Hygge Explained: Old Norse Roots, Danish Prisons and Self-Limiting Gamers

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In 2016, when Brexit was a UK dictionary's word of the year, the runner-up was hygge, the Danish word for a feeling of warmth, safety and everyday togetherness. The episode describes it as a psychological state rather than an aesthetic, tracing it to the Old Norse word for to think and to hugr, meaning soul or mind, with a possible link to a 1560s word meaning to embrace. It appeared in Danish writing in the 19th century. Meik Wiking of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen summed it up in a 10-point manifesto: atmosphere, presence, pleasure, equality, gratitude, comfort, togetherness, harmony, truce and shelter.

The episode tests the idea in hard settings. A study by researchers including Amy Smoyer found that incarcerated women in Denmark could wear their own clothes and personalize their cells, which the researchers called restorative. Danish boys, 49 percent of whom aged 13 to 19 play video games daily, were observed lowering their own in-game achievements to keep play balanced. The episode roots hygge in Scandinavia's dark winters and compares Swedish lagom, Finnish sisu with its sauna culture, and Iceland's belief that it will all work out. It then turns to the commercial boom, which it argues contradicts hygge's emphasis on contentment.

• The truce means leaving politics, drama and complaints at the door.
• Equality means everyone shares the cooking and cleaning so no one serves while others relax.
• The episode links hygge activities to oxytocin release and notes Denmark ranks in the World Happiness Report's top three while the US sits around 18th.
• The word turned up in a Frozen Broadway song, in Neighbours and Motherland, in a UK housing development and in IKEA marketing.
• Danish companies use the promise of work-life balance to recruit, and the University of Copenhagen and Carlsberg use it in marketing.