The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living

by Meik Wiking

One December just before Christmas, I was spending the weekend with some friends at an old cabin. The shortest day of the year was brightened by the blanket of snow covering the surrounding landscape. When the sun set, around four in the afternoon, we would not see it again for seventeen hours, and we headed inside to get the fire going. We were all tired after hiking and were half asleep, sitting in a semicircle around the fireplace in the cabin, wearing big sweaters and woolen socks. The only sounds you could hear were the stew boiling, the sparks from the fireplace, and someone having a sip of mulled wine.

We are not paying taxes, we are investing in our society. We are purchasing quality of life. The key to understanding the high levels of well-being in Denmark is the welfare model’s ability to reduce risk, uncertainty, and anxiety among its citizens and to prevent extreme unhappiness.

The Danish language has been called many things, but seldom beautiful. Google “Danish sounds like . . . ,” and the first two suggestions that appear are “German” and “potato.” To foreigners, Danish sounds like someone speaking German with a hot potato in their mouth.

THE HYGGE MANIFESTO 1. ATMOSPHERE Turn down the lights. 2. PRESENCE Be here now. Turn off the phones. 3. PLEASURE Coffee, chocolate, cookies, cakes, candy. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! 4. EQUALITY “We” over “me.” Share the tasks and the airtime. 5. GRATITUDE Take it in. This might be as good as it gets. 6. HARMONY It’s not a competition. We already like you. There is no need to brag about your achievements. 7. COMFORT Get comfy. Take a break. It’s all about relaxation. 8. TRUCE No drama. Let’s discuss politics another day. 9. TOGETHERNESS Build relationships and narratives. “Do you remember the time we . . . ?” 10. SHELTER This is your tribe. This is a place of peace and security.

When I give lectures about happiness research, I ask the audience to close their eyes and tell them to think of the last time they felt really happy. Sometimes people become a little uneasy, but I assure them that I am not going to ask them to share their memory with the rest of the class. You can almost pinpoint the moment when people have their happy memory in their mind, as peaceful smiles light up the room. When I ask people to raise their hand if they were with others in their memories, usually nine out of ten do so.

in all the work I have done within the field of happiness research, this is the point I am surest about: the best predictor of whether we are happy or not is our social relationships. It is the clearest and most recurrent pattern I see when I look at the evidence on why some people are happier than others.

One student who had been quiet in the previous discussions raised her hand. “I am an introvert,” she said. “And, to me, hygge is such a wonderful thing.” Her point was that in the United States, she was used to taking part in social activities with a lot of people, a lot of fast networking, and much excitement. In short, she was in the realm of the extroverts. In Denmark, she found that the way social activities are organized suited her much more—and that hygge was the best thing that could happen for introverts. It was a way of being social without being draining for them. I thought that this was perhaps the most insightful thing I had heard in a long time and promised her I would steal her insight and put it in this book.

The high level of meat, confectionery and coffee consumption in Denmark is directly linked to hygge. Hygge is about being kind to yourself—giving yourself a treat, and giving yourself, and each other, a break from the demands of healthy living. Sweets are hyggelige. Cake is hyggeligt. Coffee or hot chocolate are hyggeligt, too. Carrot sticks, not so much. Something sinful is an integral component of the hygge ritual. But it should not be something fancy or extravagant. Foie gras is not hyggeligt. But a hearty stew is. Popcorn is. Especially if we all share the same bowl.

Sourdough is basically a gastronomic alternative to The Sims.

You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy cake, and that is almost the same thing—at least, that might be our brain’s opinion.

Link purchases with good experiences. I had saved money for a new favorite chair but waited until I had published my first book to get it. That way, the chair reminds me of something that was an important accomplishment for me. We can apply the same thing to that special sweater or that pair of nice woolen socks. Save for them—but wait until you have that really hyggelig experience: you want to be reminded of it when you pull them on.

Perhaps the Danish obsession with design is best exemplified by what is now known as the Kähler Vase Scandal, or simply Vasegate. The Kähler vase was an anniversary piece that was sold in a limited edition on August 25, 2014. More than 16,000 Danes tried to buy it online that day—most in vain, as the vase quickly sold out. The website crashed and people queued in long lines outside the stores that were stocking the vase. The company that produced the vase was hit by a public backlash over the limited supply. Was this a little too much hysteria over an eight-inch-high vase with copper stripes, even though it would complement most Danish homes nicely? Perhaps, but Danes have relatively short working weeks, and get free health care and a university education on top of five weeks of paid holiday per year. Not getting that vase was the worst thing that had happened to them in years.

Hygge is about giving your responsible, stressed-out achiever adult a break. Relax. Just for a little while. It is about experiencing happiness in simple pleasures and knowing that everything is going to be okay.

Hygge is humble and slow. It is choosing rustic over new, simple over posh and ambience over excitement. In many ways, hygge might be the Danish cousin to slow and simple living.

Okay, so Danes might be better at hygge than poetry, but one of the most consistent patterns in happiness research is how little difference money makes. Of course, if you can’t afford to eat, money is of the utmost importance, but if you’re not battling poverty or struggling to make ends meet, an additional $100 per month is not going to move the needle when it comes to happiness.

One of our issues as adults is that we become too focused on the results of an activity. We work to earn money. We go to the gym to lose weight. We spend time with people to network and further our careers. What happened to doing something just because it’s fun? Notice in the table that follows how social activities such as sports, hiking, partying, and playing with children are the top scorers.