Featured Article
Going to your Happy Place
Written by Leigh Spencer, Improving Lives Volunteer and Mental Health Advocate
The term “happy place” refers to a mental exercise of imagining a location or situation whereby you feel happy, calm and relaxed, thereby leading you from a period of negativity to a period of more positive wellbeing. However sometimes your happy place can literally be a physical place, such as a park or a place in your house, or even an activity.
There is no right way or wrong way to go to your happy place and also it depends on your circumstances. For example you might be struggling with an assignment at work and you need to take a short break and relax and take some of the pressure off yourself. Your preferred “happy place” is a local park but you can’t leave your job and go to your physical happy place. Instead you take a moment or two and go to the park in your mind. There you can visualise the surroundings, hear the sounds, and feel the breeze. After a few minutes you return to your assignment, feeling calmer and more relaxed, able to move forward with the assignment.
Why is going to your happy place so good for you?
It reduces stress and anxiety which will help you get through difficult times and calms not just your mind but your body as well.
Your emotions are better controlled, helping you build up emotional resilience. This includes managing negative emotions such as anger.
Your happy place is personal to you; somewhere you feel at peace, safe or have a feeling of security.
If you practice mindfulness when you are in your happy place, it will improve your ability to concentrate and be present in the moment.
It can trigger positive emotions that can improve your mood and at the same time create a sense of well-being.
Now let us take a look at ways you can go to your happy place.
It could be a physical place that you can go to, it could be a room in your home that you have made your own with pictures, ornaments, and a comfy chair. Here you find you can relax and even visualise a scene that makes you happy. Likewise there might be a park that you like where you find a bench and you find yourself drifting to another place, or might simply find yourself looking round to see if there are any birds or even squirrels for you to watch.
When practicing visualisation you don’t necessarily need to be in a special place, it can take place in any safe environment. For example you might be sitting at your computer and you read something upsetting and to take yourself away from it you close your eyes and take yourself off to your happy place and engage your senses. What do you see, what do you hear, what do you smell, are there things that you touch, is there something you taste?
Your happy place doesn’t necessarily have to be something that you need to visualise in your mind, it can be a physical place or activity like a walk, or creating a space you can go to, it could be sitting down to watch a nostalgic film, an item that brings you comfort, like a blanket, a favourite mug, or a fidget toy. Perhaps it’s a smell, a scented candle, flowers or a food or drink that makes you feel relaxed and at ease. Some people find that their happy place is when they are gardening, others do a form of exercise whether it is going to the gym, following an exercise class on the internet, or simply going for a walk. Others find colouring is their happy place. There are many internet sites that have downloadable colouring sheets for you to print out and colour in. The important thing is that it makes you feel calm, relaxed, and you can focus on the present.
If you enjoy writing, then writing a story about an event fictional or real or about a place you know or you’ve imagined can become your happy place. Instead of visualising your happy place you put it down in writing and keep it to refer to in moments of stress or you need to regroup. Just the act of writing in itself can be the happy place for some, even if they don’t look at what they’ve written again.
Your happy place needn’t be a real place; it could be somewhere that you imagine. Maybe you find a picture and mentally transport yourself into it looking at the scenery, hearing the sounds, enjoying the smells, feeling the textures and if in your imagination you’re eating or drinking taking pleasure in the tastes. This imaginary place might be a mixture of places you’ve been to or would like to go.
Music is another way of going to your happy place. You may have a piece of music, a song, a music video that will take you to your happy place. YouTube has a great selection of videos for relaxation that you don’t necessarily need to watch, but instead close your eyes and listen to the music and as you listen you can be transported to your happy place or even to a new one.
As we have seen there are many ways of going to your happy place. It can be imaginary, somewhere that you’ve been to or would like to go to. The benefits of going to your happy place are countless and to each person, different. Some use visualisation, others find going to a physical happy place or doing an activity will provide the sense of calm that they are seeking. Nor does going to your happy place have to be complicated; it can be as simple as looking out of the window or spending five or ten minutes listening to some of your favourite music.
There is no recommended time for you to spend in your happy place, it can be just a few minutes or longer depending on what you are doing, but the benefits are many ranging from reducing anxiety and stress, improving your mood and mental health to helping you reset from negative emotions to positive ones. This in turn will benefit your sleep, your daily wellbeing and help you through those stressful moments.
“Going to your happy place is indeed a good place to go”
