“The noblest art is that of making others happy.”
Happy5
Daily habits for a healthy and happy mind.
We already understand that physical fitness is built through small actions repeated over time.
Happy5 applies the same common-sense idea to mental wellbeing.
Move. Give. Connect. Calm. Grow.
Five simple daily habits, grounded in psychology and neuroscience, made memorable through stories, animals, brain chemistry and a little humour.
The question that started it
A few years ago, while reading Lord Richard Layard’s Can We Be Happier?, I found myself asking a very simple question.
We have spent decades encouraging people to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Five portions do not explain the whole science of nutrition. They were never meant to.
The power of 5 A Day is that it takes something complicated and turns it into something ordinary people can remember and actually use.
So why wasn’t there an equally simple way to remember the daily things that help us look after our minds?
That question became Happy5.
Happy5 is not a miracle cure, a complete theory of happiness or an invitation to join me at an expensive retreat while I sit on a throne wearing alarmingly tight underpants.
It is a practical way to remember five simple and largely free things most of us can do, in some form, every day.
Mental wellbeing is complicated. Happy5 is not trying to explain all of it. It is trying to make five valuable daily habits easier to remember and easier to practise.
A rather reassuring discovery
Later, Lord Richard Layard kindly pointed me towards the UK Government’s own Five Ways to Wellbeing.
Its five themes are:
Be Active. Give. Connect. Take Notice. Keep Learning.
My reaction was not:
“Oh dear, somebody has already thought of it.”
It was:
“If the evidence is already there, why on earth doesn’t everybody know it?”
The Government framework gave me greater confidence in the five habits. It also made the real opportunity clearer.
The challenge is not to replace the science or pretend to have discovered something completely new. It is to package valuable ideas in a way that is simple, memorable, enjoyable and useful enough to spread.
The science already knows a great deal. Happy5 is about helping more people actually use it.
The Happy Five
These are not the only things that influence happiness. Life is considerably more complicated than that.
But these five themes appear again and again across psychology, neuroscience, CBT, public-health guidance and happiness research.
They are also simple enough to practise in ordinary life without purchasing special trousers, joining a monastery or relocating to a mountain.
Kangaroo
Primary association: Endorphins
Walk. Stretch. Dance. Garden. Cycle. Take the stairs. Pop to the shops.
Movement does not have to mean a marathon or several punishing hours surrounded by Lycra. Even a small amount can help change how we feel and begin building momentum.
A little movement is better than a heroic plan that never leaves the sofa.
Meerkats
Primary association: Dopamine
Help somebody. Share something. Offer encouragement. Volunteer. Make tea. Pick up the pencil somebody dropped in the library.
Giving does not need to be grand. Small acts of generosity can create a sense of reward, meaning and connection for the person giving as well as the person receiving.
Helping other people is one of the more agreeable ways of helping ourselves.
Penguins
Primary association: Oxytocin
Call somebody. Share a meal. Have a proper conversation. Listen. Laugh. Hug, where appropriate and preferably with permission.
Human beings are social animals. Relationships, trust and belonging are not pleasant extras. They are a fundamental part of how we thrive.
Be more penguin. Huddle when necessary.
Tortoise
Primary association: GABA
Pause. Breathe. Sit under a tree. Put the phone down. Look at the sky. Do one thing at a time. Occasionally do absolutely nothing.
Calm is not laziness. It gives the nervous system an opportunity to reset and creates space for clearer thought.
You are allowed to stop without the entire world collapsing.
Octopus
Primary association: Serotonin
Read. Learn. Make something. Ask a question. Try a new route. Listen to a podcast. Pick up a pencil. Remain interested.
Growth gives us purpose, progress and the reassuring sense that we are not yet a finished product.
If in doubt, learn.
Why these five?
Psychology has spent decades investigating the actions, relationships and ways of thinking associated with better wellbeing.
Neuroscience is helping explain some of the biological mechanisms behind them.
Governments and public-health organisations have translated parts of that evidence into guidance.
Happy5 brings in one more discipline:
Behavioural design.
Most wellbeing programmes eventually arrive at something like:
Here are several things you should do.
Happy5 asks a different question:
How do we design an experience that makes people actually want to do them—and helps them continue when ordinary life gets in the way?
Happy5 is where psychology, neuroscience and behavioural design meet.
Happy5 is not claiming to have discovered happiness. It transforms decades of research and practical wisdom into five memorable daily habits.
The research can be complicated. Using it on a Tuesday morning should not have to be.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
The idea has been shaped by economists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, writers, therapists and public-health thinkers.
They include Lord Richard Layard, Vanessa King, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Shawn Achor, Johann Hari, Dr Jack Lewis, the people behind Action for Happiness, the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and many others whose work has helped explain what supports a good life.
If I have contributed anything, it is not discovering these ideas. It is weaving them into something practical, memorable and enjoyable enough that more people might actually use them.
These people and organisations are influences and sources of inspiration, not formal endorsers of Happy5.
From good intentions to daily habits
We do not expect to become physically fit after one walk. Fitness is built through persistence, continuity and momentum.
We repeat useful actions, notice what changes and gradually learn what works for us.
Mental wellbeing deserves the same patient approach.
The first Happy5 app will help people:
Today
How did you look after your mind?
Concept preview · interface in development
Build a happier mind—and see what helps you personally over time.
The aim is not to claim that happiness can be reduced to one perfect number. The aim is to create useful feedback.
Did you connect more during the weeks when you felt better? Does movement help when your mood begins to dip? Does calm improve your sleep? Which small actions are realistic enough to continue?
