Hygge Definition: The Quality of Cozy Living
Explore the complex hygge definition and hygge meaning for cozy living. Learn about how a hygge life can help you feel more joy and peace year-round.
Are you a self-professed “homebody” who prefers quality time with your family over an exciting adventure with friends? Do you find your mind constantly longing for the next time you can sit in your favorite chair with a blanket, cup of coffee and a good book? Maybe you secretly look forward to rainy and stormy days as they lend themselves to a host of cozy activities?
If you are anything like me, then perhaps you’ve even asked yourself how to get that comfy cozy feeling you get from those activities on a daily basis. It may even be conceivable that you dream of designing a whole life around being cozy, but feel like it’s a frivolous notion that is implausible.
What if I told you there are entire cultures built around the idea that prove it not only plausible, but actually the “better” way of living.
Enter hygge, the Danish way of life that puts cozy living at the forefront.
I want to show you everything you need to know about hygge and give you the permission to pursue a hygge life.
What is the Hygge Definition?
In order to get the best hygge definition, let’s go directly to the source: the Danish people. A native of Denmark, happiness researcher and author of several books about hygge, Meik Wiking, has noted that hygge has been described as:
“The art of creating a nice atmosphere.”
“The pursuit of everyday happiness.”
“Socializing for introverts
Meik himself says that
Hygge is about an atmosphere and an experience rather than about things.”
Meik Wiking
According to denmark.dk
“…hygge is about taking time away from the daily rush to be together with people you care about – or even by yourself – to relax and enjoy life’s quieter pleasures.”
The common thread throughout these definitions, and any hygge definition you would get from a Dane, is that hygge is about positive feelings and good vibes.
Someone who is living a hygge life aims to fill their time and environment with the positive emotions of joy, peace, contentment, purpose, and of course, coziness. A good hygge definition focuses less on a state of being and more on a state of feeling. And the most important feeling that hygge is in pursuit of is happiness.
How is hygge pronounced?
Before we get too deep into our exploration of the hygge definition, maybe I should tell you how to pronounce hygge.
As Americans, we don’t really have any words that look like the word hygge. So is it “hi-guh”, or “hyou-je”, or maybe “hug”? While I like to think of the word as similar to how I would describe a hug or warm embrace, (hence why the name of my website is “a warm hygge” 😉) the word is actually pronounced “hoo-guh”.
Why is hygge important?
Hygge and happiness
Denmark is consistently ranked as one of the top 3 happiest countries in the world according to the World Happiness Report. While experts may attribute this partially to Denmark’s Democratic Socialist culture in which everyone believes in contributing to the “greater good”, your everyday Danish citizen is more likely to relate it directly to a hygge life.
Compared to Americans, the Danish feel a stronger sense of security, equality, freedom, health/well-being, and stability. In short, they worry less about basic necessities giving them more time to focus on things that bring them pleasure. It is the Dane’s regular savoring of the simple pleasures in life paired with a decreased need to spend mental effort on worrying about their safety and security that makes them happier overall.
Hygge and Quality of Life
At the Happiness Research Institute, Meik Wiking and his team explore the complex concepts of happiness, wellbeing and quality of life. In order to get a full picture of these subjective concepts, their research looks at three dimensions:
The cognitive dimension measures how people perceive their life. It gives us information about how someone evaluates their life as a whole. In short: how do they think about their life and level of satisfaction with it.
The affective dimension measures how people feel about their life. People can measure their overall happiness, wellbeing and quality of life based on the positive and negative emotions they feel on a daily basis. At its very basic, how much positive versus negative emotion someone feels regularly will contribute to their quality of life.
The eudaimonic dimension describes how aligned someone feels their life is with a greater sense of meaning and purpose. People who engage in activities that match what they believe to be their purpose more regularly report a higher quality of life. Through a regular pursuit of meaningful experiences, people feel a greater sense of purpose, and thus a stronger sense of happiness, wellbeing and quality of life.
The Danish culture of hygge contributes to its Danish citizen’s higher quality of life by
making them think about life from a perspective of joy and contentment
Creating an environment that produces more opportunity for experiencing positive emotion
Bringing them closer to their greater purpose through the pursuit of meaningful activities
A hygge life is important because its focus on positive emotion, thinking about life’s pleasures and a pursuit of meaning and purpose is a perfect recipe for greater happiness and quality of life. And who doesn’t want that?!
Where does hygge come from?
We have now learned that hygge is an essential part of Danish culture. But, the word hygge actually originated from an old Norwegian word that roughly means “well-being”.
denmark.dk says that evidence of the word and concept of hygge dates back to the early 1800s.
