Tips for happiness and healthy living
15 tips that help me
Recipe for happiness in life: start the day with a smile and end it with a big laugh! I have read countless pieces of wisdom like this on social media platforms. Okay, but how do I do that? I asked myself this question, and then I figured it out. I’ve collected 15 tips for happiness for you, based on my own experience. I wrote these down hesitantly, because I know that happiness means something different to everyone. Everyone experiences carefree days differently. They find joy in different things. Still, I think you can find some of these 15 tips that can inspire you too. I hope so! Find the secret to true happiness for yourself!
Table of contents
- 1. Pay attention to what you feed yourself!
- 2. You have a sport too! Find it!
- 3. Have fun and lose weight!
- 4. Spend some precious time with yourself!
- 5. Live now!
- 6. Be grateful!
- 7. Find something to love in yourself!
- 8. Learn to wait!
- 9. Find the light!
- 10. Decide in your head!
- 11. Live your own story!
- 12. Conquer your fears!
- 13. Get back to your game!
- 14. Create, work, invent!
- 15. Make a happiness plan!
- Summary
1. Pay attention to what you feed yourself!
I nourish my body with healthy foods. Not because it’s trendy, but because I’ve found that it has a positive effect on my mood.
If you think about it, everything is nourishment. Some things nourish the body, some nourish the soul. A thought, an encounter, a video you watch, a book you read—all of these things have an effect on you. These are also nourishment, alongside food. But just as you can choose from different foods, you can also decide what you really need from spiritual nourishment. If you want happiness, choose foods that release positive feelings when you digest them.
Remember! You are what you eat, but you are not what you think.
Embrace delicious and healthy foods to get in better shape, but don’t embrace negative thoughts that only drain your energy! You are not your negative thoughts! Don’t let them control you! You can choose to smile. Just as you can choose healthy foods, you can also choose thoughts that make you happy.
For healthy eating, I recommend my book on fitness sweets. If you’re feeling sad, don’t reach for unhealthy foods, but sugar-free treats instead! Bring a little joy into your everyday life without unnecessary calories! 🙂
e-book (pdf)
Fitnesz Édességek
Ez a könyv tele van szuper receptekkel, hogy bűntudat nélkül élvezhesd a sütizést. Ideális választás életmódváltóknak, diétázóknak vagy bárkinek, aki szeret egészségesen nassolni.
2. You have a sport too! Find it!
I am so happy that I have found sports that suit me. One of them is squash, the other is weekend bike rides. Both are physically exhausting, but they also recharge my batteries.
For your happiness, find your favorite sport! Whether it’s cycling, swimming, running, rock climbing, badminton, or even dancing. Anything that gets your body moving has a positive effect on your happiness levels. But don’t force yourself to do something you don’t really like, find your own sport! The ideal sport for you will reduce depression and increase the production of endorphins, the happiness hormone, in your body. What’s more, sport is also a self-improving hobby. According to research, if you exercise three times a week, you will become more focused, your memory will improve, you will be more alert, and you will be able to fit more into your day.
3. Have fun and lose weight!
When I feel sad, I look for funny posts on Pinterest or find a comedy to watch. Recently, I’ve also created a playlist of cheerful music on my phone that I can listen to at times like this. Cheerful music and a little exercise usually cheer me up quickly.
Not only sports and exercise, but laughter also burns calories. True, it’s not that much, only 50 calories burned in 15 minutes of laughter, according to experts. This may seem like a small amount, but the happiness hormones released help a lot in sticking to your diet. Depression tends to lead to overeating, but laughter and the happiness that comes with it bring balance to both body and soul. Choose a funny movie tonight, or just read jokes and listen to cheerful music. Cheer up and lose weight!
4. Spend some precious time with yourself!
It may sound strange, but sometimes being alone with myself helps me feel better. Sometimes I spend entire days by myself, which surprises many people, of course. I think this is also part of a healthy lifestyle.
Everyone needs to spend some time alone with themselves. It doesn’t matter whether you read, create, or go for a walk. The important thing is to be yourself and do something that isn’t mandatory, something you choose because you love it. Choose something that comes from the heart, something that makes you happy. Find what fills you with the most happiness!
Treat yourself a little, you deserve it.
The place of happiness
Everyone needs a place where they can retreat to sometimes. A place where you are alone, where you are not bothered by tasks or problems to solve. A place where there is always silence. A silence so deep that you can hear your own thoughts. Hear what your soul is telling you. Find such a place! Shut everything out! Just listen inwardly! Enjoy the peace and quiet and enjoy the feeling of happiness washing over you.
5. Live now!
Don’t always wait for Friday, the weekend, summer, Christmas, someone who will come and fall in love with you, someone who will help you. Happiness comes when you don’t wait for it, but make the most of the moment you are in NOW. Most of the time, you have to do this on your own, don’t wait for someone else!
6. Be grateful!
Every morning, while drinking my coffee, I always take a few minutes to think about everything I am grateful for. This fills me with good feelings and puts me in a good mood for the start of the day. I also keep a monthly list of moments when I was very happy. Sometimes it’s a very simple action, an experience, something I tasted, or a place I visited. I often read this list when I’m feeling a little down and need motivation.
If you are always longing for something and never stop to look around and see what you have, you can chase the butterfly of happiness, but it will never stop for you.
What can you be grateful for in your life? Look at your life a little bit as an outsider. You may think what you have is basic, but someone else may long for it. Talk to others! Ask them how they see things. Look into the lives of others to compare them with your own, but always remember that everyone has their own life plan. Don’t use other people’s lives as a template; look for things in your own life that you can be grateful for!
7. Find something to love in yourself!
Believe me, you have it too!
