Bridging the Gap: 5 Everyday Learnings About Connection and Loneliness from the World Happiness Report

Are you feeling a bit lonely, even when life is full? You’re not the only one.

Busyness doesn’t always protect us from disconnection. In fact, it can hide it. You move from meeting to message to moment — but where’s the connection in that?

The World Happiness Report 2025 makes one thing clear: loneliness is more than a passing feeling. It's a wellbeing risk. But it also shows there are small, human ways to reconnect — not by overhauling your life, but by gently rethinking your days.

This year’s report pulled together global data and powerful insights — not to pressure us into forced happiness, but to show where connection truly lives, and why it matters more than ever.

Here are five takeaways that offer do-able ways to feel more grounded and connected, especially when you’re feeling out of step with yourself or others.

These are not radical lifestyle shifts. They’re small, nourishing practices that can help you gently move from disconnected to connected — one interaction, one cup of tea, one kind thought at a time.

1. Sharing Meals Is More Than Just Eating

People who regularly eat with others are happier. It’s not about the food; it’s about the moment. Whether it’s a family meal, lunch with a colleague, or a spontaneous snack with a friend, the act of eating together fosters social bonds. The report even links solo dining with rising loneliness in places like the U.S.

Everyday Practice: Try to share at least one meal a week with someone else — in person if possible, but even virtually counts. It’s a gentle reminder you’re not alone in the world.

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2. Kindness Feels Better When It's Genuine

Doing something kind can lift your mood — but why you’re doing it matters. The report found that helping others boosts our wellbeing most when it comes from a place of care, not performance. Kindness that’s quietly given for its own sake is the kind that restores us.

Everyday Practice: Hold the door, make the call, send the message — not to tick a box, but to offer something good to the other person. Your intention counts.

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3. Your Brain Might Be Getting It Wrong

We often assume social interactions will be draining or awkward. But science says otherwise: most of us feel better after a meaningful exchange — whether it’s thanking a barista or talking to a stranger on the train. Our brain’s predictions about discomfort tend to be off.

Everyday Practice: Gently challenge those inner stories. Speak up in small ways. Ask the question, start the chat, send the compliment. You may be surprised at how good it feels.

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4. Micro-Connections Matter More Than You Think

We often chase deep relationships as the gold standard, but the report reminds us: even small, fleeting interactions can lift us. Talking to a neighbour. Smiling at a stranger. Waving to the person walking their dog.

Everyday Practice: Notice and nurture your "weak ties" — those looser connections that still offer warmth and recognition. They stitch our days together more than we think.

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5. Treat Connection Like a Health Essential

One standout stat: loneliness can impact your health as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That’s not a scare tactic — it’s a call to treat social wellbeing as seriously as sleep, food, and movement.

Everyday Practice: Schedule social time into your week as you would a walk or a meal. Don’t wait until it’s urgent. Make it part of your life maintenance.

Loneliness isn’t something you have to power through or pretend isn’t there. And you don’t need to be in crisis to deserve more connection.

You deserve to feel part of something.

You deserve time and space to feel like yourself again.

If you’re curious about small, everyday ways to feel better, sign up to our newsletter. It’s full of ideas, reminders, and resources that meet you where you are.

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The Happiness Museum

Seek this out if: Concepts like hygge have caught your attention, you are interested in how you can pursue happiness in your own life, or ideas of wellbeing have recently risen up your agenda.

What is it: After many people had expressed interest in visiting the offices of The Happiness Research Institute — an independent thinktank that aims to influence public policy through investigating what makes some societies happier than others — the team there decided to give people the space they hoped to find. The Museum of Happiness opened in the basement of an 18th-century building in Copenhagen’s historical center in summer 2020. Although it had been delayed due to the emergence of the pandemic, its existence anticipates a moment when we could all do with more joy, positivity, and wellbeing in our lives.  The Museum has been designed to connect us with different ways of understanding what happiness is and why we might be looking for it in all the wrong places (hint more human connection, less emotionally driven Amazon purchases).  

