Amidst the relentless doomscrolling and global sadness, finding moments of joy can seem challenging. Yet, fun remains not only possible but essential for well-being. This comprehensive guide presents 49 unique and thoroughly tested ways to inject delight into your daily life.
Physical Activities for Pure Joy
Cartwheels and Gymnastics
On the day we scattered my father's ashes, we lightened the mood with competitive gymnastics. Attempting a cartwheel revealed my own creeping decrepitude, but after watching online tutorials and practising for a year, I can now perform a passable cartwheel. For that joyful split-second upside down, I reconnect with my eight-year-old self.
Cycling Adventures
Spending hours riding a bike, exploring quiet back streets, cycle lanes, and canal paths, I feel the knots in my brain relax as I pedal. Nothing matches the freedom and joy, especially the elation of cruising downhill like a child again.
Sprinting Like a Kid
Running is often treated as an ordeal, but inspired by my three-year-old, I now add random sprints to my jogs. I feel invincible, like the reigning champion of the block, experiencing pure exhilaration.
Bouldering Without Ropes
As a reminder that thumbs can grip as well as scroll, bouldering is a total tonic. The focus required to climb 4.5 metres high without ropes provides a psychological break from feeling overwhelmed by multiple open tabs.
Outdoor Climbing
The feel of real rock under your fingers and the vast space around you is a thrill. Sign up for sociable events like the Arc'teryx Climbing festival or courses with outfits like Climb South West for an addictive challenge.
Creative and Social Fun
Kitchen Disco
Never underestimate the fun ready to burst out of your kitchen. The crucial ingredient is good music played loudly. Parcels, with their danceable tracks like Tieduprightnow and Gamesofluck, have become family favourites since their Glastonbury set.
Communal Painting
At A Creative Pause art class, drawing and painting on a big communal sheet of paper while moving around the table eliminates self-consciousness. Together, you create a stunning mural and take a piece home, sparking uplifting conversations about creativity.
Composing Music with Apps
Using apps like Koala, Dubler, or Ableton Note, music-making doesn't require years of training. Spending a few minutes daily recording musical experiments is a great antidote to doomscrolling and unlocks a new creative sense of fun.
Making Potions
For a chemical cocktail that guarantees happiness, get a bucket and mix citric acid, baking soda, food colouring, and water. Watch it fizz and sizzle with optional extras like oil, glitter, or vinegar. This Harry Potter party hit is exciting yet calming.
Knitting Classes
Joining a local knitting group, even as an eternal novice, can yield creations like an Ewok hood or baby blanket. The solidarity with fellow knitters and laughter over knitting acronyms make it all fun.
Food and Drink Delights
Making Pancakes
Pancakes four times a week are a grand way to start the day. The chaos of hot butter in a pan and a two-year-old wielding an egg beater is the only moment the family sits together. Treats are no longer withheld but embraced.
Unconventional Gelato
Forget mint choc chip; try flavours like butter-toasted sweetcorn, walnut and cherries, or banana miso. Gelato pilgrimages become a near weekly indulgence, especially in sunny weather.
Omakase Dining
Omakase, meaning "I leave it up to you," involves trusting the chef to choose your meal. At a cosy restaurant with one sitting per night, surprise courses of seven dishes are never what you'd order but always delicious.
Making Crumpets from Scratch
Knocking up a batch of crumpets at home, watching bubbles pop across the surface, is magical. Though available from any corner shop, the homemade version brings far more fun.
Elevating Your Cuppa
As a migraine cure, cutting sugar led to using vanilla soy milk in tea. It makes forgotten cups drinkable and fresh cups feel fancy, turning every cuppa into a treat.
Entertainment and Media
Watching Younger on Netflix
Romcoms aren't usually my jam, but the Netflix show Younger, about a 40-year-old divorcee pretending to be 26, offers mindless joy with seven seasons of secret jeopardy.
Cinema Solo
Going to the cinema alone is a spontaneous way to decompress after work, avoiding the logistical ordeal of arranging plans with friends. It gets you out of a streaming rut.
Binge Medical Dramas
As a health nerd, medical dramas like The Pitt offer tense escape, while the Scrubs reboot provides light relief. A perfect night in.
Watching Theatre from Home
The National Theatre at Home app lets you laugh out loud at performances like Ncuti Gatwa in The Importance of Being Earnest or Andrew Scott in Present Laughter, all from the comfort of your pyjamas.
Playing Cuphead
Despite warnings of its difficulty, the 2017 game Cuphead is maddeningly addictive. Its stunning 1930s-style animation and challenging gameplay create a beautiful bonding experience, even if you end up playing alone after the kids go to bed.
