With mindfulness in mind, the Guardian newspaper has released a new app with the purest of intentions: simply to make us happier.  In the process they plan to find out what kind of activities make us happiest. This might sound too good to be true, but it gets better, the app is totally free.

Every day for three months the Happy For Life app will give users three suggestions of things intended to help you keep things positive. The options range from the ordinary (tell someone you love them, go for a swim) to the not so ordinary (plant a tree) to the not necessarily all that fun (have a good cry).

The app then lets you rate each activity you take part in, so you can build a picture of what makes you happiest.

Data from the app will be fed anonymously into Happy For Life’s online dashboard where the Guardian will be tracking the collective results to see which actions produce the best results. If you’ve always wondered whether planting a tree is more likely to make you happy than a good cry, for example, the Guardian could be on the verge of providing a definitive answer.

Brands are experimenting with various ways to finding out what consumers enjoy. The Happiness Blanket was an unusual experiment that measures passenger’s mood during a British Airways flight. Using a neuro-sensor EEG-measuring headband synced to fibre-optic technology woven into the fabric, the blanket changed colour from red to blue to show when passengers were at their most relaxed