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Okanagan resident offers science-backed tips to happiness

Trina Kushnerik said she wanted to make happiness and science more accessible

2020 has been a challenging year, but a Summerland resident wants to help others turn it all around in 2021.

Trina Kushnerik, a University of British Columbia Okanagan psychology graduate, launched “A Happier Year”, a calendar with 366 days of science-backed tips to be happy and positive.

Kushnerik said she wanted to make science more accessible and exciting by transforming it into doable daily actions.

“‘A Happier Year’ is based on the science of happiness. There are thousands of researchers out there whose sole job is to figure out what makes us happy, and I take that information and put it in a format you can actually use,” she said.

“I wanted to find a fun way to seamlessly slip research-based activities into your day.”

Kushnerik added she didn’t want to just write a self-help book, so she opted to design and illustrate a daily calendar, making the information and the activities easy to understand and execute.

“I chose the calendar format because it lets you focus on one small action per day. You don’t have to absorb everything all at once.”

The activities are simple and cover topics such as gratitude, resilience, self-esteem, and fostering social relationships, with most of the activities only taking a few minutes to complete.

Kushnerik has finished “A Happier Year” and has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the calendar’s publication. As of now, the project has already reached 20 per cent of its funding goal.

“You don’t have to make monumental changes to be happier, you can just do a little thing each day and that can actually have a profound impact on your wellbeing over the course of a year.”

The campaign will run from now until Nov. 13. For more information on “A Happier Year” and the campaign, visit this link.

READ: 1,500 pounds of apples donated to South Okanagan schools


Twila Amato
Video journalist, Black Press Okanagan
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Twila Amato

About the Author: Twila Amato

Twila was a radio reporter based in northern Vancouver Island. She won the Jack Webster Student Journalism Award while at BCIT and received a degree in ancient and modern Greek history from McGill University.
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