Joyful: The surprising power of ordinary things to create extraordinary happiness

Where you are. Whom you are with. What you are doing. What sights, sounds, aromas, textures, or flavors are associated with your joy.

Reznikoff was humming one day while touring a prehistoric site and noticed that the spots with the highest concentrations of paintings produced resonant echoes not unlike those of a Romanesque chapel.

At the end of the week, look for patterns.

take note of any time you feel a sense of joy.

neuroscientists monitored guitarists playing a short melody together,13 they found that patterns in the guitarists’ brain activity became synchronized. Similarly, studies of choir singers have shown that singing aligns performers’ heart rates.14 Music seems to create a sense of unity on a physiological level.

Doug Wheeler, one of the founders of an artistic movement known as Light and Space,

Just as we turn to doctors and psychotherapists today, medieval people regularly consulted diviners,10 astrologers, and spiritual healers. But beginning in the sixteenth century, the scientific revolution brought a cascade of discoveries that filled in once-mysterious spaces with knowledge.

As with the energy aesthetic, color influences light and vice versa.

by day he’s a product designer at IDEO, working to bring wonder into everyday experiences like driving, shopping for groceries, and riding the bus to school.