Simplify Your Lifestyle to Find Happiness

Growth as a person tends to push your primal needs to the front. Meet those, and life feels good, your body cooperates, your mind settles. A primal way of living just means handling the basics first, before you let the smaller stuff pull at your attention. Sleep comes before fretting over whether to upgrade your phone. Get that order right and the less important things tend to sort themselves out.

Think about hunter-gatherers for a second. No gym memberships, no elaborate dinners, no calendar full of parties. Food and water sat at the center of everything, and you can strip your own fueling down the same way. Build meals around lean protein, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and plenty of fruit and vegetables. Most of it can be on the table in under half an hour if you stick to fresh, whole ingredients. A fancy meal now and then is a nice treat, no argument there, but keep a running list of simple, good-tasting dishes to carry you through the week.

Exercise belongs in the same category. Your body needs it and so does your mood, and none of that requires a pricey gym or a garage full of equipment. Go back to basics: outdoor sessions, bodyweight work, calisthenics. Being outside does something extra, too. Time in nature lowers your risk of depression and leaves you calmer and more at ease.

Most adults now treat time like it's always running out. We stack tasks on top of each other, stay glued to screens, skip the pause we actually need, and quietly let our physical and mental health slide to make room for one more thing. Pulling back on technology is a reasonable place to begin. It won't come easily, since screens are threaded through nearly every hour of the day, but easing off bit by bit frees up room for the needs that matter more. Try something small. Switch the phone off during dinner. Leave it outside the bedroom overnight. Each of those carves out a stretch of time away from work and obligation where you can simply breathe.

Take a minute and ask yourself what a good life actually looks like to you. Write it down in a journal so you can come back to it. A lot of people picture nice things, money, and good company when they answer, and wanting any of that is perfectly fine. Those things can make life more enjoyable. Still, when you weigh what really holds a life up, the list looks different: your health, eating decently, moving your body, getting real rest, and having people around you can trust.

The foundation has to be there before you can build anything worthwhile on top of it. You could land a job that pays for everything you want, but let your health fall apart and suddenly you're taking time off, maybe risking that job entirely. That's the reason the basics have to be fully handled before you start adding extras.

Give yourself 30 days aimed at your most basic needs. Change one small thing each day, nudging your health, your close relationships, and your general well-being toward the front of how you decide and how you live. When the month is up, open the journal again and reread what you first wrote about the good life. Then rewrite it, using what the last 30 days taught you about your primal needs. The gap between the two versions tends to show you plainly how putting needs ahead of wants leaves you happier and in better shape.

Meeting your basic needs really comes down to paying attention to yourself, and that attention is what opens the door to growing as a person and living better. Pick the need you ignore the most and start there. For plenty of adults that's sleep, since it's the first thing we trade away for work, a social life, and whatever else is demanding our hours.

Rosemary Kitchen

Reference: Pavlina, S. (2013). How to Meet Your Needs Without Being Needy. Retrieved March 10, 2015.