The Hygge Lifestyle

hygge scene

The Fall season is officially here. Temperatures are decreasing, leaves are changing in some places and people are looking forward to the holidays. It can be an exciting time, but it can also have an effect on your overall wellness. The change in weather can often affect our mood and motivation and it’s not uncommon for some to feel down around this time. So, how do we make sure the changing of the seasons doesn’t bring on negative changes for our wellness? Researchers believe one solution comes from Denmark, which consistently ranks among the happiest countries on the planet, according to the annual World Happiness Report. They found the Danish concept of hygge (pronounced hoo-ga), which embraces coziness and life’s little pleasures, can be great not only for your physical health but also your mental well-being.

Benefits of Hygge

The whole hygge concept is geared towards feelings of contentment and nurturing connections, which according to a review published in 2018 in the Annual Review of Psychology, is especially beneficial to physical and emotional wellbeing. At home, a “hyggeligt” approach is where you can be perfectly yourself.

Overall, hygge carries a wide range of benefits including:

  • Increase your feel-good hormones such as dopamine, which you can get from enjoying a favorite hobby. Physical activity can increase serotonin levels and release endorphins. These hormones help regulate your mood as well as pain relief, sleep, appetite, digestion, learning ability and memory. Oxytocin is often called the “love hormone”. Oxytocin is essential for childbirth, breastfeeding, and strong parent-child bonding. It can also help promote trust, empathy, and bonding in relationships. Levels generally increase with physical affection and quality time with loved ones.
  • Decrease in the stress hormone known as cortisol. When we feel stress, our bodies will naturally produce cortisol. It is part of the natural fight-or-flight mechanism that keeps us alert. To reduce cortisol, you need to have a release. If our cortisol levels spike for a prolonged period of time, it can interfere with our learning, memory, immune functions, blood pressure, and cholesterol.
  • Helping you be present in the moment, truly appreciating a moment and enjoying the feelings this brings.
  • Improve your self-care and self-love to make sure you are the most important person in your life.
  • Increase feelings of contentment which can help with feeling accomplished in your day-to-day activities.
  • Combat maladaptive coping strategies, such as spending excessive time online or watching television, drinking too much alcohol or using drugs.

Six Ways to Incorporate Hygge Into Your Life

  1. Embrace self-care: Create a comfortable environment that will allow you time to decompress. Manage the lighting in your space by using candles or low lighting. Have a comfortable space to sit to read, journal, or spend time with loved ones. Enjoy a sweet treat or warm drink. Hygge encourages you to dedicate time to yourself through the things that bring you the most comfort and joy. Don’t be hard on yourself for not being productive in that moment. Taking care of yourself IS productive.
  1. Prioritize tasks: Choose your top three most urgent tasks each day and make them a priority. When you put tasks off, they remain in the back of your mind and grow even bigger. Take control and promise yourself a reward when you finish.
  2. Spend time in nature: Spending time outdoors has proven stress-relieving benefits and can help you connect to something bigger than yourself. A walk around your neighborhood, a local hiking trail or sitting outside are great ways to reset.
  3. Connect with others: Social support is an important aspect of health and well-being. It’s about connecting with and enjoying each other’s company, not competing or trying to impress. Spending quality time with others also boosts feel-good oxytocin.
  4. Slow down: If you allow yourself to slow down, you’ll relax your physiology and reduce your adrenal stress responses. We know from mindfulness research that there are many health benefits to slowing down and being present in the moment.
  5. Live in the moment: Hygge isn’t something you achieve, but rather components infused into your lifestyle. You don’t have to pressure yourself to do life perfectly. Life is a journey, not an end state.

Hygge can mean something to everyone. Simple comforts that are important to you can be easily attained without much cost. Take time to reflect on the activities, people and pets that help you create sanctuary and maintain balance in your life.

Happy New Year!

January 1 calendarIf you constantly achieve new year resolutions and have improved your life through them, Congratulations, you can stop reading here, however, if you have difficulty making and keeping new year resolutions, this is the blog post for you.

New Year’s Day is seen as a new beginning. There seems to be something magical about the period of time between January 1st and December 31st. For one thing, it seems like the end of the calendar would be a great reminder to finish up the projects that one resolved to complete when beginning to use that particular calendar. Another benefit would seem to be that others are also trying to stay strong in keeping their resolutions by or until the same date. It stands to reason that people would encourage each other to “hold on” and “stay strong.”

January the first is an arbitrary date.
-Douglas Adams

However, that has not been my experience. I have rarely been asked or reminded about the status of new year resolutions as the end of December approaches. Therefore, I was not reminded to set new resolutions either. I used to feel bad on January second because I would hear people talk about new year resolutions and realize that I had none. I would tell people who inquired, “My new years resolution is to have new years resolutions next year.” I would even postpone making positive changes in my life because I did not want to be left with nothing to resolve on New Year’s Day. Then, I would either forget about the changes I wanted to make, or they would no longer be relevant by the time December 31st came around and I would feel bad all over again.

Today is where your book begins.
The rest is still unwritten.
-Natasha Bedingfield

As I matured, I realized that every day could be considered the beginning of a new year. I did not have to feel bad if I did not have something new to commit to improving on January first of each year. One does not have to wait to make changes. Changes and new resolutions can start now. Today! No matter what the date it is when you are reading this.

Making changes today is part of proactivity. The opposite of proactivity is reactivity. Thinking that I had to wait for January 1st to start all my resolutions was reactive. An arbitrary date on the calendar was controlling and limiting my behavior and potential to improve. Proactivity, on the other hand, involves taking control of one’s life and circumstances. Several examples of how to be proactive found in the Cornerstone Centers for Wellbeing blogs posted here over the past year include the following: choosing to be happy even during unfortunate times, choosing to see one’s self as lovable, focusing on what one is grateful for (counting blessings), doing things that make one feel renewed, seeking out professionals to help where one may not have expertise, accepting support, offering support, challenging core beliefs, focusing on the present moment, writing a thank you note, keeping a gratitude journal, taking a break from the stresses of life, and, of course, calling Cornerstone Centers for Wellbeing at 1-866-280-WELL (9355) to proactively schedule an appointment to meet with one of our talented counselors.

I encourage you to review the proactive advice from our 2021 blogs and look forward to many great blogs from Cornerstone Centers for Wellbeing containing proactive steps to take to help you center your life on wellbeing in 2022. If you have not already done so, you may want to bookmark our blog page and follow us on social media so you can easily check back each month to learn proactive ways to improve your life.

Achieving resolutions during 2022 may work for some people and situations, but responding to challenges immediately is often more prudent and effective. Of course, if new year resolutions work for you, do not stop doing something beneficial. The rest of us can breathe easier knowing that any period of time that we set for ourselves can be motivating.

Live your best life,
Jared Chantrill, LCSW