I often tell people, “You’re so cute!” They don’t know it, but what I mean is that they are lovable! Maybe I just liked their laugh, or their kindness, or something they said that I hadn’t heard anyone else say before. Everyone has something cute about them. Find out what it is in you! You can’t always do this on your own, but a partner or friend sees you from the outside and can identify your cuteness factor almost immediately. If they don’t tell you, ask them!
My self-awareness has improved a lot by thinking about what I like about myself. I wrote it down. When I’m in a bad mood, I take it out and read it. That’s when love fills me.
8. Learn to wait!
Time is the best medicine for spiritual ailments. What’s more, it’s free and has no side effects.
Sometimes my impatience makes me unhappy. I forget that things need time to mature. You can’t expect to pick fruit from a tree you planted yesterday. I believe that patient people are happy people.
9. Find the light!
I have decided to fight darkness every day. Every day, I need to cleanse my soul, my thoughts, and my view of the world a little bit. Every day, I need to think about something good. This is my antidote to darkness. I believe that light will come. How? I imagine that what I desire has already come true. I feel and experience that I have it. I don’t think it, I don’t know it, I feel it. There’s a big difference. Because when you feel it, you are already happy, but when you only believe it, you are merely longing for it. You have to feel the warmth of the light in advance! You have to conjure it up!
10. Decide in your head!
I read somewhere that my thoughts influence how I feel, and how I feel influences what I think. So it’s something I can control. I can decide in my head to choose happiness over sadness. Until this became a daily routine for me, I set a reminder on my phone that sent me this message once a week:
It depends on how I feel. I choose happiness.
Your happiness depends on nothing else but yourself. It is not your circumstances, your successes, or another person that makes you happy. Happiness is a feeling, and you decide how you feel. Because, like success, it is all in your head.
11. Live your own story!
When you’ve been in it for years, it’s very difficult to recognize whether you’re living your own story or someone else’s. I spent 12 years in a bad relationship, watching to see what was good for my partner. I became a grant writer to help him with his work. At the time, I thought I had to do it even if I didn’t enjoy it. I thought it was a game, that you didn’t have to enjoy it. Later, I realized how different my work, my life, my relationship, and pretty much everything else is when I enjoy what I do, when I know that this is my story.
Living your meaningful life story makes you happy. Whether in your work or your relationship, you need to know whether you are living your own story or someone else’s life story. If you feel that the story is not yours, then change it!
12. Conquer your fears!
If you want to be happy, deal with your fears! Face them and do the thing you fear most. Then you will finally be free from your fears and realize how strong you really are. Make a list of the things you fear!
I was very afraid of being alone. The kind of alone where you are left on your own and remain alone. It was a difficult journey to realize that being alone is not loneliness and abandonment. Being alone does not have to be associated with negative feelings. It can be a gift to me. A gift to love myself and not focus my love and care on someone else. A gift to develop myself. Reading, learning, exercising, writing. These are usually good things to do alone, when you can focus on yourself.
13. Get back to your game!
If you are looking for happiness, you need to find a game similar to one you enjoyed playing as a child. This can often determine your career path.
As a child, I loved puzzles. It felt so good when I was able to put a piece in place. After just half an hour of puzzling, I was completely in flow. (Although I didn’t know that word back then.) I got a lot of puzzles. Some had 5,000 pieces, others 10,000. Then, as an adult, I lost them, but a few years ago I found one and put it away. At the age of 34, on one of my very sad days, I took it out. My dog was dying, and I wanted to distract myself from the loss. The puzzle helped me immerse myself in something else. Unfortunately, my dog had to be put down.
Not only puzzles, but also drawing and coloring help me on sad days. I download pictures I like from Pinterest and redraw them in a notebook. I’m not a very good artist, but it’s perfect for immersing myself in something creative instead of grief.
14. Create, work, invent!
When my grandmother was still alive, I asked her what made her happy. She said gardening. She had lots of flowers. She wanted to create beauty. I also love to create beauty and admire it. I am grateful that I can do this on this blog. I prepare food and then take photos of it. I write articles and put together newsletters. These are small things, but the details are what make them truly challenging. When I look at my blog and see the recipes I’ve uploaded, I always feel good that I did it myself. I see all the work I put into it, all the little details that others probably don’t see behind it.
What makes you happy is what you create yourself, what you work on yourself. Every piece of work you put down is a sense of achievement. Be it a novel you’ve written, a beautiful painting you’ve painted, a catchy tune you’ve composed, a neat little house you’ve built, or just a beautifully tidied garden you’ve tended. The result of your creation, the fruit of your labor, your creation, your work of art always makes you happy when you look at it or think about it.
15. Make a happiness plan!
You can’t plan happiness, you just experience it. At the same time, after a while, you know what makes you happy. For me, my gratitude list is a collection of data that shows in black and white what things have made me happy. Obviously, I want to move towards these things. I want to achieve more of them.
I’m currently drawing these in the form of a mind map. This helps me think through how everything is connected. I need goals to feel like I’m moving forward in life and not just living uselessly. Of course, you always have to remember that plans are just plans. LIFE doesn’t plan, it happens, and you have to be flexible and prepared for that.
If you see your happiness in your goals, then you have to do a little bit every day to achieve them. Make a happiness plan! Write down what would make you happy and what you need to do to achieve it! Then work on it with joy until you reach your goal!
Summary
Perhaps I should have started my list of tips for happiness by saying that you should accept that sadness is also part of life. I know that sounds strange as a tip for happiness. But the truth is that you can’t always be happy. It’s perfectly normal to feel unhappy from time to time. The problem arises when this feeling persists. In this case, it’s worth seeking professional help. Everyone has good times and bad times. A certain amount of sadness is part of life. Otherwise, how could you truly appreciate happiness?
Happiness means something different to everyone. Think about what it means to you. I hope these tips help you too. Find the secret to true happiness that you can draw on during bad days!
