-time favourite methods of releasing stress and feeling happy.
It might even be the best tip to be happy that I have for you.
Why is it called tapping? Well, it is a method where you tap specific points on your body with your fingers. This supposedly relaxes the central nervous system, but whatever the mechanism behind it, it seems to be working very effectively.
Tapping is very easy and quick to learn. Just watch the instruction video and you are ready to go. There’s even a handy app for your phone to help you get going.
You can use tapping for many other things as well, but the stress releasing exercise is quick and easy to do. It works wonders and has helped me during my most stressful times.
Best of all, it’s free.
(If you use the app, some of the content is available through subscription only, but the stress release exercise is free. I am not affiliated with the tapping solution, I just sincerely recommend it since it has worked wonders for me).
3. Do Something That Makes You Laugh
You’ve probably heard a million times that laughter is the best medicine. But have you actually tried it? When was the last time you laughed out loud?
This is probably the least utilized of these 9 best tips to be happy.
Do you remember one of those times when you laughed so hard that you could barely breathe and maybe even had to drop and roll on the floor?
You might have been a kid when it last happened, but still, I bet you remember one of those times. In those moments, you cannot absolutely think about your problems or troubles.
Even the stress melts away for that moment and you are overcome with a warm feeling of pure joy and happiness.
So laughing out loud is a good way to get the positive vibes to spread throughout your body and mind.
How to make yourself laugh? You know the answer to that question better than I do. But what you should do is forget about your ‘dignity’ for a while. Allow yourself to laugh. Not just smile, but laugh out loud.
Here are my favorite things to do when I need a good laugh:
- Watch a funny video. It could be about cats or someone’s stand-up comedy act. Doesn’t matter. The sillier the video, the more likely I’ll laugh. It could be something I’ve seen a million times that always makes me laugh or something that’s just come up. Browse your YouTube feed, I bet there’s something funny there. Pro tip: can’t go wrong with Monty Python (works for me anyway).
- Have a chat with one of my good friends. Hopefully, we all have a friend or two who can make us laugh. That’s what friends are for.
- Read a comic. This could just be the strips in today’s newspaper. There’s bound to be something stupid enough to induce a laughing reaction.
- Make someone else laugh. This comes quite naturally to me, don’t know if it’s the way I look or what. But when you make someone else laugh, you will find it quite hard to not laugh yourself. Laughing is contagious even more so than yawning.
4. Listen To Your Favorite Music
There’s no doubt that music can evoke strong feelings in us. Each of us surely has had times when music has made us laugh, cry, feel energised, give us strength and so on. There’s even a sub-genre in electronic music called “uplifting”, which quite well describes the feeling its listeners are after.
We might get goosebumps, which is a pretty clear physical reaction to indicate that music affects us. Movies utilize music to make us feel a certain way during a scene. Artists use music to get in a creative mood, athletes listen to music to get to a winning state of mind.
In the same way, you can use music to start feeling happy.
- Put on your favorite artist or playlist. Crank up the volume. Music is transmitted from the speakers to your ears through vibrations in the air. Quite literally, music will affect the “vibes” in the room you are in.
- There are no rules here about what music you should listen to. It can be classical, pop, country, heavy metal, you name it. The most important thing is that you like the music and it makes you feel good and energized.
- For extra effect, move your body to the music. Dance. This will further feed the good feeling that’s starting to emerge in your body. Remember what I said about ‘dignity’? Yeah, forget your so-called dignity for a while and just flail around mindlessly to the music. It works.
5. Try out your mind-body connection: force a smile, you’ll start to feel good
Speaking of body and moving, try out your mind-body connection. Your mind and body are inseparable and one has a profound effect on the other. You may notice this for example when you are feeling down, your body feels weak and powerless. Or after a good workout, you will feel less stressed out and in a good mood.
