Joy isn’t just for weekends and vacations

It’s for laundry day and traffic jams, for leftover night and sweatpants on the couch.

We’re here to help you put more hooray in your everyday.

You deserve joy.

Really, you do.

Download the Joy 101 workbook to find joy right now — right where you are. In it you’ll find five science–backed strategies to squeeze more joy out of every single day.

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Finding Joy at home

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[1] Fredrickson, B. L., & Levenson, R. W. (1998). Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions. Cognition & emotion, 12(2), 191–220.

[2] Steptoe, A., Dockray, S., & Wardle, J. (2009). Positive affect and psychobiological processes relevant to health. Journal of Personality, 77(6), 1747-1775.

[3] Stellar, J. E., John-Henderson, N., Anderson, C. L., Gordon, A. M., McNeil, G. D., & Keltner, D. (2015). Positive affect and markers of inflammation: Discrete positive emotions predict lower levels of inflammatory cytokines. Emotion, 15(2), 129.

[4] Harker, L., & Keltner, D. (2001). Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 112-124.

[5] Oswald, A. J., Proto, E., & Sgroi, D. (2015) Happiness and productivity. Journal of Labor Economics, 33(4), 789-822.

[6] Isen, A. M. (2001). An Influence of Positive Affect on Decision Making in Complex Situations: Theoretical Issues With Practical Implications. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11(2), 75-85.

[7] Otero, M. C., Wells, J. L., Chen, K.-H., Brown, C. L., Connelly, D. E., Levenson, R. W., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2019). Behavioral indices of positivity resonance associated with long-term marital satisfaction. Emotion. Advance online publication.

[8] Demir, M., Tyra, A. & Özen-Çıplak, A. (2019). Be There For Me and I Will Be There For You: Friendship Maintenance Mediates the Relationship Between Capitalization and Happiness. Journal of Happiness Stud, 20: 449.

[9] Isen, A. M. (2001). An Influence of Positive Affect on Decision Making in Complex Situations: Theoretical Issues With Practical Implications. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11(2), 75-85.

[10] Staw, B. M., & Barsade, S. G. (1993). Affect and Managerial Performance: A Test of the Sadder-but-Wiser vs. Happier-and-Smarter Hypotheses. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(2), 304.

[11] Barsade, S. G., & Gibson, D. E. (2007). Why does affect matter in organizations? Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(1), 36-59.

[12] Baas, M., De Dreu, Carsten K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? Psychological Bulletin, 134(6), 779-806.

[13] Rowe, G., Hirsh, J. B., & Anderson, A. K. (2006). Positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(1), 383-388.

[14] Golle, J., Mast, F. W., & Lobmaier, J. S. (2013). Something to smile about: The interrelationship between attractiveness and emotional expression. Cognition and Emotion,28(2), 298-310.

[15] Diener, E., Thapa, S., & Tay, L. (2019). Positive emotions at work. Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior.

[16] Gray, A. W., Parkinson, B., & Dunbar, R. I. (2015). Laughter's influence on the intimacy of self-disclosure. Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 26(1), 28–43.

I’m Ingrid Fetell Lee, designer, author, and founder of the School of Joy.

Ingrid outdoors smiling wearing a colourful shiny tassel jacket

Fifteen years ago, I set out to understand why certain places and things bring us joy. That research has since become a blog, a TED talk, and a bestselling book called Joyful.

And while I never pictured myself at the helm of a happiness school, it makes a strange kind of sense.

Science says that joy has a powerful, transformative effect on our well-being.

Design says, “Let’s make more of it.”

And that’s exactly what we do here. We take peer-reviewed papers and turn them into practices that help you design a better life.

Joy isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have. And we’re here to help you find it.

Joy is not a luxury.