In the present day, it can take a lot of effort to keep yourself in a state of happiness and calm with the amount of negative news that is available for us to consume. Everywhere you look, wars are happening, billionaires are creating policies and actions that harm the lower and middle class people, and rights are being taken away as if people are less than human. It can be extremely dark and overwhelming to consume all this information and feel helpless that there might not be an answer to make things better.
In my role as an Occupational therapist, I often work with individuals who struggle with their mental health, and who are in difficult situations. In these situations, no matter what I do, I can’t play the role of a saviour to “fix” the issues that are contributing to their already poor mental health, but I can work with my clients to find strategies to help COPE with these hard times. Often I have my clients explore the concept of choice when it comes to coping with challenging situations. There are many times we sadly can’t fix the situation we are in, and we have to accept that things aren’t great right now and then hope things get better. In these situations, it can be important to find little ways to add joy, hope and positive feelings into your day even if it doesn’t solve the overarching challenge.
There is a significant amount of research that explores how individuals can create or cultivate their own joy. Much of this research comes from fields like psychology, neuroscience, and positive psychology.
The Science of Happiness and Joy (Positive Psychology)
The Positive Psychology Movement: Researchers like Martin Seligman (often considered the father of positive psychology) have highlighted how individuals can increase their well-being and happiness by focusing on strengths, positive emotions, and personal growth. His work emphasizes that while external factors can influence happiness, we have significant control over our own joy. We can focus on ways to increase our positive emotions by taking small actions thoughout the day. An example of small actions could be starting a Gratitude Practice. Studies have shown that practices like journaling or regularly expressing gratitude can lead to greater feelings of joy. Research by Robert Emmons and others has demonstrated that people who regularly express gratitude experience better emotional well-being and less stress.
Expressing gratitude can be challenging especially in times that seem dark and like nothing ever will feel positive again. I truly believe that a gratitude practice is exactly that, a practice, and is not something that necessarily comes easily. We often take for granted positive times in our lives where things feel great and easy – think of all those summer days in the sunshine where we might choose to stay inside instead of going for a walk or enjoying a picnic. But when we are coming out of the darkness and bitter cold of winter, those one off teaser spring early March days are like the biggest warmest hug, when the sun shines down and kisses your skin. I think of gratitude practices as a similar thing – on great days, we may not acknowledge the beautiful things in our lives as much, but on harder days when you really have to search for something to be grateful for, you realize that the chirping of the birds as you walk to work or the warmth of your morning coffee actually bring you so much joy. Try to give yourself a gratitude challenge (or a glimmer challenge as I like to call it) and try to name one or two things that you are grateful for EVEN on the hardest days. You may be surprised what things mean a lot to you! You can check out my post about Glimmers here 🙂
Joy is a Skill. Research suggests that joy isn’t just a random, fleeting feeling; it’s something people can actively create through intentional practices. By making Small, Daily Choices, such as engaging daily habits like practicing gratitude, mindfulness, or kindness, we can lead ourselves to greater joy amongst the hardships of life.
The reason I wanted to make this post was because of the small action that one of my friends helped me do, that has brought me so much joy each day.
I have known my friend since we were in University together, and we have gone through quite the challenging times together. I am an Occupational therapist who works with neurodiverse individuals and a lot of families who experience very difficult situations, systematic barriers and traumatic life events. She is a doctor completing her upteenth year of medical residency. We both feel burnt out and tired, anxious and low, and when we finally get together it is like a breath of fresh air as we relax and reconnect.
When we hung out recently, she taught me how to add a widget to my phone (yes I am THAT bad at technology and didn’t know what a widget was). She showed me how to add my favourites photo album and pinterest board to my phone screen and we sat together and made happiness pinterest boards! Each widget rotates through different photos that we have chosen to bring joy and brightness to our day in the most simple way, and I truly love it! I have also gotten rid of my facebook and instagram to reduce comparison and overconsumption of news, which has helped me a lot, so engaging in pinterest as my main social media outlet to cultivate an album that makes me smile is magical 🙂
As we live in the ever growing tech era, on top of all of our personal and professional challenges, we also overconsume SO MUCH media so easily throughout the day, it can be an overwhelming place. Taking back a little corner of joy by added some little photos on my phone was such a simple but significant change to my day that I thought I needed to share 🙂
What do you do to bring joy to your life?
A couple books you can check out:
“The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor – A book on how to cultivate happiness and create joy in everyday life.
“Flourish” by Martin Seligman – Explores how people can increase well-being, purpose, and happiness.
“The Art of Happiness” by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler – Combines Buddhist wisdom with modern psychology on cultivating joy and contentment.
Be Your Own Sunshine 