In an overview of studies on happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky found that we control at least 40% of our happiness through our focus and choices (Lyubomirsky, 2013). We now know we can raise our happiness by cultivating positive emotions such as love, kindness, compassion, gratitude, hope, and inspiration. Here are some science-based ways to boost your happiness and well-being.

Happiness is an emotional state—feeling happy about something means feeling satisfied—or maybe it’s an assessment of our life or someone else’s. Joy is an episodic emotion and is felt concurrent with the situation prompting this emotion and arises during activities. The following factors can explain the main differences between joy and happiness…

Joy, unlike happiness, delight, awe, and other positive emotions, requires us to define a set of morals and values that orients us toward respect and responsibility to others. Here’s how joy motivates and directs our behavior…

Joy is a natural emotion, but it does not always happen naturally. Because of the challenges in our lives, we sometimes need to work at finding ways to cultivate joy. Here are a few ideas on how to do that…