Need more joy in your life? These 4 strategies can help
The feeling of joy can come from many sources. Maybe you’re staring at one of your favourite works of art, lost in its brushstrokes as your imagination takes over. Was that a face you saw in the waterfall—an optical illusion that the artist planted there on purpose?
For some reason, this floods you with a really good feeling. You might also feel joy when the people you love most in the world are around you, all enjoying a raucously noisy Sunday night dinner. Your heart swells within you, and you can’t imagine anything else ever feeling quite as good.
As one of the basic emotions, joy holds a special place in psychology as well as in people’s lives. Yet it also remains one of the least understood. We know plenty about depression and fear, the stuff of psychological disorders, but those positive emotions remain elusive. While it’s true that treatment for psychological disorders requires an understanding of these negative emotions, much less is known about what happens when positive emotions take over.
The Science of Joy
As pointed out by Northumbria University’s Maria Roberts and Richard Appiah (2025), joy has the unique potential, compared with happiness, to foster the kind of well-being “derived from living in alignment with one’s values, purpose, and personal growth.” The Broaden-and-Build Theory proposes that even a fleeting sense of joy can be enough to negate the effects of negative emotions, and, according to one source, serve as “a powerful antidote to hate and division.”
Despite all these glowing commendations for the value of joy, its study remains left by the wayside even in the field of positive psychology. It would be nice if joy could be subjected to the kind of experimental studies reserved for negative emotions that would advance its empirical study, but, for the moment, Roberts and Appiah believe they need to begin with a more qualitative, interview-based approach.
The Language of Joy
Using what they call a “critical realist” approach, the Northumbria U. authors developed a series of questions intended to elicit the ways that their 14 participants (ages 28 to 59) define, express, and cultivate joy, along with their views on how joy connects to happiness. The interviews were individually conducted and recorded on Microsoft Teams, lasting an average of 49 minutes.
See how you would answer the initial questions the research team asked of the participants:
Can you describe a specific moment that you experienced joy and happiness in your life? How did you process and express that joy?
These initial questions were followed up by prompts:
In your opinion, how might cultural or societal influences shape an individual’s understanding and expression of joy?
How do social connections and relationships impact your ability to cultivate and sustain joy?
To code responses, the first author used “reflexive thematic analysis,” meaning that she thought about the questions themselves and how she might answer them. She knew her own “cultural lens” could play a role in interpreting the answers, and so why not work with rather than against her own ideas about joy?
The four main themes that emerged from the interview coding (done with a well-established software program) were as follows, along with representative quotes;
Theme 1: The Dynamics of Joy in Everyday Life. You may not even know where joy comes from, but it has plenty of opportunities to do so in everyday life. Respondents mentioned such experiences as follows: “It’s like butterflies… it goes up and down, and sometimes it comes for no reason,” or “It’s like you look at the top of a mountain … and it sort of comes into your heart and it’s like utter joy.”
Theme 2: Determinants of Joy: Influences and Barriers. Unfortunately, there are times when you can’t feel joy even though you’d like to. For one thing, the media overlooks joy found in everyday experiences “so you’re gonna be constantly disappointed and miss the real moments of joy.” Instead, tapping into one’s “inner child” and nurturing joy after facing adversity can bring you back up.
Theme 3: Coping Behaviors. Coping can further help you find joy. Once you do, you’ll “recognize that … moments of joy exist in your life (and can) improve your sense of wellbeing and sense of worth.” In other words, go for it!
Theme 4: Strategies for Cultivating Joy. Don’t be afraid to talk about joy and find ways to revitalize your connections with others; “It’s about getting back to basics, spending time with family, and finding joy in those simple, meaningful moments.”
Where Will You Find Joy?
As you can see from these interview snippets, joy is a multifaceted emotional experience. The bottom line is that, when you can’t grab it right away, there are strategies to nurture this intense sense of well-being and sense of being at one with the world. The many seemingly insignificant moments that can create a space that becomes joyful shouldn’t be discounted.
Thinking back on that Sunday dinner example, this would provide a great model to use as you look around you at possible ways to explore that space. Every second may not be filled with joyous interactions (as two of those raucous family members get into a spat). But don’t let those get to you. Later on, as you reminisce about your times with family, you can recreate those pinpoints of intense positivity.
To sum up, joy may be fleeting, but the long-lasting effects are not. Cherish the paradox as it sends you on a path to greater fulfilment.