The app should help people ask better questions, recognise patterns and make more informed choices about their own wellbeing.
Book in development
An idea written in public
The idea began with a book.
Being dyslexic, I naturally decided that writing one would be an excellent way to make life unnecessarily difficult.
So I began with a series of blogs instead.
I published the first Happy5 article on Boxing Day 2023. Since then, I have been exploring Move, Give, Connect, Calm and Grow through psychology, neuroscience, economics, personal experience, philosophical detours and an increasingly crowded collection of animals.
The blogs matter because they show that Happy5 has not appeared overnight. The thinking has been developing in public for years.
People have read the articles, enjoyed the humour, shared their ideas and helped the concept grow.
Now I am bringing that work together into a book and an app.
The central Happy5 idea began free, and it will remain free.
Nobody should need to pay to learn that moving, giving, connecting, calming and growing may help them feel better.
Founding membership supports the work required to turn that free idea into a useful app, a properly researched and beautifully illustrated book, new content and a wider campaign.
The original blogs
The original Happy5 blogs are still free to read.
They are where the idea first began to take shape—with brain chemistry, animal facts, questionable jokes and rather more Christmas food than most scientific papers normally contain.
Start at the beginning, or work backwards from the meerkats.
“Give a little bit…” Hello happy and groovy gang, are you feeling groovy? Oops, I’m slipping into cheesy mode.
Read more
Last Christmas, I launched my Happy5 idea with all the aplomb of a party popper spraying its colourful spaghetti…
Read more
Merry Christmas! Santa is here, with the gift of happiness! Bold statement I know, I’m not really Santa Claus, but…
Read more
Why me?
I am not a neuroscientist, psychologist or self-appointed happiness guru.
I studied economics because I was fascinated by how societies work. I became a Chartered Accountant because I wanted to understand how organisations work.
At forty, I returned to study Fine Art because I had begun to understand that creativity mattered to me just as much as numbers.
My route since then has included social impact, community projects, branding, behavioural change, restoring a wooden boat, holding debates in a horse box and spending several years living and working in East Africa.
It has not been an entirely conventional career plan.
But there is a consistent thread running through it:
I am interested in what makes people and organisations act—and how good ideas can be turned into action.
I also experienced a brief period when I was technically depressed.
CBT helped me understand, in a very practical way, that what we do, think and notice can influence how we feel.
Happy5 is not a treatment for clinical depression, and it should never pretend to be. But that experience made the subject personal rather than merely academic.
I kept returning to the same question:
If we already know many of the things that help, how can we make them easier to remember, more enjoyable to practise and more likely to become habits?
That is the part I believe I can contribute.
Not discovering the science. Joining dots. Finding language people remember. Bringing together economics, psychology, creativity, communication, technology and behavioural design.
And occasionally adding a tortoise.
Happy5 is not the story of one man discovering happiness. It is the story of one man becoming sufficiently curious—and perhaps sufficiently stubborn—to help more people use what humanity has already learned.
The bigger idea
Economic growth tells us something important about a country. It does not tell us everything important about the lives of the people living in it.
Over recent decades, economists, governments and researchers have begun taking wellbeing more seriously.
But most people still receive far more encouragement to measure their money, productivity, weight and daily steps than to pay attention to the habits supporting their mental wellbeing.
Happy5 begins with something very small:
Five daily actions.
But the larger ambition is cultural.
Imagine Happy5 in schools, helping children learn simple ways to look after their minds.
Imagine it in hospitals and health centres as a practical wellbeing framework.
Imagine workplaces, community organisations and families speaking the same simple language:
Move. Give. Connect. Calm. Grow.
Not because five habits explain every part of mental health. Not because everybody should feel happy all the time. But because looking after our minds should become an ordinary part of everyday life.
A public-health idea, brought to life through a book, an app and a growing community.
I want Happy5 eventually to feel as familiar as 5 A Day.
Simple enough for a child to remember. Grounded enough for a scientist to take seriously. Useful enough for people to practise. Enjoyable enough to spread.
The Founding Hundred
Happy5 will happen.
The Founding Hundred will help it happen faster, make it better and give the idea the early momentum it needs.
I am inviting the first one hundred people who understand the idea, enjoy the story and would like to help turn it into something real.
This is not a donation. It is founding membership of an early-stage project: a way of supporting the creation of the app, book, illustrations, scientific review, content and first public campaign while becoming part of the story from the beginning.
£5 per month
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£10 per month
£15+ per month
Everyone joins the same Founding Hundred. Founding membership enquiries currently open by email; no payment is taken on this website.
The central Happy5 framework will remain freely available.
Founding membership supports the tools, research, design, writing and development required to help it reach far more people.
Join the Founding HundredLimited to the first 100 founding members.
Build and test the first useful version.
Complete, review, illustrate and publish it.
Strengthen the evidence and improve the accuracy of the framework.
Develop the distinctive creative world that makes Happy5 memorable.
Launch the Gift of Happiness in time for Christmas.
What happens next
Build the Founding Hundred, refine the website and develop the first app.
Test the app, strengthen the science and complete the book.
Publish the book and launch the first Gift of Happiness campaign.
Develop partnerships with schools, health organisations, workplaces and communities.
The ambition is large. The next step is deliberately small: find the first hundred people who want to help.
Become a founding memberI am also speaking with a small number of early investors and partners who understand the potential for Happy5 to grow from a simple daily framework into a meaningful wellbeing platform and public-health campaign.
This is an early-stage opportunity grounded in years of writing, a clear behavioural-design proposition, an app concept, a book and a highly memorable brand.
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