The Little Book of Hygge summary

Hygge isn’t merely an assistant to happiness; it’s a mood in its own right. And cultivating it has a lot to do with establishing the right atmosphere.

The best way to do this is to get the lighting just right. Candlelight is nearly synonymous with hygge. Did you know that Danes burn more candles per person than anyone else in Europe? That is, up to 13 pounds of wax annually, each! Candles are so culturally important to Danes that a party pooper is known colloquially as a lyseslukker – literally, a “light-snuffer-outer.”

So you’re all curled up in your hyggekrog and the candlelight is flickering away. Then what? It's great to snuggle up, but it’s important to know that hygge is also about valuing community and spending time with others.

Solitary behavior, as many happiness surveys confirm, is no way to achieve satisfaction. Once your basic needs, including food and shelter, have been met, there is no better way to achieve happiness than through companionship. It’s important to have friends and relatives with whom you can share experiences and feelings. At heart, these too are hygge.

So far, we’ve defined hygge as something to help you weather the worst of winter. But we’ve also seen that a sense of community and fellow feeling is a fundamental characteristic. And, really, it’s about the present moment, the here and now.

This means it’s possible to foster hygge in other situations. For instance, if you go sailing in the summer with friends – that’s hygge. Or maybe, come June, you could prepare some elderflower cordial with your family – that’s hygge, too. You could even cultivate hygge in the office by making things more casual and egalitarian.

We can’t all go sailing or retreat to our fabulously designed wood-paneled home. Such luxuries require both money and time. But, even if we’re short on both, we can still access hygge.

Remember, the hygge aesthetic is more about ugly woolen socks than magnums of champagne. It’s about the rustic and simple life, not the overt flaunting of wealth.