Then there’s the placebo effect (and nocebo), where your mind ‘tricks’ your body to start working beneficially for you. E.g. if you think that you’ve had medicine to treat your illness, your body starts healing itself based on that thought. For happiness, reverse the process. Use your body to ‘trick’ the mind to feel good. This can work out in various ways:
- Try working out. Go jogging or to the gym. It doesn’t even have to be that hard or that long of a workout to start making you feel good.
- Try smiling. Force a smile if you have to. Keep the smile on your face for as long as you can. You will notice that your mind starts to react positively to what your body is doing
- Combine the two. Work out and put a smile on your face (and see how other people react to you)
- Combine these tips with the ones before. Listen to your favorite music while working out and forcing a smile.
As for the best tips to be happy, here’s a special one: You can tell your mind that you are happy and want to feel happy. Acknowledge your negative thoughts, then tell your mind “thank you for sharing this, but I choose to be happy”. Then tell yourself “I am happy” or if that feels like lying, try “every moment I am getting happier and happier”.
Essentially “fake it ’til you make it” except try saying things that don’t feel like lying or faking, like “I’m already feeling a bit happier, my happiness will increase more in a moment”. Try things out, and see what works for you.
6. Go Out For A Walk
Walking is a good form of exercise despite what you may think. But most importantly, it is good for the mind. There’s a reason why philosophers in ancient Greece went out for walks and came up with brilliant concepts.
There’s just something about walking that makes your thoughts flow freely not to mention that getting out of your house will increase the stimulus for all of your senses, making it harder for you to stay concentrated on what might worry you at the moment.
It can almost feel like being hypnotized. There’s not much conscious effort needed to move your legs in front of one another, so you will start to “space out”.
Your mind runs free, grasping on to passing thoughts, chaining one thought after another until you find yourself wondering: what was my original thought (And where even am I)? If nothing else, it’s a good distraction from your day to day worries.
But it can be so much more than just a mere distraction. Again, engaging the body in movement releases hormones that reduce stress, allowing you to feel happier.
You can also find, that instead of letting the mind run wild, you can focus on a certain problem you are facing and let your thoughts flow on it. You might find yourself solving a problem you’ve been having just by thinking about it as you walk.
- If possible, go outdoors. I love the sea and walking on it’s shore makes me always feel happy and at peace. Forest is another good place to go for a walk. There’s this almost mystical connection between us humans and the deep woods, so it will likely make you feel good.
- Try being mindful. No matter where you are walking, concentrate on the sensations in your body. What do you feel? Start from your toes and work your way up to the top of your head. Concentrate your attention into your body instead of grasping on to what’s going on around you. Work with your other senses as well. What do you smell? What sounds do you hear?
Here are the best tips to be happy while walking: If you find running water, stare at it for a while. Running water has a tendency to grab our undivided attention. Stare at the flow of the water. Let your mind run free. Imagine your stress being carried away by the flow of the water.
If you are at a campsite or cottage, or you have a fireplace at home, start a fire and stare at the flames. Fire has the same captivating effect as running water. Imagine (or you can actually do this) writing your sources of stress and worry on a piece of paper and throwing it in the fire. Visualize the flames burning the stress away.
Walking can also be a form of meditation, which brings us neatly to the next tip.
7. Meditate
Meditation has been scientifically shown to have many benefits. You can use it to lower stress, train your mind to focus on the positive or even learn to be aware and control your feelings.
You can also use meditation to make you feel happier. If you already know how to meditate, try to apply this technique to your routine. If you are a beginner, I suggest you start here.
For those who just want to jump right into it, here’s a quick meditation routine for happiness
- Sit comfortably (on the floor, pillow, chair, sofa) with your back straight but muscles as relaxed as possible
- Pull your shoulders back and push your chest out slightly
- Close your eyes
- Take a deep breath through your nose, hold your breath for a few seconds and exhale through your mouth. Do this three times.
- Think about something or someone in your life that makes you happy. It could be your child, spouse, pet or something happy that happened to you at a wedding, going on a date, birth of a child.
