Why your next moment of joy is closer than you think
Women of Sussex, I have a simple question for you. When did you last experience a moment of sheer bliss? A week ago, a month ago, yesterday? To be clear, I don’t mean the absence of stress, which is often how we define bliss in our crazily busy lives. I’m talking about something that instantly makes you feel happy, pause, smile, or take a deeper breath.
If your answer is ‘very rarely’ or ‘never,’ you’re not alone. I have asked the same question of many women over the years, and often, the answer is that they can’t recall the last spontaneous burst of joy. We move through the day, completing tasks or working or caring for others and don’t give much thought to how we are feeling. But what happens if happiness isn’t left to chance? What if you could experience it every day, all day?
This is the idea behind the 90-minute happiness habit. It’s a simple way to make sure that the next moment of bliss is always just around the corner.
A different way of thinking about happiness
Often, we tie our happiness to big moments such as holidays, celebrations and goals achieved. Things we look forward to, plan for, and remember afterwards.
Interestingly, positive psychology tells a different story about how we should experience joy. It’s not these occasional highs that build our sense of well-being, because they don’t sustain us in the long term. It’s the small, consistent daily pleasures that impact our mood, mental toughness and emotional balance. Happiness is less about what happens to us and more about what we pay attention to. For example, stepping outside for a breath of fresh air in the sunlight, savouring your first herbal tea of the day, experiencing the scent of your favourite shower gel as the day begins or pausing to notice how the sun falls across your garden on a Sussex morning. Yes, you may already do these things, but how often do you actually notice how they make you feel? Do you notice them at all?
Women are masters of multitasking, but it’s hard to savour your first cup of tea of the day when you’re doing the washing up from the night before or scrolling through your phone.
The 90-minute rhythm
The principle of the happiness habit is beautifully simple. Every 90 minutes, you give yourself a moment of intentional pleasure. Not something extravagant (although it can be, of course). Not something you have to earn. Just a pause to notice or create something that feels genuinely good.
This isn’t a made-up interval. Ultradian rhythms are biological cycles we experience, whether we are asleep or not. Every 90 minutes, we move through a predictable wave – a climb into alertness, a productive plateau and then a natural dip where the brain asks for recovery. This trough is where we need our bliss point, which also primes us for the next cycle.
Don’t think of bliss points as just another thing on your to-do list. It’s far more intuitive than that. You’re not adding in ninety-minute interruptions to an already busy day. You’re learning to notice when your body naturally needs a break and to offer it something nourishing instead of depleting. The trouble is, modern life has taught us to override these signals using caffeine, sugar or sheer willpower, pushing through dip after dip until we reach the end of the day feeling flat and exhausted.
Time for action
To experience the bliss your body needs (and is asking for), during these short pauses in your day, do something that brings you real pleasure and that you are fully present for. Stop and take your bliss point as soon as you notice any of these:
- You start to yawn
- You have an urge to stop to check your phone or make coffee
- You feel restless or fidgety
- You have lost focus on the task in hand
- You feel hungry even though you’re not
- You have that ‘I can’t think straight’ feeling
We live in a county that offers extraordinary beauty and variety and is rich in sensory detail if we pause to notice it. The fragrance of wild garlic along a footpath near Arundel, the rumble of the waves washing over the pebbles on Brighton Beach, the shifting light on the Downs, the way the mist settles over Cuckmere Valley in the morning and the vast view from Devil’s Dyke as the sun drops behind the Weald. Our landscape gives us the opportunity to create bliss points wherever we are. We simply need to grab them.
Try this
Start simply. Tomorrow, set an alarm on your phone for every 90 minutes from the moment you wake up. Each time it sounds, pause whatever you’re doing and find one small thing to appreciate. Stay with it for thirty seconds, which is long enough for the moment to register. Longer if you can. At the end of the day, jot down the bliss points you experienced. You’ll find that within a week or so, you can probably ditch the alarm. By then, your attention will have learned the rhythm for itself, and you’ll find joy rising to the surface without it needing to be summoned.
So, women of Sussex, your next moment of bliss is only 90-minutes away. All you have to do is notice it.
About Julie Brown
Julie Brown is a Sussex-based accredited coach, content creator, and journalist-turned-writer who works with women in midlife on confidence, boundaries, and identity. She is particularly interested in how women can end up feeling smaller, lacking confidence and without a voice and what happens when they finally decide it’s time to change.
Julie’s writing explores self-worth, visibility and the inner shifts that arrive in midlife. She believes this stage of life can be a powerful turning point, offering women the chance to step into a fuller, more unapologetic way of living: www.stillsassy.co.uk
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