Hygge is enjoying good things in life.

You know hygge when you feel it.

It is when you are cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends.

It is those crisp blue mornings when the light through your window is just right.

Hygge is “Scandinavian” (Danish really) for enjoying the good things in life. It´s a feeling of togetherness, well-being and coziness, and there’s nothing more hygge than sharing a good time with friends and family. ”The social Hygge” is all about bringing people together, getting friends and family to share stories and discussing the big and small things in life. ​ Hygge has been translated as: ♥ the art of creating intimacy ♥ cosiness of the soul ♥ the absence of annoyance ♥ taking pleasure from the presence of soothing things ♥ cosy togetherness ♥ cocoa by candlelight ​ HYGGE is: ♥ being with the people we love ♥ a feeling of home ♥ feeling safe & shielded ♥ pleasant conversation or pleasant silence ♥ equality: jantelov: we are all equal, no-one is better than other, and we respect each other, genuinely ♥ The art of hygge is the art of expanding your comfort zone to include other people; we all have our favourite people, with whom we feel cozy and at ease, the soul mates with whom there is no need to use words ♥ feeling of cosiness, warmth and togetherness ♥ word 'hygge' originates from a Norwegian word meaning 'well-being' ​ HYGGEWORDS hyggespreder someone who is spreading hygge mood familiehygge hygge within family hyggesokker hyggesocks, usually woollen Hygge Wishlist:

1. Hyggekrog. A place in the room where you love to snuggle up in a blanket, with a book and a cup of tea, comfy space. Essential is to be able to relax, totally.

2. A fireplace. The most hyggelig piece of applied art ever made.

3. Candles: No candles, no hygge.

4. Things made of wood.

5. Nature. Danes feel the need to bring the entire forest inside the house.

6. Books. Taking a break with a good book is a cornerstone in the concept of hygge.

7. Ceramics. A nice teapot, a vase on the dining table, that favourite mug you always want to drink from – they are all hyggelige.

8. Think tactile. Hyggelig interior is not just about how things look, it is just as much about how things feel. Think about the way objects feel to your touch and add a variety of textures to your home.

9. Vintage. With vintage items, narratives and nostalgia come into play. Objects are more than their physical properties, they hold an emotional value and a story being meaningful to us.

10. 10) Blankets and cushions. They are must-haves in any hygge household. Hygge seems to have its Freudian side: it is about comfort food and security blankets. Hygge is about giving your responsible, stressed-out achiever adult a break. It is about experiencing happiness in simple pleasures and knowing that everything is going to be okay.

HYGGE EMERGENCY KIT is to be used when you are low on energy, have no plans, don't feel like going out and are in the mood for some quality time alone, maybe a bit in melancholy, even.

1. Candles

2. Some good-quality chocolate

3. Your favourite tea/ cocoa

4. Your favourite book: The book that makes you forget the world and disappear in between pages

5. Your favourite film or series

6. Jam

7. A good pair of woollen socks

8. A selection of your favourite letters

9. A warm jumper

10. A notebook: Write down some of the most hyggelig moments you have experienced in the past month or year. Write down what kind of hyggelige experiences you would like to have in the future, a bucket list of hygge, if you will.

11. A nice blanket

1. Paper and pen: Take time to write a handwritten letter. Think of someone to whom you are grateful and write to that person to tell why.

