... blog post:
Your 'happy place' is often defined as "a memory, situation, or activity that makes you feel happy", for example making photographs makes me happy, it puts me in a happy place. However, it goes deeper than that.
Another way of looking at it is "a place which a person associates with happiness, visualised as a means of reducing stress; hence inducing a happy state of mind".
For me the place I always return to in my mind is standing on the footbridge at Alresford station, come rain or shine, waiting and watching for the steam trains to arrive from up country then snapping them as they pull into the station.
This induces in me a state of calm and tranquility in any stressful situation. It's a double whammy, a happy place and a happy activity - happiness squared, no wonder it works so well (ask my dentist).