Playing Monopoly Deal
Unlike its tedious parent, the card-game version Monopoly Deal is well-designed, blisteringly strategic, and fun. It's luck-based enough for dramatic comebacks and occasionally unfair enough to critique capitalism.
Mindful and Unusual Pursuits
Getting Lost
In southern Italy, trekking into dense woods until paths end brings a tingle of suspense. Getting disoriented somehow orients you, fitting the definition of fun.
Counting Dogs
After losing a beloved dog, counting every mutt in the park and watching their antics provides daily canine fix. A dog living its best life is the closest to pure pleasure.
Browsing Pinterest
Unlike other social platforms, Pinterest is built for visual discovery without pressure. It feels like a moodboard, archive, and daydream, offering slower, intentional inspiration that is uniquely calming.
Reading Old Detective Novels
Detective novels from before 1950 have less horror and lower stakes, with irresistible lines to read aloud. Dorothy L Sayers' Gaudy Night about vandalism in an Oxford college is simply marvellous.
Learning Japanese with Mnemonics
Japanese is recommended for language learning because mnemonics make it fun. For instance, "circular" is "maru," recalled by imagining Martin Freeman chasing Ruby Wax in a circle. The word for testicles means "golden balls."
Social and Group Activities
Hosting a Themed Dinner Party
A Margheritas and Margaritas night was born from a sister's love for both pizza and cocktail. Adding a theme to gatherings, like a summer solstice feast, makes them more fun.
Daily Aperitivo
Starting the evening at 6pm with salty snacks and a colourful non-alcoholic drink, pretending to be Italian, is a great ritual. Even if done on the sofa watching bad TV, it's still enjoyable.
Family Football Kickabout
An Easter Sunday tradition of mass football with extended family is fun because most are comically bad. The lack of seriousness is universal and unifying, making the feast afterwards well-earned.
Book Club Meetings
An LGBTQ+ book club on the first Tuesday of each month offers diverse book choices and supportive conversation. Books take on new meaning, making it the most wholesome, joyous activity.
Tracking Games
Less effort than a treasure hunt, tracking involves one person laying a trail with sticks or chalk, and others following. It can lead anywhere, like an ice-cream shop or pub.
Indoor and Solo Fun
Wearing Colourful Underwear
Opening a drawer of pink, blue, green, or purple underwear each morning brings secret joy. Mix, match, contrast, and coordinate socks for cerebral days.
Making a Pringles Chocolate Block
Join the unhinged trend: fill a tube of Pringles with melted chocolate, refrigerate, then scoff. It's salty, sweet, sickly, shameful, and moreish all at once.
Adding Novelty Buttons
In new cities, visit haberdashers for silly buttons to attach to boring clothes. Bespoke pieces include a cardigan with blackberry buttons or a jacket with fake Roman coin fastenings.
Trawling Auction Sites
The Saleroom website displays lots from UK live auctions. The thrill of finding hidden gems and bidding wars, like a still life from a studio clearance, is addictive.
Wearing Fancy Dress
Planning outfits for themed choir concerts rivals the joy of performing. Scour charity shops for OTT dresses or plan a themed night with friends, ignoring naysayers in jeans.
Learning and Challenges
Learning Chess
Chess enlivens train journeys and pub evenings. Engaging in furious mental combat across a board with a friend or stranger as pints grow warm is unmatched.
Taking Tango Lessons
Argentinian tango is complicated but joyful. Its slithery, intimate, sultry nature contrasts hilariously with daily life, providing a weekly 90-minute escape.
Learning a Tune on Guitar
Learning Blackbird by the Beatles after years without practice seemed impossible, but unravelling its mysteries was so fun that hours passed. Playing it now brings joy, despite teen irritation.
Visiting an Arcade
For half the cost of a pair of jeans, play skee-ball, air hockey, and win prizes from claw machines. Seeing friends act like small children reminds us we still are.
Unique Experiences
Wind Tunnel Skydiving
At Hangloose's outdoor vertical wind tunnel, used for Mission: Impossible stunts, you scream with delight as a 120mph blast sends you flying. It's exhilarating and unforgettable.
Seeing Bruce Springsteen Live
Springsteen forces interaction and connection to something greater. His concerts provide an unimaginable burst of joy that reduces friction with the world.
Going to a Used DVD Shop
Pick the worst-looking film with friends for shared hysteria. Terrible movies like Impulse with William Shatner lead to communal cackling.
Drawing Your Own Nose
Challenge friends to draw their own nose without measuring, then cut it out and compare. The most accurate wins, providing laughs and creativity.
Sitting on the Top Deck Front Seat
Riding a bus in the front seat on the top deck offers ageless joy, observing landmarks and ordinary streets from a main character's seat.
