The Green Hack

The Green Hack is a concise guide to achieving and maintaining human health and happiness. It is not a conventional self-help guide in that it does not advise any specific course of behaviour but rather suggests broader categories of behaviour that will, for most people, increase personal health and happiness. It also makes no claim to originality. Indeed a lot of this may seem banal and self-evident which is, I believe, strong evidence that it works.

The hypothesis is that if you include a critical mass of these activities in your daily life you will achieve happiness as well as mental and physical good health.

There are a few general principles that guide what is included:

• Principles are "system neutral" should work regardless of your gender, ethnicity, age, class or ability.
• It requires no specialized equipment.
• It requres no previous experience.
• It requires no teachers or trainers.
• It is free to use.
• Its principles are complementary and self-reinforcing.
• Its principles should be supported by personal experience and observation, conventional wisdom or science.
• Its principles should be supported by what we assume of human evolution and anthropology.
• It is a living document and may be updated as information and ideas arise.
• It is meant to be hacked - take what you need, discard the rest. Add whatever else you believe to work as long as it follows these general principles.