Dr Hilary the Health Detective thinks she may have stumbled on a fabulously simple recipe for the ultimate human quest: happiness.

It’s not often that I seek spiritual insights in the words of merchant bankers (in fact, I can safely say this is a first), but I was recently forcibly struck by the brilliant economy of thought and fundamental wisdom behind former banker Tony Wilkinson’s new book ‘The Lost Art of Being Happy: spirituality for sceptics’. Straight away, I must confess I haven’t actually read the book itself, but the review I stumbled across early this year paraphrased all I needed to know. He’s apparently boiled the formula for happiness down to five basic elements: mindfulness, benevolence, enjoyment, the ability to let go, and paying attention to how we talk to ourselves.

Ringing out, with the bell-like clarity of a single triangle played at the end of a particularly raucous symphony, its simple integrity really hit home. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that, to paraphrase Professor Higgins, by jove, he’d really got it.
Mindfulness is a word very much in vogue in West Coast therapy-speak at the moment and it’s a concept that’s well known to any buddhist or student of meditation. It’s the seemingly simple (but actually really tricky) art of being in the ‘now’, of feeling completely rooted in the experience of each moment; a feeling we generally associate with being on holiday, when we allow ourselves to float free of the pressing issues of all that we have to get done and all that is expected of us in our daily life. Luckily, as I read this book review, I’d just spent a very happy week surrounded by the glorious, heart-lifting landscapes of northern Scotland and Northumberland, in the company of people that I loved, so that happy feeling was already coursing through my veins. Of course, in that mode one feels naturally benevolent (the second key building block for happiness) to the rest of the world at large. And enjoyment, the third element, seems the natural order of things. Knowing when to let go (when it isn’t worth worrying any further over a particular issue, hopeless friend, shitty boss), now there’s a challenge. But certainly one worth striving towards. And the last point – observing our mental chatter (and presumably trying to still the nasty, negative, undermining voice that can run through our thoughts on a bad day) - is just plain good sense.

But the real beauty of this theory is – and trust a banker to spot an investment with huge potential, both short and long term – the more you focus on this method of being happy, the more it accumulates.

I determined that, from that point on, I would make time to focus on enjoyment every day. That didn’t necessarily mean bathing in asses milk and gorging on the finest chocolates known to man (though I certainly wasn’t ruling it out). I had to be realistic, of course. With two young kids and a career to attend to, I couldn’t afford to go overboard. But I decided that the first hour of every weekday was going to be mine to do something that felt nourishing and pleasing and put me in that desirable ‘mindful’ state. I knew I’d have to schedule it, or it would fall into the black hole of so many good intentions. So from the moment I dropped the kids off at school at 9am until 10am when I sat down to work, I was allowed to do whatever made me happy: listening to music I loved, tuning in to a radio programme I’d missed (thank the Lord for the internet and the BBC's ‘listen again’ service), reading interesting and uplifting magazines (I avoid those toxic peddlers of mindlessness – celebrity magazines and gossip rags), reading a chapter or two of a good book, ringing an old friend I rarely see, calling my sisters or my ageing mother, or meeting up with buddies for a coffee and a catch-up. See? Nothing particularly mindblowing or even expensive and not all of it terribly self-centred. But calling that time my own made a huge difference to the quality of my life. I found I could do quite a lot in that hour and even started spontaneously tidying my desk while listening to music or radio programmes (and those who know me are well aware of the clutter and chaos that typifies my desk space), which made me happier still (because it didn’t feel like a chore, and I suddenly knew where everything was). In that happy head space, I also found time to take care of bills/correspondence as soon as they arose, and even to book ahead for cultural excursions (so that I could get better seats for less money).

What’s more, with this small shift in my scheduling, I seemed to be more efficient, productive and focused in my remaining hours before the school gates opened. It was easier to ‘let go’ of the unnecessary niggles and worries, because I felt clearer about the ‘groove’ I was in and not being distracted. And because I was feeling more productive, I didn't have to waste time on negative backchat about what I hadn't achieved.

Of the few friends I shared this fortunate discovery with, some would wail that, as they worked in - or ran their own - busy offices, they could hardly tell their colleagues they would mainly be enjoying themselves for the first hour of every day. But just think what happy, productive companies they’d have if bosses made it compulsory! Others, with small children still underfoot at home, didn’t have the luxury of taking that kind of time out in the daytime. But both had evening hours that could be spent exactly in this blissful manner – instead of slumped in front of something meaningless on the telly. Unless, of course, being slumped in front of meaningless telly is your idea of bliss....

Anyway, I didn’t blab on about it at large. And I didn’t get the chance to become unbearably annoying and smug about it. This blissful practise lasted exactly a month. And then somehow I forgot, or I got ill with one of these lingering stomach lurgies. But I know I can do it again, and I know it makes sense.