Jancee Dunn’s recent adventure at a shelter fund-raiser, yoga with kittens, was pure mayhem. Kittens leaped after wand toys, one climbed her leg, and participants laughed so hard they abandoned their poses. For Dunn, it was joy in its purest form, and she took the experience to Kelly McGonigal, a Stanford psychologist who teaches ‘The Science and Practice of Joy’ and is the author of the upcoming book ‘Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking’.

McGonigal describes joy as an emotion that sustains hope, brings us closer to others, and helps us sense the value of life itself. But it doesn’t simply happen. It needs tending and cultivation. She offers several simple joy experiments to get started.

Share joy memories

Ask people you care about to recall something that brought them joy.

Research suggests that sharing memories strengthens relationships and boosts well-being, and it’s a lovely way to learn new things about someone. When McGonigal asked her stoic father, he described visiting a Pennsylvania farm before she was born and being so moved by the countryside that he began twirling down a hill, filled with glee and freedom. It revealed a side of him she had never known. Another good prompt, 

what is the most joyful sound in the world to you?

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Dunn’s answer was her grandmother’s wheeze-laugh, which erupted whenever a joke landed especially well.

Notice micro-uplifts

Complimenting someone’s outfit, or fetching an item from a high supermarket shelf for a stranger, benefits both giver and receiver.

As McGonigal puts it, these small moments don’t have to fix everything to matter. You can even go on a deliberate ‘search for joy’ in a park or library, letting your attention wander until something delights you.

Greet people with enthusiasm

People tend to blossom when greeted warmly, and a study of more than 60,000 people found that the greeter’s life satisfaction rises too. Try choosing a 24-hour window and acknowledging others with extra liveliness, such as “There he is!” or “Great to see you!” Dunn found it worked especially well with shy people. In McGonigal’s words, attention is a form of care and respect.

Cheer others on

Rooting for others lets us practice positive empathy, feeling some of the joy the other person feels. You needn’t know them. Stand at the sidelines of a charity run or a parade, or watch a high school marching band perform. Dunn is partial to quirky community events, such as a parallel parking competition in Philadelphia.

Her kitten yoga class, she notes, was an example of “collective effervescence,” the shared exuberance that spreads through a group doing something together, whether at a comedy club or a game where someone scores. To feel the full lift of collective joy, McGonigal says, you have to join in.

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Joy isn’t reserved for grand occasions. It can be, through small, deliberate habits, such as a shared memory, a warm hello, a moment of noticing, or a cheer for a stranger.