Niyama | Ayurveda & Yoga Wisdom

Niyama 27 August 2026

Happy That Fades by Dinner, or Happy That Stays?

A long time ago I gave myself a goal: find real happiness. Not the kind that turns up for an afternoon and disappears again, the actual thing. So I started asking the people closest to me what happiness actually felt like to them.

Nearly everyone gave me some version of the same answer. It doesn't really stay, they said. It's a moment, and then it's gone, and you go looking for the next one. I remember thinking, quite stubbornly, NO. Something in me was sure there was a way to feel happier properly, for longer, whatever that even meant. I didn't have the words for it back then. So, I kept looking, and yoga is where I found the beginning of an answer.

It wasn't a technique, more of an old map I hadn't seen before. The Bhagavad Gita talks about three kinds of happiness, not one, and only one of them actually lasts.

The first shows up when your senses get what they want: a good meal, a compliment, something new you just bought. The Gita puts it simply, sweet going in, sour coming out. You know this one if a new purchase has ever lost its shine within a week, or a compliment stopped meaning much by the fifth time you heard it. Psychologists eventually landed on more or less the same idea and called it hedonic adaptation, or the hedonic treadmill. The Gita just beat them to it by a couple of thousand years.

The second kind isn't really happiness, it's just not feeling much of anything, and the Gita links it to sleep, laziness, looking away from things. I'd call it the extra episode you didn't plan to watch, or the scroll that somehow eats forty minutes and leaves you feeling worse, not better. It's comfortable. It's also, and I say this having done plenty of it myself, a way of hiding.

The third kind is the one that holds, and it's the one I'd go back and tell my friends about if I could have that conversation with them again. It's bitter to start and only turns sweet with time, which sounds odd until you've actually felt it: the tiredness that comes with real effort but leaves you happy anyway, the relief of being YOU instead of trying to look good, or the quiet satisfaction of working hard to achieve your dreams. It doesn't spike, and it doesn't disappear by dinner either.

In the yogic view, four things build this steadier kind of happiness, and I think of them as four legs under a table: respect, simplicity, humility, love. Knock out one leg and the table wobbles, and happiness goes back to being occasional, dependent on the day behaving itself.

Here's the part that actually changes things: this third kind doesn't play by the same rules as the other two. You don't earn it by getting what you wanted, because it was never about getting anything in the first place. It comes from your mind and spirit not being chained to wanting at all. That's what people mean by “permanent happiness”: not a happiness that never dips, but something steady underneath the dips, that doesn't care whether your senses or your mind got their way today.

This is genuinely hard in a world mostly set up around the first two kinds, quick wins, an endless scroll, something new always one tap away. Just noticing which one you're standing in right now, senses, numbness, or steadiness, is most of the battle.

I think about those conversations, with the people who told me happiness doesn't last, more often than they'd probably guess. They weren't wrong, by the way. That kind really doesn't last. They just hadn't met the third kind yet. Neither had I, until I went and found it.

If you want to try this today: just notice, once, which of the three you're standing in, senses wanting something, mind avoiding something, or the quieter kind underneath both. Notice too what happens in your shoulders, your breath, your jaw. That's it. Just notice.

I'd love to know: which of the three, senses, numbness, or steadiness, do you recognise most in your day today? Tell me in the comments: I read every one.

And if you'd like support building that steadier kind of happiness into a daily practice, rather than chasing it one good day at a time, get in touch and let's talk about working together.

The Cheapest Tool You're Not Using

Niyama 19 August 2026

Did you know that a kind thought can actually change the flow of energy in your body and mind?

I don't mean that as a nice turn of phrase. There's real research behind it, and once I understood what was actually happening inside the body, it changed how I think about kindness completely.

For years I thought of kindness as something soft, nice to have, but not necessary. Something you do if you have the energy for it. Through those years of practising and studying yoga and Ayurveda, not just reading about it but living it, I've come to see it the other way round. Kindness isn't what you do once you have energy. It's one of the things that creates it.

Here's what the research actually shows, in plain terms. When you act, or even just think, kindly, your body releases oxytocin, which relaxes and widens your blood vessels, meaning more oxygen actually reaches your heart and the rest of your body, an effect researchers including Dr David Hamilton have written about. Kindness also triggers a small release of endorphins, sometimes called the "helper's high", a real, natural energy lift, similar to what you feel after exercise. At the same time, kind people tend to show measurably lower cortisol, your main stress hormone, which matters because cortisol is expensive: it's your body spending energy on alert, not on living. And Barbara Fredrickson's research at the University of North Carolina found that practising loving-kindness measurably improves vagal tone, a marker of how well your nervous system can shift out of stress and into rest and repair.

Put simply: harshness, urgency and self-criticism cost you energy. Kindness (even in tiny amounts) gives some of it back. In yogic terms, that's your prana moving again. In physiological terms, it's your blood vessels, your hormones and your nervous system doing exactly what they're built to do when you stop fighting yourself.

And here's the part I love most: it's free.

Kindness doesn't ask for money, and it barely asks for time. A smile at someone. A genuinely kind word. A small gesture like holding a door, noticing someone's had a hard day and saying so. None of it costs you anything you don't already have.

But there's a second half to kindness that we talk about far less, and it might matter even more: it's also the harsh comment you don't make. The judgment you catch before it leaves your mouth. The criticism, of someone else or of yourself, that you choose to let go of instead of voicing. That restraint is kindness too, and in my experience it's often the harder, more powerful half.

So if you're tired today, here's what I'd ask you to try before anything else: one kind sentence, said or just thought, to yourself or to someone near you. And just as importantly, notice the next harsh thought before it becomes a comment, and let it pass instead. Then notice what happens in your chest, your jaw, your breath. That's not your imagination. That's oxytocin, vagal tone, and a little less cortisol, all doing their quiet work.

I'd love to know: when did you last notice a real, physical shift in yourself after a small act of kindness, given or withheld? Tell me in the comments: I read every one.

And if you'd like guidance putting this into practice properly, rather than one sentence at a time, get in touch and let's talk about working together.