The concept of hygge developed as a direct consequence of the long cold and dark season of Winter in the Scandinavian countries. If you have ever had to suffer through a long cold winter, then you know how depressing these months can be. With little contact with direct sunlight to fuel your body with Vitamin D (the happiness vitamin) and a decreased ability to connect with nature and do things outside of the home, many people suffer from seasonal depression during the winter months.
In Scandinavian countries, the winters are extra long, especially cold, and include prolonged darkness. Yet, the people who live in these countries are some of the happiest in the world. How can this be?
A hygge life was developed out of a need to weather the darkest seasons of life, literally. Hygge is a way of increasing one’s grit, perseverance and fortitude. It was a philosophy of living that wouldn’t accept having joy and security in a small number of months each year. Hygge is a way to find joy, contentment, peace, and security during even the hardest seasons of life both figuratively and literally.
So in its most literal sense, hygge is about creating a warm and cozy sanctuary and shelter from the dark cold winter climate. But in a greater ideology for living, it’s about creating a sense of stable happiness and wellbeing throughout life, no matter what is going on.
Living a hygge life shelters you from the inevitable storms of life.
What is a hygge lifestyle?
So far, I’ve stayed pretty philosophical in my exploration of hygge, so if you’re still confused about how to create a hygge life, I don’t blame you.
When I started exploring the hygge definition, I found a lot of open-ended explanations and vague concepts describing a hygge life. All things that I wanted more of in my life, for sure, but things that I hadn’t been taught how to do.
Let’s be honest, America is not one of those countries that teaches its children how to get in touch with their feelings, purpose and true self. We teach our kids to mold themselves into useful citizens who follow the rules and expectations of society. America may say it is all about the “pursuit of happiness”, but we know that it’s really about the pursuit of material wealth.
So here is a list of things that the Danes consider to be the most hygge:
- candles
- enjoying nature
- sweets and baked goods
- warm drinks
- cozy blankets
- warm socks
- reading
- a meal with friends/family
- board games
- fireplace
While individually, each of these things can elicit a feeling of coziness and contentment, when you intentionally create space for them consistently in your daily life, they allow an enduring sense of happiness and wellbeing.
A Hygge Life is about intentionally engaging in the things that make you feel cozy and content on a regular basis no matter what is going on in your life.
How to hygge
Now that we’ve explored the hygge definition, how to pronounce hygge, where and why it originated, the importance of hygge and the basic way to live a hygge life, let’s explore how to actually have a hygge life.
Hygge and Intentionality
A hygge life requires intentionality. Intentionality is purposefully directing your thoughts, attention, energy, effort, emotions, will, etc, towards a purpose, goal or way of being.
In order to be intentional, you must know what you are pursuing in the first place. In the case of hygge, you are pursuing a life that is filled with the feelings of coziness, contentment, peace and joy.
We have all felt these things at one point or another, and if you are like me, you tend to feel these things when you are at home and with your closest family members. And since so much of hygge is about environment and atmosphere, the easiest place to design a hygge life is at home.
Another part of intentionality is aligning the things we are in control of with the outcome we desire. The things we are in control of are our thoughts, behaviors and to a certain degree, our environment. So how do we increasingly direct those things towards the end goal of coziness, contentment, peace and joy?
We must fill our attention with things that make us feel those things.
Simple ways to start designing a hygge life
The easiest first step is to choose behaviors/activities that give you those feelings and incorporate more cozy things in your environment. The harder part is developing a more cozy and safe way of thinking. Personally, I needed therapy to have more cozy thoughts. No…seriously!
Here are some of the hygge activities I intentionally engage in in my pursuit of a hygge life:
I’ve especially enjoying cultivating a cozy home by incorporating more of the following into my home decor:
I have enjoyed an increasingly hygge life by unashamedly incorporating as many things that bring me joy and comfort as I want. I savor my time pursuing hygge activities and can make most mundane and unenjoyable activities much more fulfilling by incorporating candles or blankets or cozy seating.
Having a hygge life is a commitment to intentionally adding in hygge in the smallest and biggest of ways and everywhere in between.
Hygge Definition: A Video Explanation
I have given you a lot of information to chew on! If you need any more convincing to explore a hygge life or just want to learn a little more about the hygge meaning here is a video to inspire you:
I hope that you see the value in pursuing a hygge life and feel empowered to intentionally design your life around the pursuit of coziness and contentment!
This blog, awarmhygge.com, was created so that I could share the joy, contentment and peace of a hygge life with other overwhelmed and overworked moms like me. I want to support Moms who want to create a cozy home for themselves and their family by teaching them about the benefits of a hygge lifestyle.
I want other stay-at-home-moms like me to view their role of homemaking as valuable because it provides a sanctuary in which joy, peace and contentment are found.
If you’re interested in exploring traditional homemaking skills like crochet and baking with the intention to build a hygge lifestyle, then join our community at awarmhygge.com by signing up for the newsletter below.
