A really simple way to start

The Happiness Programme is organised across four strands:

1. Really basic stuff
   
2. Catch the happiness bug
   
3. Build a stronghold
   
4. Enjoy the journey
   

Each strand has eight units, each exploring one aspect of improving your happiness and finishing with an exercise to do. You'll probably want to skip some of the exercises. But I urge you to do each one. If you don't want to do an exercise immediately, come back to it later. Give yourself those few minutes of thinking about yourself that each exercise demands. It won't be wasted time.

Here's the first unit of strand one.

Go outside

Most of us spend most of our lives indoors.

In the time scale of human existence this is a very recent change in our lifestyle. Whilst we must have built or found shelters early on, in our hunter-gatherer days, it is unlikely these were where we spent most of the day.

How would we have got food and water? We must have had to go outside to find it. And that probably took a lot of time. Whether we were on the lookout for berries and roots or we were tracking down animals or fish to kill, it must all have taken up most of our waking hours. Then, tired or frightened, we would have retreated back to our shelter to sleep. Cooking, eating and childbirth may have been mainly indoor activities. But otherwise I imagine humans led an outdoor existence.

With farming and the domestication of animals the indoor and outdoor worlds blurred. Farmers stored produce indoors and they often slept above the animals. There was a lot more reason to spend time indoors. Storage vessels could be crafted indoors, coverings could be woven indoors. We no longer had to walk all day to find enough berries to keep us alive. We farmed most of what we needed then stored it indoors.

Then more recently, with formal education, came the notion of keeping children inside for hours at a time, most of the year. It was no longer the norm to have a gaggle of trainees out learning to hunt or pick or farm with their parents.

Nowadays most of us work indoors. We still need to spend much of our waking day on activities that will allow us to survive but these activities are best done in offices, schools, hospitals and factories. Then we travel home inside a car or bus or train, get as close to our house as we can, and get inside for the rest of the evening.

For thousands upon thousands of years humans have lived outside for the greater part of their lives. We are a product of that lifestyle. It seems likely that our sudden change to being indoors will have repercussions. I believe a lack of being outdoors may influence our mood and sense of well-being.

Instinctively many of us seek the outdoors, whether hanging around a pool or trekking across hillsides, when we go on holiday. Especially, we are drawn to sunshine. Of course warmth is very comforting. But I think our search for sunshine goes further than that. I think being outside on a sunny day makes us feel good. It puts a smile on our faces. Not for any special reason. Just because we feel good in our skin. Because we feel happy.

Not all early people lived in climates where there was a lot of sunshine. Some lived in places like Britain where it must have been miserably cold quite a bit of the time. But I bet they felt happier when the spring came.

So the first step is simple. Get outside.

Get light, and if possible sunshine, on your skin especially your face and hands (which would have been the places least likely to have been covered against the cold in prehistory.)

You will have to reschedule your day. You should aim to get outside for at least half an hour every day, longer at weekends and much longer when the weather is good.

As the first step don't worry about where outside you are. Just get out. Go for a walk in the street outside the office every lunchtime. Or walk the dog before work. Sit outside to eat your sandwiches even if you have to wear a coat. Get off the bus a few stops early or just sit in the park either before or after work whenever there is more light.

The main thing is to get as much light on you as possible. See light as a nutrient. Think of it as essential to your health in the same way as you regard water. When you need water your body tells you through a sensation of thirst. But your body doesn't seem to have devised a way of letting you know you need light yet. The change to an indoor lifestyle is far too recent for that. So you have to be aware that you might need more daylight without your body giving you any signal.

Actually we might be getting a signal but just not reading it properly yet. That signal might be depression.

So, start by thinking through how you will get outside more during the daylight. Make a definite commitment right now to this first important step. On a sunny day that might sound simple. But it's very easy to go for days without getting more than a few minutes of sunlight on your skin during bad weather.

Once you value light you will start to look for opportunities to get outside more often. This is your mind working healthily. If light is vital to well-being then getting as much of it as you can is a survival skill, just like earning more money or eating enough food.

Note down in your diary how long you are outside in the daylight each day. Try to increase the amount but at least ensure you get outside for thirty minutes. Later on, when you've completed the happiness project, there might be days when you feel lower than normal. On such days look back at your happiness project diary and notice how much time you were spending outdoors. Ask yourself if you have started to shorten this time. If you have then that's the first thing to tackle to get you back on track.

So. Simple isn't it? Make sure you get enough light every day. That's the first exercise. It certainly helped me feel better one winter. It should make you feel good too.