11 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier, Backed By Science

Editorial Staff / 5 minutes
June 19, 2025
0
3 min read

Hiker with backpack overlooks mountain lake.

Looking for some low-lift ways to make yourself happier? Here’s some of the best research that we’ve found on personal happiness.

Happiness is something we think about a lot at Buffer.

It's been a cornerstone of our culture from the beginning (just take a look at this slide deck about it from way back in 2013). Though our values have evolved since then, you'll still see echoes of how important happiness is for us to cultivate in our most up-to-date version.

No surprise, then, that I thought it would be interesting to dig into the research on how to be happy. Spoiler: there's a lot of it!

After combing through as much as I could, here are 11 of the simplest things that make you happy, according to science.

Jump to a section:

1. Exercise — even 10 minutes is enough
2. Sleep more — you'll feel like you've won the lottery
3. Move closer to work or work from home
4. Spend time with friends and family
5. Get outside somewhere greenish
6. Help others to help yourself
7. Practice smiling — it can alleviate pain
8. Plan a trip — you don't even need to take it
9. Meditate — rewire your brain for happiness
10. Practice gratitude to increase both happiness and life satisfaction
Tailor this list to suit you

1. Exercise — even 10 minutes is enough

You've likely heard of endorphins, the pain and stress-relieving hormones released when you exercise. But the release of these feel-good chemicals is not the only dramatic effect that exercise can have on your body.

Research suggests that regular exercise in your daily life has positive effects, both physical and mental, and can play a role in helping you find happiness.

Getting moving also triggers the release of more happiness hormones, serotonin and dopamine. On top of that, exercise increases your heart rate, which in turn pumps more oxygen to your brain. A well-oxygenated brain is as great as it sounds — many studies have found that this can help manage stress, anxiety, and depression, too.

In Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, he cites a fascinating study on this. (The book is a great read on how to be happy, by the way — I'll be referring back to it a lot in this article).

In the study, three groups of patients treated their depression with either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their levels of joy to begin with, the follow-up assessments proved to be radically different:

"The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate," Achor writes. "Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination