Here are everyday practices to increase the joy you long to experience in your life.
Joy. Where could I find joy? My week had been hurried and more hurried. Too many responsibilities without space to breathe. I needed to do something.
With a determined click, I closed my laptop. The stress of all the demands on my time weighed on me. Grabbing my shoes, I headed outside for a walk, my terrier-mix, Mollie, beside me.
The park near our house showed signs of a desert spring. I breathed in the honey-rich scent of an acacia tree, its yellow, pompom-like flowers attracting bees and other pollinators. I rolled my shoulders and felt the weariness of the morning begin to lift.
“Good morning,” I smiled as I passed several park regulars who smiled in return.
A flash of red caught my eye as a little bird flew past my peripheral vision. A vermillion flycatcher. Number six this month, I thought. The bird swooped in front of us, catching an insect in mid-air, before landing on a low branch.
Near our house, I stopped to chat with my older neighbor, John, who sat in a sunbeam out on his porch. I promised to help him with a weed problem that evening.
The tenseness had disappeared between my shoulder blades as I headed back inside with Mollie. I was ready to continue the day’s responsibilities with a joy-filled heart.
This is More Than a Simple Story!
At first glance, my walk around the park might seem casual, uneventful. But the simple stroll included eight practices I have implemented to cultivate more joy in my life. You can too! And they are easy and inexpensive to try.
I used to believe joy needed to be spontaneous and unplanned, something that appeared like magic—a white rabbit out of a hat. Through the years, I learned that spontaneous joy—although wonderful—is not the only joy a person can experience. Cultivated joy is also possible. As a fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22, joy can be developed and nurtured so we can experience an increase in our lives.
The Difference Between Joy and Happiness
Joy can be distinguished from happiness by the way you experience and understand them.
While happiness is tied to external factors like achievements and pleasurable experiences, joy is a more internal and enduring sense of contentment. Joy can be described as a deeper state of well-being and fulfillment that transcends temporary pleasures.
Unlike happiness, which is fleeting and dependent on favorable circumstances, joy is characterized by a more profound and sustained sense of inner peace and gratitude.
External factors that are typically associated with happiness include accomplishments, favorable experiences, moments of pleasure, enjoyment, and success. Happiness involves being attached to these external factors, whereby individuals derive joy and fulfillment from their achievements and positive experiences. In the realm of psychology, this form of happiness is commonly known as hedonic happiness, emphasizing the importance of external circumstances in shaping one’s emotional well-being.
Joy is not solely reliant on external events or momentary highs, but rather stems from a more profound connection to oneself and a broader perspective on life. Overall, joy is often viewed as a more profound and enduring emotional state compared to the transient nature of happiness.
8 Ways to Cultivate Joy in Your Own Life
The following eight ideas are not complicated but are practices that can easily be added to a daily routine.
1. Find joy by walking.
Moving our bodies is good for more than physical health. Besides having a positive effect on weight loss, energy levels, and cardiovascular health, walking also benefits our mental well-being. That makes this simple exercise a double winner!
According to an article by Tyler Wheeler on WebMD, taking a walk can ease anxiety, depression, and stress—increasing our capacity for joy. He recommends starting with a five-minute walk and building up to longer strolls.
Do you have five minutes? Lace up those walking shoes!
2. Find joy in nature.
A regular dose of nature can increase your potential for joy. Are you wondering how to carve out the time to get away? With an overloaded schedule, are you asking how you can escape to the beach or to a mountain view three hours away?
Good news! According to the book, The Nature Fix: Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams, researchers in a study of city dwellers in Finland discovered they gained emotional and restorative benefits by being out in natural settings for five hours a month. You heard that right. Five hours. A month.
And better yet, those five hours could be spent in a city park. Even while on pavement—surrounded by crowds and street noise—participants found increased joy.
Sound good? Take a breather and step outside!
3. Find joy by savoring life with your five senses.
It’s easy to ignore the ordinary moments in our day, whether that is the hot cup of herbal tea in the morning, the smell of sweet peas, or listening to the sparrows outside. But savoring—fully enjoying the present moments—can increase joy. Psalm 34:8 (NIV) reminds us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Our senses are gifts from God to lead us to Him.
But what happens when we are too busy and ignore our senses?
Gretchen Rubin, author of Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, realized her focus on efficiency and living with a perpetual to-do list in her head caused her to live in a “chronic fog of preoccupation.” She walked by a sunset without even noticing the beautiful sky. She ate a delicious dinner without really tasting it. As Rubin began to pay attention to her five senses, she discovered a beautiful world existed outside her head. And her joy increased.
What are your five senses telling you? Increase your joy by paying attention.
4. Find joy by serving others.
God created us to be in relationship with Him and with other people. Our joy increases as we share life with others. Joy isn’t meant to be lived in a vacuum. My offer to help my neighbor with his weeds was not only a benefit to him. Reaching out and serving increased my own sense of well-being and joy.
“A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed,” the Bible promises in Proverbs 11:25 (NIV). In the economy of the Kingdom of God, everyone benefits by serving others with a generous heart.
Do you need some refreshing joy? Reach out with a helping hand.
5. Find joy by smiling.
I had an elementary school teacher who liked to say, “Turn that frown upside down.” She said the phrase to lighten the mood in the classroom. It turns out, she had realized something scientists are discovering to be true: a smile activates good things in the brain.
Smiling stimulates the reward mechanism in our brains, starting a feel-good loop that increases our joy, according to an article for Medium, “The Science of Smiling: A Guide to Human’s Most Powerful Gesture.” “In short,” the article details, “our brain feels good and tells us to smile, we smile and tell our brain it feels good and so forth.”
Are you stuck in a spiraling loop of worry and negative self-talk? Start smiling and break the cycle.
6. Find joy away from a screen.
Screens are everywhere. On our phones. In our living rooms. In our hands. The gas station where I buy gas even has a screen at the pump. A voice on the screen encourages me to come inside the store and buy cool beverages or delicious treats.
So many screens.
While technology has many positive elements, it does not come without a negative impact on our health. As adults we may believe our mature brains can manage unlimited hours on the screen, but it is not the case.
In an article called “Negative Effects of Technology and What to Know” for Medical News Today, researchers discovered that too much time on a screen affected our psychological and physical health. Besides the physical effects of eye strain, sleep disruption, and poor posture, too much screen time had negative impacts on people’s mental health, as well. Those effects included a rise in depression and anxiety.
In a world that demands more and more of our attention via screens, make the decision to prioritize real experiences and face-to-face encounters. When you do, watch your joy expand!
7. Find joy by coloring your world.
Can color bring joy? Yes. Whether donning a bright sweater on a cloudy day or adding a new colorful pillow to the couch, a spot of color is a mood lifter.
Color is another way to activate all those feel-good hormones in your brain, resulting in a lift of your spirits. God could have set us in a black and white existence, but instead He splashed the world with a rainbow of vibrant colors.
Do you need a quick pick-me-up? Grab that red jacket or move the hidden-away painting to a prominent place in your home. Choose the bright green mug for your morning coffee and tie a blue scarf around your neck before you step outside to face the world.
Your colorful world is filled with joy!
8. Find joy through reflection.
It turns out that keeping a record of what brings you joy increases the joy. Journaling and reflection are joy multipliers. Thinking about joy brings more joy! Don’t you like that type of math? When we take the time to discover what brings us joy, we are more likely to repeat the experience to encounter joy again. Win! Win!
After my stroll around the park with my dog, I came home and recorded the sighting of another vermillion flycatcher. My first sighting this year had come on a dismal, gray day in January. The bird’s brief flash of red lifted my spirits so much that I decided to dedicate a page in my journal to the bird. Each time I do, I receive a joy jolt.
Pick up that pen and make a list of your own joy jolts.
Ready to Implement These Eight Simple Practices?
When you make a habit of these simple practices, you will see an increase of joy in your life.
Lace up those shoes. Step outside. Pay attention to your five senses. Serve others. Smile. Turn off the screens. Color your world. Reflect on what brings you joy.
Our purpose here on the Devoutly app and website is to help you find the life and purpose God has created for you. You can discover a more joy-filled life. Try one of these eight joy cultivators. Go ahead, I invite you!
