8 Small Habits to Be Happier, Backed by Research

If you’re wondering how to be happier, studies point to small things you do on purpose: writing down three good things at night, talking to people, doing something kind, spending time outdoors and using social media less. None of these habits makes you happy on command, but each one was linked to better mood or well-being in a published study. Here are eight of them, with what each study found and a simple way to try it this week.

Can you make yourself happier?

You can change how happy you feel, at least a little. In a 2005 paper, psychologists Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon and David Schkade proposed that your usual level of happiness depends on three things: a set point that’s partly genetic, your circumstances, like income or where you live, and the activities you choose. They argued that activities give you the best chance of a lasting change, because people get used to new circumstances after a while.

The habits below are all activities. Most take a few minutes, and two of them involve spending a little money.

8 small habits to be happier

1. Write down three good things before bed

Each night, write down three things that went well that day and why each one happened. In a 2005 study by Martin Seligman and colleagues, people did this for one week. They reported more happiness and fewer depressive symptoms for up to six months, compared with people who wrote about early memories instead.

The “why” was part of the exercise: “Coffee with Jen, because she noticed I was tired and paid.” Our article on how to practice gratitude has nine more small habits like this one, and our guide to the benefits of gratitude journaling covers what other studies found.

2. Talk to a stranger

Next time you’re on a train, in a waiting room or in line, say something to the person next to you. In experiments by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, published in 2014, commuters on trains and buses were asked to talk to a stranger near them, to keep to themselves or to commute as usual. The ones who talked had a more pleasant trip, and they got no less done. Other commuters, asked to predict the result, expected the opposite.

The researchers found that people underestimate how much others want to talk. You can start small, with a question about the delay or the weather.

3. Do something kind for someone else

Once or twice a week, do something kind for another person or for your neighborhood: carry a neighbor’s shopping, cook for a friend who’s had a hard week, pick up litter in the park. In a six-week experiment by Katherine Nelson, Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues, published in 2016, 473 people were split into groups. Those asked to do kind acts for others or for the world felt their lives were going better by the end. Those asked to do kind things for themselves didn’t improve compared with the control group.

4. Spend a little money on someone else

Buy a coffee for a coworker or send a small gift to a friend. In a 2008 study by Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin and Michael Norton, people who spent more of their income on others were happier, both in a national survey and among employees who got a bonus at work. In the experiment that followed, people who were randomly asked to spend money on others felt happier than people asked to spend it on themselves.

5. Pay to get some of your time back

If you can afford it, pay for something that frees up an hour: a grocery delivery, a ride instead of two buses, someone to clean once in a while. In a 2017 study by Ashley Whillans and colleagues, 6,271 people in the US, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands answered questions about their spending. Those who paid for time-saving services were more satisfied with their lives.

In the same study, 60 working adults in Vancouver got $40 on two weekends in a row. They spent it on something that saved them time on one weekend and on a material purchase on the other. They felt happier and less pressed for time after the time-saving purchase. When the researchers asked another 98 people how they’d spend $40, only 2 percent mentioned saving time.

6. Pay attention to what you’re doing

Pick one ordinary task, like washing the dishes or walking to the bus, and keep your mind on it. In a 2010 study by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, an iPhone app asked people at random moments what they were doing, what they were thinking about and how they felt. People thought about something other than what they were doing almost as often as they focused on it, and they were usually less happy when their minds wandered.

7. Spend two hours a week in nature

Go to a park, a forest, a beach or the river, and add up the time over the week. In a 2019 study led by Mathew White, 19,806 people in England described their time in nature over the previous seven days. Those who spent at least 120 minutes a week there were more likely to report good health and high well-being than people who spent no time in nature. The benefit stopped growing at around 200 to 300 minutes a week.

It didn’t matter whether people got their two hours in one long visit or several short ones. The study was a survey, so it shows a link and not proof that nature caused the difference.

8. Use social media less

You don’t have to delete your accounts. In a 2018 experiment by Melissa Hunt and colleagues, 143 students at the University of Pennsylvania were split into two groups. One group limited Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to ten minutes each a day for three weeks. The other used them as usual. The group that cut back reported less loneliness and depression.

Setting a daily limit in your phone’s settings is one easy way to try it.

Which happiness habit should you try first?

Start with one habit that fits your week, keep it for a few weeks and add another later if you want.

Habit	How it was studied	Study
Three good things before bed	experiment	Seligman and colleagues, 2005
Talking to a stranger	experiments	Epley and Schroeder, 2014
Kind acts for others	experiment	Nelson and colleagues, 2016
Spending money on others	survey and experiment	Dunn, Aknin and Norton, 2008
Paying to save time	survey and experiment	Whillans and colleagues, 2017
Paying attention to what you’re doing	phone sampling, no experiment	Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010
Two hours a week in nature	survey, no experiment	White and colleagues, 2019
Less social media	experiment	Hunt and colleagues, 2018

An experiment assigns people to a habit at random, so it says more about cause and effect than a survey does.

When happiness habits aren’t enough

These habits can lift your mood a little, but they aren’t a treatment for depression or anxiety. If you’ve felt low for a while or have lost interest in things you used to enjoy, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. If you’re in crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the US. In an emergency, call 911.

One good thing a day in Graceup

We built Graceup for a habit like the first one on this list. You write one good thing a day in about 30 seconds, get a reminder at the time you choose and open a jar of your entries at the end of the month. You can also share a moment with a small private group of friends, which makes it easier to tell someone what they did for you.

Photo: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash