The Happiness Institute's founder and "chief happiness officer", Dr Tim Sharp, says it is vital to develop strategies for looking after your happiness because it will impact on so many aspects of your life.
"Happy people are healthier, they live longer, they're more successful at work and have better-quality relationships. Happy people perform better in pretty much every realm when compared with those who are depressed or not as happy," he says.
Different strategies work for different people, Dr Sharp says. There are general principles, including being clear about your goals, living healthily, being positive but realistic, fostering key relationships, using your strengths and enjoying the moment, but people should try them out and choose what works best for them.
"If I'm feeling down - and yes, Dr Happy does feel down at times - then I find the following things really help me: taking the advice of those I trust (particularly my wife), listening to music, doing some form of exercise and/or meditation, a change of scenery, practising appreciation and gratitude.
"It's important to note that accepting a degree of negative emotion is essential," Dr Sharp adds, "but these strategies help me work my way back to happiness as quickly as possible."
And as more people shift towards happiness as a measure of their success, a recent study by the University of Melbourne's Associate Professor Bruce Headey has found relationships are more important than material success in influencing a person's happiness.
"It appears that prioritising success and material goals is actually harmful to life satisfaction," he wrote in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences.
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