Being happy involves satisfying your survival and emotional needs. Your survival needs are what keep you alive, healthy, and safe. You must meet these needs to be happy. But once you meet these, doing extra will not make you happy. For example, you would not be happy if you are dying of thirst. But once you quench your thirst, extra water will not make you happier. This is why extra income doesn't make people much happier once they have a comfortable income.

Your emotional needs affect your happiness differently. You don't need to meet every one of them to be happy. But each one that you meet will increase your happiness.

Here is a list of the emotional needs:

Here are 12 ways to become happy

1. Take care of your health

This is part of your survival needs. It also helps with your emotional needs by making you feel better about yourself. This is because you know that you are doing the right thing. So eat high-quality food, get regular exercise, and get adequate sleep. It will make you happier and healthier.

2. Spend time with your favorite people

This is spending time with people who you enjoy being around. The more you enjoy being around them, and the more time you spend around them, the happier it will make you. So having close friendships is good for your happiness.

3. Take part in your hobbies

You should do this even if you love your job. The more you enjoy what you are doing, and the more time you spend doing it, the happier it will make you. Hobbies also give purpose to your life, which will make you feel better about yourself.

4. Work on your personal growth and self-improvement

Personal growth and self-improvement increase your happiness. This because you know that you are getting better with time. This makes you feel better about yourself. In contrast, lack of personal growth puts you into a rut, which can cause depression. There are many ways to achieve personal growth. One of the most effective is to learn a new skill. Also, making positive changes is another form of personal growth.

5. Help others whenever it is practical

When you help others, it makes you feel better about yourself. This makes you a happier person because you know that the world is better because of you. There are many ways to help people. Here are a few:

6. Take time for yourself

Moments of tranquility help your happiness because they allow you to de-stress. It is good to spend time by yourself because it allows you to focus on yourself. Also, a lot of learning and personal growth takes place when you are alone.

7. Be Mindful

Being mindful means directing your attention to the here and now. This helps your happiness because you can only feel happiness in the present moment. You can feel happy now for what happened yesterday. You can also feel happy now about what you think will happen tomorrow. But in either case, you experience happiness in the present. 

To practice it, focus on the sights, sounds, scents, and other inputs that you experience at the moment. You do this without any judgment or interpretation of these inputs.

8. Meditate

Meditation helps you to become happier by training your brain on how to relax. This can help people who cannot get themselves to relax. Meditation helps with anxiety, depression, and stress. This is well documented by Harvard and the National Institute of Health.

According to the Cambridge University Press, meditation is a type of mindfulness. But meditation focuses your attention inward. You can do this by focusing on your breathing and other body sensations. Meanwhile, you let thoughts come and go without judgment or interpretation. 

9. Make your home tranquil

We now know that moments of tranquility help your happiness. Your home is an important place to have those moments of tranquility. If there is a place where you need to be able to relax, it is your home. Now many people go on vacation to escape, and that is a good thing. But it is also good to have a home that you don't need to escape from. 

The key is to make your home less stressful. One important way to do this is to declutter your home. Removing clutter will benefit your home and your life in general. Here are some other ways to make your home less stressful:

10. Count your fortunes

You can define your happiness by how satisfied you are with your quality of life. Counting your fortunes focuses your attention on the satisfying parts of your life. You will become happier when you are more aware of the things to be happy about. This is why people with a strong sense of gratitude tend to be happier.

11. Don't compare yourself to others

When you compare yourself to others, it is very easy to overlook your good fortunes. Keeping up with the Joneses turns your life into bitter competition with no prize for the winner. This feeds into feelings like jealousy and envy. You will be happier if you focused on the good things in your life. If someone has something that you think is better than yours, it doesn't make yours bad.

You will also be happier if you avoid social media. You will see many people there showing off how wonderful their lives are. Some of them are pretending. Happy people don't need to worry about appearing to be happy.

12. Make time for the things that make you happy

Many of the things that make you happy need time. If you are too busy, then you won't have time to do the things that make you happy. The solution is to simplify your life to free up some time. Here are some ways to free up your time:

Watch less TV.

In summary, here are 12 ways to become happy:

You will notice that they all tell you to take care of your emotional needs. None of them are about buying the latest gadget or competing with neighbors. So now it's time to do the things that make you happy.