Actress Goldie Hawn, 80, is passionate about mental health and has been open about her own struggles with depression and anxiety for decades.
Hawn’s mental health challenges began in her 20s when she was new to fame. She sought help and has continued to encourage others to do so by openly sharing her story. In 2003, she founded MindUP, a preventive mental health program to support students, educators, and their families.
In a recent interview on The Jennifer Hudson Show, Hawn shared an easy trick she often uses to boost her happiness.
Goldie Hawn’s happiness trick
Hawn also shared her happiness trick in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
“I smile at everybody,” she told the publication. “I’m on the street and I have a smile on my face. And you do receive back because people actually return that.”
She went on to explain that acknowledging others and connecting with them is more than “an act of kindness—it’s a state of mind.”
One place where she looks to acknowledge people is the elevator in her apartment.
“You’re in an elevator: ‘How are you today?’ ‘Oh, I’m feeling pretty good.’ ‘Oh, that’s good. I’m happy to hear that,’” she told PEOPLE. “I do that when I’m in New York in my elevator in the apartment. And people are so sweet. And then when they get in the elevator again, ‘Oh, I got to see you again!’”
In another interview on Khloe Kardashian’s podcast, Khloe in Wonderland, Hawn added that making herself smile is an instant happiness booster.
“If you are sad, but you make yourself smile—I don’t know, sometimes I walk down the street, and I kind of have a half-smile on my face—it changes your brain completely,” she explained. “Your brain thinks you’re happier…it shows you how connected our body is [to] our brain.”
Goldie Hawn’s depression battle
During a 2021 interview with Good Morning Britain, Hawn explained more about her struggles with depression and anxiety.
“When I was young, I became depressed. I was 21, and I was rising to success,” she said. “I was very depressed, and I had a lot of these issues where I couldn’t even go outside in public.”
In a 2024 interview on the Making Space with Hoda Kotb podcast, she added that her anxiety also came with panic attacks after she landed a role on her first television sitcom called Good Morning World in 1967.
“They said they wrote a part in for me, and I called home and I said, ‘Mom, you’re not going to believe this,’” Hawn shared. “And then I became anxious, and I had little panic attacks, and then I realized that every time I’d go into a restaurant or a place, I’d get dizzy, and I would want to go home.”
Although she had never struggled with happiness before (she noted that her childhood was “joyful”), things changed.
“I didn’t know what happened to my joy. I mean, I lost my—I tried to fake my smile. I’ll never forget that. It’s the scariest thing that has ever happened to me,” she explained.
How Hawn treated her depression and anxiety
To help her cope, Hawn sought professional help from a psychologist.
“I went to a doctor, and I spent nine years with him,” she noted on Making Space with Hoda Kotb. “Why? Because I was learning about myself. I was learning about how to forgive, and I was learning, as I grew extremely successful, how to be able to manage other people’s perception of me because they didn’t know me.”
Hawn continues to make it her mission to be honest about her own mental health struggles to help others.
“We can’t live in the dark and wonder what’s going on with me. We have to know that people do experience this,” she said. “And it’s really important to acknowledge it. Because only until you acknowledge it can you fix it.”