Why you’ll love it: When faced with “an experience machine” asking you to choose between the constant pleasure of an illusory life or moments of suffering in a real one, which do you choose? When listening to laughter, do you laugh too? Finding a wallet of cash on the floor, do you hand it in? What would you write on a post-it when asked what your happiest memory is or your definition of happiness?  

At The Happiness Museum, you’re encouraged to participate, learning first-hand what happiness is and what it isn’t. Over just 2,585 square feet and eight rooms, visitors learn about happiness from every angle, from how it manifests physiologically to how it shifts according to geography, how thinkers have evolved an understanding of it from ancient Greeks to modern-day, to where our scientific understanding now rests. There’s a Trump MAGA hat representing the lowest level of happiness experienced in the UK (the day of his inauguration). A range of self-help books showing how the promise of finding happiness has become front and center in many of our lives. A harmonica that captures the happy beginning of a relationship.

What you need to know: The Happiness Museum is perfectly placed; it’s located in a country that is regularly cited as one of the world’s happiest – the UN World Happiness Report in 2020 put it second only to Finland. Within the museum, you’ll find displays on why this might be and what Nordic happiness really is. It’s also headed by Happiness Institute CEO Meik Wiking who literally wrote the bestselling book on Hygge, the Danish way to live life well, that has captured our imagination (and increased candle sales) worldwide.

How to bring this into your life wherever you are: Take The Happy Course and learn how to apply science-based principles on happiness to your own situation. Or brighten dinner conversations with The Hygge Game.

Why we think it’s different: The work of the Happiness Museum is not just to incite smiles (and to allow you to play with Mona Lisa’s), but to make you think about what happiness really is and why we’re so obsessed with it. Our knee-jerk path to it might be via rainbows and unicorns, but often we get it wrong. We seek out things that actually don’t make us happy — like the products that are sold to us that make us think they’ll make us fulfilled — and lean on strategies that don’t serve our lives well, like immediate dopamine hits that come from social media but don’t sustain us in the long term. The museum reframes some of what we think we know and gives us tools to find happiness in ways that are more sustaining. Like this quote from Epicurus: “Of all the means to ensure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.” A fleeting visit to the Museum is designed to instill a more lasting and nuanced relationship with happiness in our own lives. 

In their own words: “A small museum about the big things in life. At The Happiness Museum you will understand why Denmark is often called the happiest country on earth, what hygge has got to do with it, and how you can measure something as subjective as happiness. The Happiness Museum is created by The Happiness Research Institute, a think tank focusing on well-being, happiness and quality of life.”

Inspired by: These words from Immanuel Kant: “Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” Not this song on happiness by Lana del Rey, Happiness is a Butterfly (Happiness is a butterfly / Try to catch it like every night / It escapes from my hands into moonlight).

To find out more: Website / Instagram

Additionally, try: The Color Factory / The Museum of Ice Cream

Mouse-Shaped Misery or Picture-Perfect Family Fun: Disneyland Observations

I spent the last week of my life in Disneyland trying to figure out if I was a sucker for loving it so much. (I think I’ve landed on “probably yes”.) Here are my observations.

Observation 1: Everyone is better at doing make-up than I am.

Is there, like, an onsite class available somewhere? (Can I come?!) Why is everyone so luminous and poised here? I must have seen 17 thousand women, with their rose-gold Mickey ears glinting in the warm afternoon sun, their customized Etsy t-shirts clinging perfectly to their (clearly) cross-fitted bodies and their winged eyeliner looking like it was applied 6 seconds ago. Meanwhile I take one glance in the direction of Splash Mountain and I turn around in full Jafar cosplay, shocking both my group and all of the low-key Jafar fanatics.

