7 Have a one-onone dinner with a close friend

People in marriages regularly catch up as couples, but often we have our best conversations when we’re alone with our friends or siblings. “Everyone should do what suits them,” says

Waldinger. “But introverts in particular really benefit from seeing the people in their lives alone and getting those quality connections.”

This is true for very close friends but also acquaintances whose company you enjoy but who you often don’t see for months at a time. “Most of us have friends who energise us, but we just don’t see enough of them,” says Waldinger. “This is an untapped resource that is in your life, waiting to be used. We might be sitting on a gold mine of vitality that we’re not paying attention to, because this source of vitality is eclipsed by the shiny allure of smartphones or TV, or pushed to the side by work demands.”

The key to happiness, it seems, is seeing them for the gold mine they actually are.