2. Music: Create a hygge playlist.

3. A photo album: Select your favourite pics and make collection.

Hygge is about being present in the moment, it is like ”freezing time”. Anything with alcohol freezes time so that we feel we are in the constant present, in ”forever-now-moment”, which lacks past and future. What comes to hygge, wine is suitable for hygge moments. Being wasted is not the goal, hyggeing is about relaxing a bit. ​ Five dimensions of hygge: It is all about HARMONY 1. The taste of hygge. The taste of hygge is almost always familiar, sweet and comforting. It is giving the hot chocolate with whipped cream the attention it deserves. If you want to make a cup of tea more hyggelig, you add honey. If you want to make a cake more hyggelig, you add icing. If you want your stew to be more hyggelig, you add wine or cream. It is giving food/ drink a bit of extra cosiness, in Finnish it is the verb tuunata. It is adding to pancakes something nice, like banana, apple-cinnamon oatmeal products, coconut cream, butter... 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: Something sinful is an integral component of the hygge ritual. But: The healthiness still lies hidden in there: It is healing the stressed mind, and when the mind is relaxed, the body will follow. 2. The sound of hygge. The small sparks and dynamic crackles of burning wood are probably the most hyggelige sounds there are. Many sounds can be hyggelige. Actually, hygge mainly has to do with the absence of sounds, which enables you to hear even very quiet sounds such as rain drops on the roof, wind blowing outside the window, the sound of trees waving in the wind, or of wooden planks that yield when you walk on them. Also, the sounds of a person drawing, cooking or knitting can be hyggelig. Any sound of a safe environment will be the soundtrack of hygge. For example, the sound of thunder can be very hyggelig, if you are inside and feel safe; if outside, not so much. ​ 3. Hyggelige scents: Scents that take you back to a time and place where you felt safe. The scents that give you a flashback of how the world used to look as you were a child. The scents that provoke strong feelings of security and comfort, like the aroma coming from a bakery, the aroma of apple trees from your childhood garden or maybe the familiar scent of your parents' house. What makes a scent hyggelig differs very much from person to person, because scents relate to the situation experienced in the past. We have scent memory. Scents function as memory triggers. One common element of all the scents of hygge is that they remind us of safety and being cared for. The scent of hygge is the scent that tells you to put your guard down completely. The familiar, nice scent reminds us of the state of mind we experienced when we felt completely safe. ​ 4. What does hygge feel like? Old, homemade stuff that has taken a lot of time to make is often more hyggeligt than bought and new stuff, and small things are always more hyggelige than big things. If the slogan for the USA is The bigger, the better, the slogan for Denmark is The smaller, the more hyggeligt. Anything made by real craftmanship – objects created from wood, ceramics, wool, leather, and so on – is hyggeligt. The surface of something that has been affected by age appeals to the touch of hygge. The feeling of being inside something warm in a place where it is cold is very different from just being warm. It gives the feeling of being comfortable in a hostile environment.​ ​ 5. Seeing hygge. Hygge is very much about light. Too bright is not hyggelig. But hygge is also very much about taking your time. Hygge is about the now, about enjoying the moment and making the best of it. This can be accentuated by watching very slow movements of things, for example, gently falling snow (aqilokoq, as the Inuits would say) or the lazy flames in an open fire. I would add watching fish in the acquarium, too! In short, slow, organic movements and dark, natural colours are hyggelige. The sight of a bright, sterile hospital or watching fast-moving vehicles on a highway is not. Hygge is dimmed, rustic and slow. 6. The sixth sense of hygge. Hygge is about feeling safe. Hygge is an indicator that you trust the ones you are with and feel safe in the place you are. It is about feeling you can be completely yourself. ​​ ​ So, hygge can be tasted, heard, smelled, touched and seen. But, most importantly, hygge is felt. Like Winnie-the-Pooh says, You don't spell love, you feel it. Same applies to hygge. And that feeling is happiness and feeling of harmony. Hygge may function as a driver for happiness on an everyday basis. Hygge gives us the language, the objective and the methods for planning and preserving happiness – and for getting a little bit of it every day. Hygge may be the closest we come to happiness when we arrive home after a long day's work on a cold, rainy day in January. Hygge is about making the most of what we have in abundance: the everyday. In our lives, we just have no other option but to follow the practical bricolage principle: We make the most of what we happen to have at hand. Benjamin Franklin says: Happiness consists more of small conveniences or pleasure that occur every day than of great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom. Info collected from Meik Wiking's book The Little Book of Hygge. The Danish Way to Live Well (2016). Meik is CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen and has spent years studying the magic of Danish life. You can find the book from upstairs. ​ Hygge an atmosphere of warmth, wellbeing and cosiness, when you feel at peace, at ease and able to enjoy simple pleasures and being in the moment. ​ ​