Maybe it’s that my youth has slipped away subtly in the night, or that I don’t actually know how to use all the things the nice girls at Sephora have suggested I buy. Or maybe it’s that everyone here is Mormon and, as such, blessed with abundant, inexplicable beauty. (Having lived in Salt Lake City, I can confirm that they are, I am all but certain, God’s chosen people). But I digress. Everyone is beautiful here. (Maybe it’s the magic?) Someone please come airbrush me before I leave the house again. 

Observation 2: There is an abundance of children wearing shirts with phrases like “best day ever” and “happiest vacation on earth” who are being aggressively shamed by their parents.

Hello Parents, have you ever met a child? They have small legs, need ample sleep, and are easily overwhelmed by blinking lights. They go absolutely fucking nuts when exposed to sugar and food coloring. Why, then, would we expect them to exhibit perfect behavior at 11pm on a Tuesday night while sat on the ground picking hours-old cotton candy off of their sleepy faces as Mickey Mouse shoots fireworks from his eyeballs?

Please understand that I am, in no way, exempt from the Disney-induced lapse in parenting judgement and performance.  I wanted to abandon my family and drown myself in the shallow waters of It’s A Small World just as many times as the next parent, but I internalized those resentments and whisper reprimanded my children through gritted teeth (like a grown-up).

Observation 3: I am infinitely grateful for my mobility and health and I remain ever-impressed by the people who push through theirs in the name of fun.

One of the greatest things I observed on this trip were people pushing through physical setbacks, getting out there in the name of fun. There were two women (had to be 100 years old) zipping around on rascal scooters like they owned the place. (Maybe they did?) One had brace on her ankle and the other had multiple tanks of oxygen (maybe jetpacks?) affixed to her chair. They laughed and zigged and zagged through the lines of the roller coasters and the teacups and almost-never ran into small children. They didn’t have young people pulling them along, or passes that granted them access to the front of the lines. They were just there, living their best lives, for themselves.

Observation 4: Vegan food is EVERYWHERE.

From plant-based sheppard’s pie and cauliflower street tacos to vegan gumbo and oat milk mochas, I was in near-constant awe at the food selection available in the Disneyland parks. More than being impressed, I was relieved, to see the world changing in ways that feel meaningful. I understand that veganism isn’t relevant to everyone, but I think it is fair to say that adding 400 vegan menu items to the parks is indicative of a greater shift in the world, a shift that means more mindfulness in regard to the way we’re consuming food, utilizing animals and protecting our planet. Sure, Disney is primarily interested in catering to their consumers and making more money…but the implications of this shift are far greater than that. And when a massive corporation brings a once-taboo lifestyle choice into the mainstream, it opens the doors for more people to enter that space. More plant-based options = less animals harmed, and that’s an equation I can get behind.

Observation 5: There is something that happens when you spend lots of money to be happy - you’re really fucking set on being happy. 

There is a lot to be said about the downfalls of the positive psychology movement (we’re very-much over the days of faking it until we make it) but there is some mystical concoction that exists at Disneyland. Something about spending an obscene amount of money, the overly-friendly staff who are there to cater to your every need, endless access to sugar/salt/fat, your belief that you should be having fun and your awe-struck children whose expectations you’ve spent MONTHS bolstering. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I actually feel happier there. Sure this could be a recipe for the letdown of the century. Unrealistically high expectations are, in our experience, almost always ill-advised. But what about when all those expectations converge in a place that is actually pretty fun? What about when Disney releases interactive apps that allow your family to play games together in line (apps that help you to start conversations about things like gratitude, favorite memories and finding magic in the everyday.) What happens when you’re really expecting to have a good time and you put all of your energy into bringing that experience to fruition? Like any person with a conscience, I struggle to look past the rampant wealth disparity in Anaheim (the home to Disneyland Park), I struggle to accept the messaging of some of their films, struggle to accept that I’ve bought into a very well-branded consumer trap that thrives on manufactured-emotions and poor impulse control…but you’d be hard-pressed to visit this place, and not fall (at least a tiny bit) into the magic of it all. Concentrated time with family, activities that are fun for all-ages and messaging that screams “YOU ARE HERE TO HAVE FUN!” are really difficult points to deny. Yes, I know I’m a sucker…my back aches and I am desperate need of a post-vacation vacation, but every night, I cuddled with my kids while watching fireworks, and I laughed and ran with my 11-year-old (whose years of wanting to connect with me are feeling more fleeting by the day) and I watched my 6-year-old hug Minnie Mouse with tears rolling down her exhausted face. Yes I know it’s all a bit contrived. I know we could have gone to Yosemite, or the Museum of Modern Art, or, like, our great aunt martha’s house(?). But sometimes it feels good to turn your brain off and sink into the magic that’s unfolding around you.

