Finding contentment every day

The Good team is delighted to bring you our moodboosting issue, which we hope will light you up. It’s certainly been a joy pulling this issue together. In these times we felt we could all do with a dose of good vibes, us included!

Inside we look at the best ways to boost personal day-to-day happiness on page 14. Some advice that really resonated with me was “finding happiness in the everyday, rather than always chasing it”. When I live in the ‘now’ I know I feel happier and calmer. These feel-good moments range from catch-ups with friends, time alone in the garden, reading a book, walking in nature or binge-watching a series on Netflix.

If you have furry friends in your life, we have a great piece on how to make your pets happier. Pet expert Selina McIntyre provides some great pointers on page 46.

Lynda Hallinan shares an extract from her new book The Joy of Gardening (pages 68-73) and I certainly do find joy in my garden. A recent happy moment was discovering a “zucchini” I’d planted was actually a pumpkin! Having never grown a pumpkin before I found this to be hilarious and the debate trail with my friends on Facebook was so much fun as we all tried to guess what was growing. So many were convinced it was scallopini! I’m glad it wasn’t as roast pumpkin is a fave of mine!

Speaking of food, Good’s editorial director Sarah Tuck has created some delicious gut-loving recipes on pages 80-87.

We also welcome celebrated book author and journalist Wendyl Nissen as Good’s new sustainable living editor. In this issue she shares how breaking free from social media has been a positive and why she doesn’t regret “flipping the switch” on page 24.

And we farewell our regular nutrition columnist Ben Warren who has been with Good for more than five years. Ben is taking a break, we wish him all the best and have loved working with him. He signs off in his final column, for now, on page 54.

We also want to thank you, our wonderful readers, for responding to our online happiness survey to share your favourite feel-good movies, books, songs and podcasts. We’ve shared these on pages 36-39 and hope you each make some more happy-inducing discoveries.

This also inspired us to create a

‘Good Happiness’ playlist on Spotify from all your suggestions. Search for

Good magazine on Spotify and tune in for your top 30 happy tunes!