Denmark has just been voted the happiest country in the world again, no surprise there really, as it’s won the honour for the last 40 years! If you need a little extra happiness in your life too then there’s a lovely real parent hack we should take from this country of contentment. It’s called the ‘hygge’ (pronounced hooga) and it basically means ‘to have cosy time together’.
Danish families have hygge time as a regular activity because it’s ingrained into their family culture. Think ‘we-time’ not ‘me-time’. Think cosying up together with fairy lights twinkling, hot chocolate and lying on beanbags chatting about your day. Think sitting out in the garden with rugs over your knees, watching the stars. Hygge is about feeling the cosiness, and it’s not hard to see how, if this is part of your everyday family life, it can make you happier.
In Denmark, children are brought up to know the rules of hygge: to work as a team, to cherish it. In a way, it’s a very simple concept: making and taking time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life, cosied up with our loved ones. But in our busy lives here in the UK, it’s something we often neglect. It’s certainly not ingrained as part of our way of life. If anything, our cuture is to work long hours, cram the days and weeks with more and more things to do and think about, making very little time to stop and enjoy some ‘hygge’. So be sure to take some time to hygge today!
