JOY COLLECTION
On giving yourself permission to feel it and why your nervous system will thank you
I had one of those conversations last week that stays with you. A close friend, deep in perimenopause, was trying to describe how she felt. Super Anxious. Flat.
I knew exactly what she meant, because I’d been there. But my version was slightly different: I had stopped feeling joy.
Not dramatically. No crisis, no breakdown. I just stopped feeling that background hum of delight at being alive that I’d always taken for granted. I’m a natural optimist, bordering on the delusional mostly - so its absence was noticeable. For a few years I assumed this was simply the new me. The post-joy version. Hormones flatline, emotions get parked, and apparently this is adulthood now.
But hooray - it wasn’t permanent. The experience, did however make me curious about joy in a way I hadn’t been before.
We don’t really give joy much airtime
In clinic our conversations about health revolve around sleep, stress, nutrition, movement. All important. But joy?
It barely gets a mention. In a culture obsessed with optimising everything, there’s something almost embarrassing about joy. Is it too soft? too unquantifiable? too unproductive?
We’re on the hamster wheel: work hard, organise everything, exercise dutifully, crash out. Repeat. The moments of small delight that punctuate the day:
a good song on at the exact right moment, a really nice cup of tea, a dog doing something ridiculous, the parking fairy coming through with a timely space, we register them for a half-second and move straight on.
Which is a shame. Because it turns out we probably shouldn’t.
The biology of small moments
Here’ is the great news and why we have to embrace those moments - joy isn’t a fluffy bonus emotion. It has biological power.
When we experience positive vibes, joy - even briefly, even mildly - the nervous system sits up. The bit in control of relaxing, rest and repair; the parasympathetic branch (governed in part by the vagus nerve) gets a nudge. Heart rate variability shifts. Cortisol gets a little relief from its relentless campaign. Immune markers respond. The body, in a very literal sense, uses these moments.
The psychologist Barbara Fredrickson has spent decades on this, developing what she calls the broaden-and-build theory: positive emotions don’t just feel good in the moment, they build psychological and physiological resources over time. They quite literally expand how we think and function. Small inputs, compounded.
What this means practically is that we’re not looking for fireworks. We’re not trying to manufacture euphoria or engineer peak experiences. We’re looking for the small stuff;
sun through the trees, a toddler waving at a random dog, the traffic lights going your way, a friendly stranger interaction
and actually letting it register. Noticing it. Allowing it to land, and wallow in it for a few moments rather than rushing straight past to the next thing on the list.
The guilt problem
Something I’ve noticed, and I suspect I’m not alone in this: there’s a low-level guilt that attaches to joy. Like you haven’t quite earned it, or you shouldn’t be enjoying yourself when there’s so much to do. Hustle culture has a lot to answer for here. Always having to be productive and purposeful. It’s a bit telling - the fact I feel better knowing there is science to back up the importance of feeling moments of joy - ‘oooo that means its productive and purposeful to feel it!’
We don’t have to feel guilty. But since we’re here: the science does back it up.
A small practice
I’m not going to suggest a joy journal or a gratitude app, we want it to be super easy, low barriers to entry! So
let’s do this: start noticing. That’s all. Just let the small good things actually arrive rather than glossing over them in the rush.
The cumulative effect, over time, is real. And on even the most thoroughly rubbish of days, there’s usually something, even something infinitesimally small that offers a little perk of joy if you’re looking for it.
Grab it. Start collecting joy.
Maybe joy isn’t something we need to find. Maybe it’s something we need to stop brushing past.
What things have brought you joy this week?
Butter melting on toast
Longer sunny days
Toddler chat