I’m not naturally overflowing with contentment, and I’m not optimistic that this Californian programme is the answer – but I’m ready to give Big JOY a chance
I come across the words “Big JOY” while idly scrolling on my phone one morning and it stops me in my tracks. It’s the name: both funny and audacious (is an insidious joy industry manipulating us into bliss?). Who’s considering even medium-sized joy, when the horror of world events unfolds around us hourly?
But finding joy in hard times, personal or global, is precisely the point of Big JOY, a citizen science project based at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Anyone can take part – it requires a time commitment of just seven minutes a day for seven days, with easy activities that studies suggest are likely to increase positive emotions. The premise is that we can work out what makes us feel good and do more of it. “Micro-acts of joy focus us on what is good about the life in front of us, and how we can make it better,” says Elissa Epel, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco and author of The Seven-Day Stress Prescription, who is a collaborator on the Big JOY project. “This is critical during these dark times; these are ways we bring in the light.”
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