The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well

One book that I started reading not too long ago is called The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well, it's all about the supposed reason why Denmark is considered the happiest country in the world. That reason is Hygge. Hygge is not just one particular thing, it's a whole range of things that come together to form a happy way of living.

One environmental factor that the Danes have a huge focus on, that they would consider Hygge, is lighting. Using a mixture of candles, lamps and fires they create a calm, relaxed environment. This is something that is not just considered at home, Danes also take this into their workplace as well and in doing so can have positive effects.

"To make the lighting hyggelig it is important to have several lamps with warm, slightly orange, light around the room, making pools of light - small light caves where you can immerse yourself in your work."

The same as I've discussed in one of my previous blog posts, I talked about the power of Oxytocin and how this is the reason why interacting with things can often release stress. Oxytocin is also considered the underlying reason for why hygge works so well.

Reading this gave me an insight into how and why the Danes are such a happy nation. They keep their work and home life separate often finishing on a set time everyday, never working overtime to ensure they can go home to enjoy time with their family and friends. I believe this is one reason why Danish are much happier in general and we're quite the opposite. We believe in putting in more work than what's probably necessary thinking that because we're working more hours, we're more committed to our jobs when in actual fact it's only causing more stress and give us less time to spend time with those who matter. Finding this sweet spot of putting in enough effort at work whilst maintaining relationships and your social life is a big contributing factor to our happiness. Maybe taking into account elements of their lifestyle and preferred environment factors and incorporating these into a working environment could be beneficial to our overall levels of stress and most importantly our health and well being.