The Bristol University course teaching people how to be happy

• Watch Ellie Barker's report

Staff at Bristol University are running a 12-week course on happiness - and hundreds of people have signed up.

The 'Science of Happiness' course was introduced as a pilot but is still running three years on.

Professor Bruce Hood introduced the course after he saw the success of a similar idea in the US.

There is no exam at the end with students instead awarded based on their "levels of engagement" as they are encouraged to spend time in nature, meditate and carry out random acts of kindness.

Professor Bruce Hood said: "We start off my addressing what is happiness? It is a term we use in everyday language but of course it really covers many different things.

"We really drill down to 'what are the markers of happiness and what are the markers of happiness and what are the goals we should be persuing?'.

"We challenge some of the assumptions that it's all to do with money and status."

They encourage students to adopt simple, healthy habits like gratitude, social connection, exercising and having a perspective on events.

Maren Mueller-Glodde is a mentor on the course, but she also studied it too.

Maren says: "You don't get anything out of it if you don't put the work in and that's what the course is for me, really. It's a tool-kit of skills for students to use to navigate life."

The course is the first of its kind in the UK and it is hoped more universities will look at it now.

It teachers that it is often the simple pleasures often equal happiness in life - and in a world of materialism and results-driven success, this should never be forgotten.