This 1 Daily Exercise Will Bring More Joy Into Your Life — and Maybe Even Boost Longevity

Joy is a powerful and complex emotion. We can experience it without even realizing, especially if it’s bookended by stress and sadness — but that’s what makes it even more important to seek out.“People often dismiss the things that bring them joy. They think that they’re inconsequential, that those small moments don’t matter, or that the activities they love are a waste of time when there’s so many important things to take care of,” Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., health psychologist and author of “Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking,” tells TODAY.com.“Knowing that joy is life-sustaining can be something you can remember when you’re feeling like you don’t have time for the things that bring you joy.”Still, the mindset that joy isn’t important is so pervasive that you may not even know how to find it in your day-to-day life. McGonigal has a simple exercise to fix that.Mental Health Tip of the Day: Look for Joy and Document It When You Find It“The No. 1 strategy that people can use to get more joy in their life (is) you need to look for joy in the wild,” McGonigal explains. Look for people who are celebrating something or otherwise excited and join them in it, she says. “When you see someone who is expressing joy ... consider it an invitation to connect, to let that person know that they matter and that you care about them.”If you need more specific guidance, McGonigal says she encourages her students to track moments of joy for a period of time, whether that’s a week or entire semester. You can use your phone or write it down in a journal.Why It MattersResearch shows that joy is critical to overall wellbeing and has even been linked to extended lifespan, McGonigal says.That’s because experiencing and recognizing a moment of joy “increases your sense that life has value, that life has meaning and that you matter,” she explains.Another reason is that “moments of joy bring people closer. When you experience a moment of joy, you feel a greater sense of belonging, a greater sense of acceptance, a greater sense of feeling connected to others,” she says.Together, these two feelings represent two of the greatest human needs, McGonigal adds.How to Get Started“Take a photo of something every day that brings you joy, or make a note of it, to start to get a greater sense of what these moments are that you might have been missing or dismissing — because when you capture them, you’re acknowledging their significance,” McGonigal says. These moments might be as nondescript as hugging your dog, a conversation with a stranger or calling a friend to celebrate a promotion.“It’s not about tracking them the way that you would track your glucose if you had diabetes,” McGonigal explains.Instead, it teaches you to trust that there are opportunities to experience joy every day and to retrain your attention away from the bad and toward the good moments you can really appreciate, she says.TODAY’s Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.