Meet the founder

Hey, I’m Rik. Founder of We Are HAPS. 

For the past 9 years, I’ve been studying the science of happiness. Recently, I’ve been collaborating with nutritional experts to create a groundbreaking new supplement that boosts serotonin levels in the brain and supports mental health. So I’m going to tell you a bit about my story, how I got to this point and why nutrition is so important to mental wellbeing.

My Story

So, what’s my story? Well, I've experienced first hand the impact of poor mental health. Growing up I watched my mum suffer with depression. Personally, I suffer with anxiety and winter blues. A few years ago, during a typically dark winter month, my mum had a spinal stroke, my grandad died and I really hit rock bottom. Initially, I tried to avoid my emotions by keeping busy - working all hours during the week and partying all weekend but that just made things worse. So, I slowed down and started focusing on my wellbeing, particularly nutrition. Supplements massively helped me, but I didn't like taking a load of different, individual pills everyday. Also, these are full of various bulking agents and cheap chemicals to increase corporate profits, not my wellbeing. I thought “surely there must be a better, more ethical solution than this”, but there wasn't, so I created HAPS. 

I now love my life and all the emotional highs and lows that it entails. Bad shit happens, that’s never going to change. But, your emotional response can change. You can take more control. So, I’m on a mission to empower people to do just that. I’ve quit a secure, well paid job, got rid of almost everything I own and dramatically cut my living costs while I self fund We Are HAPS. I’ve sacrificed all that comfort because although I’m much better now, it kills me to see more people than ever feeling low, despite all the scientific advances over the past decade. 

The problem

The stats are that 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. [1]

In 2013, there were 8.2 million cases of anxiety in the UK, and it's a growing problem. [2]

The primary treatments for anxiety are:

Drugs are the most effective treatment in the short term, however the latest research studies have found that drugs are not a long term solution (and there are natural ways to boost serotonin levels without SSRIs).

More and more scientific studies are confirming the link between nutrition & mental health. [3][4][5][6][7][8]

But awareness of this link is very low. We need to take action.

The solution

Nutrition is fundamental to mental health. Your ability to respond healthily to situations with joy, sadness anger, fear whatever that response needs to be for that situation, and then reset to a calmer place involves a load of connected chemical reactions. For each chemical step to occur, your body needs specific nutrients. If you don’t have enough of them, it’s very difficult to reset and find your happy place. 

A healthy diet is often not enough though because some nutrients can’t be sourced from food. 

So, we’ve developed HAPS SuperFruits + Boosters to give you a boost of these specific nutrients & feed your happy. Unlike most supplements, we use no bulking agents or fillers. Instead, we just use whole fruit powders + the finest quality boosters.

It’s massively helped me, friends, family and all the awesome customers I’ve had so far but it can also help millions more.

So please, help me help others. Buy a pack a for you, or for someone else and support the mission. It's so much more than a nutritional supplement. It's a movement dedicated to empowering people to take control of their happiness. I believe all businesses should exist to have a positive impact on the world and help humanity, even if that means less profit! Happy is the new rich :)






[2] Fineberg, N., Haddad, P., Carpenter, L., Gannon, B., Sharpe, R., Young, A., Joyce, E., Rowe, J., Wellsted, D., Nutt, D. and Sahakian, B. (2013). The size, burden and cost of disorders of the brain in the UK. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 27(9), pp.761-770.

[3] Ramsey, Drew, and Philip R. Muskin. "Vitamin Deficiencies and Mental Health: How Are They Linked? Identifying and Correcting Deficiencies Can Improve Brain Metabolism and Psychopathology." Current Psychiatry 12.1 (2013): 37.

[4] Sarris, Jerome, et al. "An adjunctive antidepressant nutraceutical combination in treating major depression: Study protocol, and clinical considerations." Advances in Integrative Medicine 2.1 (2015): 49-55.

[5] Spedding, Simon. "Vitamin D and depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing studies with and without biological flaws." Nutrients 6.4 (2014): 1501-1518.

[6] Nutritional therapies for mental disorders

[7] Understanding nutrition, depression and mental illnesses

[8] Sarris, Jerome. "Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry" (2015)