Living your best hygge life
Have you ever lit a candle in your home on a dark winter night? Or maybe you enjoy relaxing with a warm cup of coffee in your favorite coffee cup? Do you enjoy good conversations with friends while watching a crackling fire?
It’s possible that you were experiencing hygge without even knowing it.
This Danish word is hard to pronounce (hue-guh) and even harder to explain.
According to a blog called Hygge House, hygge is the word used when acknowledging a feeling or moment, whether alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary, as cozy, charming or special. It’s hard to find one English word to translate it, but some others that come close are intimacy, happiness, contentment, security, familiarity, comfort, reassurance, kinship, simpleness, indulgence, relaxation and gratitude.
The blogger went on to say that hygge only requires consciousness, a certain slowness and the ability to not just be present but to recognize and enjoy the present. Hygge doesn’t require learning a list of how-tos, adopting it as a lifestyle or buying anything. It’s simply a natural way of life, a state of mind for Danes.
Despite their cold, dark, long, miserable winters, Danes have been touted as the happiest people on Earth. There’s no doubt hygge has something to do with it. It’s a way to survive boredom, break up the mundane and fight the darkness. Hygge is a defining feature of Denmark’s cultural identity. One author said that what freedom is to Americans, hygge is to Danes.
Others have taken notice, too. Several years ago, hygge caught on as a lifestyle trend internationally, and books, social media posts, ads and articles all proclaimed the many benefits of living a cozy hygge life. Just make sure you aren’t spending hundreds of dollars on “hygge products” — that’s the opposite of what hygge means. Be mindful about the small changes you can make to embrace hygge.
You’ll be glad to know you can wear that old (but comfortable) pair of sweatpants (also known as hyggebukser) to your heart’s content, even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in them in public.
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