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3 Simple Habits That Can Make You Happier, According to Science

Studies suggest kindness, movement, and gratitude can reliably boost wellbeing without expensive routines, retreats, or wellness hacks.

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All that most people want out of life is to be happy. And yet the pursuit of it has somehow become its own source of misery—an industry of morning routines, optimization stacks, and expensive retreats standing between people and an answer that researchers have had for decades.

A 2025 meta-analysis spanning 145 studies and 28 countries found that certain habits reliably increase wellbeing regardless of where you’re from or how you were raised. Here are three of them.

1. Be Kind to Someone—Anyone

A 2018 study involved 683 participants from 29 countries who performed acts of........

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