The Museum of Ice Cream

Ok, you probably have your assumptions about the Museum of Ice Cream that has been popping up in locations in San Francisco (now permanent), New York (very new and permanent), Miami, and Los Angeles. We had ours. We imagined it as an Instagram mecca, a hyperreal pink (that’s Pantone 1905C) paradise of shine and shimmer. Froth and frolics. And it was that: when we visited the SF version, we took photos with everyone else against backdrops of floating cherries and giant popsicles, made impermanent messages with pink magnets, crawled into mirrored rooms and climbed pink walls, and swam deep in the famous pit of colors. We hadn’t gone as far as some; we hadn’t coordinated our outfits and we hadn’t posed again and again for the perfect shot. But we had image-laden fun: we consumed a ton of sugar, visual and edible. We laughed and interacted and just spent a silly afternoon with our kids actually sharing in their joy and not watching from the sidelines as is sometimes the condition of modern parenting.

Though we did all this and came away feeling great (maybe slightly sick also), we have since realized we kind of missed the point. And maybe we weren’t, or aren’t, the only ones. See the Museum of Ice Cream is not really about ice cream (though there’s now a Target branded line that includes such things as Impeach-Mint so this argument might get a bit blurry). It’s also not about taking out your phone to capture the perfect image. It’s also not about screeching through oblivious of those around you as you try to craft the perfect time. What we have since learned is that that it is fundamentally about connection. That’s right, this experience, this museum, now handily rebranded by its founders as an ‘experium’,  has been engineered to bring people together, to be a kind of social glue, albeit of the creamy vanilla kind.

It was this episode of Yale associated podcast The Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos that started to shift our perspective, and as we dug deeper into the motivation of co-founders Maryellis Bunn and Manish Voramotivation, we found more and more that spoke to The Museum of Ice Cream as a counterpoint to our current epidemic of disconnection and the loss of spaces in our worlds that give us the opportunities to just be people together.

Here’s the irony: The Museum of Ice Cream was intended to be so spectacular that we wouldn’t be driven into the world of image-making on our phones, but rather we would be driven away from them. We’d want to immerse ourselves more in this fantasy world, for a short time tangibly all around us, because it was more real, more compelling, than those pixels. We would want to share that experience with those following a similar journey through the joyful labyrinthine spaces, as that would heighten our own experience for us. We’d want to escape our isolation and run into a place of collective joy. 

The Museum of Ice Cream has since pivoted and like all new concepts iterated on its theme. Yes, it’s a huge phenomenon that you may have visited, probably most likely have an opinion on, or are in the process of imitating (see the idiosyncratic experiential museums that it has since spawned), but it’s also still figuring itself out. Like Solo Nights (where you get in free if you turn up alone) and the phone free sessions; the Museum of Ice Cream concept is truly working when people connect within this fantasy palace, when they notice what’s actually around them and each other, and when the conversations started within the shininess go outside its walls, and sometimes that needs a phone-free helping hand.

The Museum of Ice Cream is a pop-up experience that’s meant to last more than the sugar high even as it gives you that high. It’s a careful line to tread, but we’re betting that as long as it's as much about the people it buoys up as the abundance of ice cream (or whatever the framework may become) that is consumed then this will stay a place of comfort that continues to soothe our disconnected lives.

To find out more: Website and Instagram