- FEEL the happiness associated with what you thought of. Keep that person or event in your mind and let the feeling of happiness fill every cell of your body from the tip of your toes to the top of your head.
- Be with the feeling of happiness but let go of the thought associated with it.
- Keep feeling the happiness as long as you like or can. Even 5 to 15 minutes is enough to boost your mood for the rest of the day.
- When you are done, slowly open your eyes and take a deep breath.
8.Engage In Your Hobby
Is there something you like to do more than anything? Do you sing, paint, play an instrument, build miniatures, read, jog, play tennis or anything else? It is relaxing for the mind to do something you enjoy doing.
Find something that you want to do and do it just for yourself.
If possible, but at least an hour into your hobby, anything less will also do in a pinch.
9. Give A Gift To Someone
Now here’s a controversial tip to be happy. How would it make me happy if I spend my hard-earned money on someone else!?
As it turns out, there are interesting studies that show, that giving to others is deeply connected to your happiness. Spending money on someone else will most likely make you happier than spending the money on yourself (not always of course, but most of the time when your basic needs are met).
Who would have thought?
Check out the study:
“The benefits of prosocial spending are evident in givers old and young in countries around the world, and extend not only to subjective well-being but objective health. Despite people’s intuitions and inclinations to the contrary, one of the best ways to get the biggest payoff personally from a windfall of $20 is to spend it prosocially.”
You can start small. For example, as mentioned in the linked article, take your friend to Starbucks and buy them a coffee.
Bonus Tip 1: Nothing Stays Forever
There you have it. The 9 best tips to be happy.
For extra happiness, here are 3 bonus tips.
Remember that nothing stays forever – not even the bad times. If you feel down, sad or depressed, it might help to remind yourself that this will not be the case forever:
The only constant in the universe is change. Everything changes all the time. In fact, there is no such thing as time. It is just an illusion (from our human perspective at least) created by the distances between places. There is a “here” and “there” and it takes some “time” to move between here and there. But the reality is that time is not moving, everything is changing and you experience the change as the passing of time.
Your “bad times” will not last forever, things will change.
Bonus Tip 2: Make it your intention to be happy
If you’ve tried meditation you may have noticed that with practice, you can choose how you feel. Apply this idea to your everyday life. Choose to be happy regardless of what’s going on around you. Here are some ideas you can try: They may seem silly, but they are just methods for building a new habit – a habit of thinking happy thoughts.
- Mark happiness in your calendar. Today from 13-14 I am happy
- Write it on your to-do list: Be happy now
- Make a notification to your phone and set an alarm for a time when can be disturbed: Remember to be happy
- Put post-it notes around your house, or use a water-soluble marker to write this on your mirror: I am happy
- Make it your desktop background: I choose to be happy
The more you see these reminders, the more you remember to try and be happier, and eventually, you will start to feel happier more often. It takes somewhere around three weeks for your brain to establish new neural pathways and form a new habit. Try this out, it could help you rewire your mind to be happier.
Bonus Tip 3: What You Give To Others You Give To Yourself
Here’s some wisdom for the more spiritual ones:
If you want to be happy, try making someone else happy.
You cannot give what you don’t have, so if you make someone else happy, that means that you also must be happy. What you give to someone else, you give to yourself.
Conclusion
I know how difficult it is to try and be happy with all the stress and worry we have in our lives. But trying some, or even just one, of these tips regularly, might make a difference in your overall levels of joy, peace and happiness.
You cannot control the world around you, but you can control how you feel about it.
Give any of these best tips to be happy a try and see what works for you. You might notice, that happiness is something you can choose despite the circumstances around you.
Disclaimer
The entire contents of this blog are based upon the opinions of the author. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The information in this blog is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care professional before trying any of the products or methods based on this content. I cannot guarantee that you will be free of stress, anxiety or depression, or that you will be happy. I simply want to share with you what I have discovered during my twenty years of seeking happiness and what has worked for me may not work for you.
