How to Cultivate Joy During a Stressful Election Season

Key Takeaways

• In the run up to the election, Americans have reported higher levels of anxiety.
• Joy can help regulate stress by tamping down our nervous system's flight-or-fight impulses.
• Connecting with community, taking time to enjoy small daily pleasures, and volunteering are all ways to get a little more joy into your life.

Politics can be stressful for many, especially during a presidential election year. In a May poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, 43 percent of respondents reported being more anxious than they were last year. Of those, more than 70 percent said they were anxious about the upcoming election.

Amid this ongoing roller coaster of emotions, an unlikely buzzword has emerged from the Kamala Harris presidential campaign: joy.

But joy doesn't fall under the exclusive purview of any one political party. It's more than a slogan; it's a pathway to good health. Cultivating joy in everyday life can lessen the mental and physical impact of stress and anxiety. Read on to learn how experts say joy impacts health and how to get more joy into your daily life.

How Joy Affects Health

Scientists are still untangling the ways in which joy changes peoples' physical and mental health. Until about 10 years ago, scientists weren't really studying the impact of joy and happiness on physical and mental health, says Stephanie Harrison , a former scholar of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and author of the book New Happy .

Since then, "Joy has been conceptualized in a few different ways," she says. "Some describe it as one of the supreme positive emotions, being part of other emotions such as gratitude. Others argue that joy is the emotion that we experience when we connect to something that is meaningful to us."

Experiencing joy can be the catalyst that pulls a person out of a negative emotional spiral.

"Feeling joy kicks off that positive upward spiral of feeling good, feeling more motivated, and achieving goals. It helps you to experience this state of positive emotion that elevates you," Harrison says.

Positive emotions can improve a person's ability to regulate their nervous system - and affect the body's natural fight-or-flight response to stress . Regulating stress is a huge benefit of joy, says Patrice Harris, MD , a psychiatrist in Atlanta and medical editor in chief at Everyday Health. (Dr. Harris has no relation to Kamala Harris.)

When a person is under chronic stress, the adrenal glands release stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol , which can impact every organ in the body, from the brain to the muscles and the nerve endings in the stomach.

How to Cultivate Joy

Joy doesn't always just happen; you may need to take action first. Here are some strategies.

Enjoy the Little Things

A huge secret to cultivating joy is experiencing the emotion in small moments, says Dr. Harris.

"Sometimes we wait for some big joyous moment, but find joy in the small things, like the rain if you have a garden and you need your vegetables to grow, or seeing a cat do something funny on social media," Dr. Harris says.

An analysis by University of California in Berkeley researchers at BIG JOY Project, which included 70,000 people in more than 200 countries, found that people who deliberately experienced small moments of joy every day - around seven minutes of joy per day - for a week reported being 25 percent happier than they were before.

The "micro-acts" of joy weren't complicated. They included things like dwelling in awe at incredible things, even a video of a scenic vista; ranking personal values and making a list of how these values show up in their lives; or celebrating another person's joy.

Connect and Take Action

To Harrison, joy is the emotion associated with connection or reconnection. In the context of election stress, this could mean getting involved with your political party or groups that advocate for issues important to you.

Voting can have a similar effect, Harrison says.

"When we take action, it truly doesn't just drive our motivation, but it can have a profound impact on our emotional state of being," she says. "It's a recipe for a fair amount of unhappiness to sit at home and stress about an outcome."

Don't Push Manufactured Joy

You've likely heard the term toxic positivity , the unrelenting pressure to only experience emotions such as gratitude, happiness, and yes, joy.

Harris says the true benefits of joy don't come from manufactured moments of joy. Acknowledging that there are bad days is key to cultivating authentic joy, she says.

"Nobody needs someone to tell them to find joy when they're having a bad day. We should give ourselves grace to feel what we need to. I encourage everyone to, when it's not going well, to feel that," Dr. Harris says. "By pressing joy all the time you invalidate the huge span of emotions humans experience."

Spread the Joy

When someone feels stuck in a perpetual bad day, Dr. Harris says helping others can be a powerful way to initiate feelings of joy.

Harrison agrees, arguing that happiness is rooted in human connection and kindness, not material things.

Consider the results of a study in which researchers divided 122 people who had moderate anxiety and depression into three groups. Some performed three big random acts of kindness two days per week; others were asked to plan a social event twice a week; and the last group was asked to complete a thought record - a technique used in cognitive behavioral therapy - twice a week, in which they would identify distressing or distorted thoughts and then learn coping strategies.

At the end of the study, people in all three groups reported feeling less depressed and anxious, had fewer negative feelings, and felt more satisfied with life. But those in the random acts of kindness group had even less depression and anxiety and the positive effect appeared to last longer than the other two activities.

"Since joy tends to be shared, it tends to ripple out and affect other people in positive ways, too," Harrison says.

Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking

Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy . We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.

Sources

1. American Adults Express Increasing Anxiousness in Annual Poll; Stress and Sleep are Key Factors Imp. American Psychiatric Association . May 1, 2024.
2. Stress effects on the body. American Psychological Association . March 8, 2024.
3. Guevarra DA. Can Little Steps Lead to Big Joy? Greater Good Magazine . November 14, 2023.
4. Cregg DR et al. Healing through helping: an experimental investigation of kindness, social activities, and reappraisal as well-being interventions. The Journal of Positive Psychology . December 12, 2022.

Meet Our Experts See Our Editorial Policy Meet Our Health Expert Network

Kaitlin Sullivan

Author

Kaitlin Sullivan reports on health, science, and the environment from Colorado. She has a master's in health and science journalism from the City University of New York. See full bio See Our Editorial Policy Meet Our Health Expert Network