A key cornerstone of wellness is knowing how to have fun and find moments of lightness. The art of cultivating laughter, pleasure, and play, and knowing how to enjoy moments of merriment, is what resilient people do.

Yet when life feels heavy, humour is often one of the first things to disappear. Hope can feel out of reach. Ironically, these are often the moments we need both the most. As I share in I Hope So, “Hope keeps us moving forward, with a view to a brighter horizon even when the road is hard, while humour lightens the journey, offering moments of levity that remind us of our humanity” (Hanley-Dafoe, 2026, p. 115).

Hope helps us believe tomorrow can be different. Humour helps us make it through today. Together, they remind us that even difficult seasons can hold moments of lightness and that while life is hard, there is still room for tenderness, connection, playfulness, and joy.

Why Humour Matters

Humour reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously while still holding space for compassion, fun, light-heartedness, and tenderness despite the stressors, hurt, and pain we all experience. It affords us brief moments of relief and reprieve and helps lift the weight off our shoulders.

Research continues to demonstrate that laughter decreases stress hormones like cortisol, releases endorphins, soothes away built-up tension, and provides temporary pain relief. Over time, regular laughter has even been associated with improved immune function.

Just as importantly, humour changes our perspective. It creates space between us and our stress. Mental health and well-being expert and comedian Jessica Holmes talks about how seeing our stories and experiences through a comedic lens can help create enough distance that we start to see things differently (Life by Design, 2026). Instead of feeling completely buried beneath our circumstances, we begin to experience our stressors as something we are navigating rather than something we are consumed by.

Practical Strategies to Cultivate Joy, Humour, and Hope

Lightheartedness allows space for the belief that “all will be well” to take root. Like any aspect of resilience, humour, hope, and joy can be intentionally cultivated through small, everyday practices.

1. Set the intention to look for it: Our brains naturally notice what we repeatedly search for. When we intentionally look for moments of joy, kindness, beauty, hope, or humour, we begin to find more of them. Start a note in your phone where you capture funny moments from your day. Notice acts of kindness. Collect and keep track of signs of hope. The looking is the practice.
2. Borrow a different perspective: Ask your children, partner, or loved ones, “When am I at my best with you?” or “What is your favourite thing that I do with you?” You might be surprised by what’s most meaningful. Another practice Jessica shared with me is imagining a particularly difficult week as though it were an episode of a sitcom. The situation itself may not have changed, but our relationship to it often does. That little bit of distance creates room for perspective, creativity, and possibility.
3. Use playful pattern interrupts: Ask an unexpected question at the dinner table, in a meeting, or during a stressful day. “What’s your third favourite animal?” “What’s one thing that made you smile today?” Sometimes a simple shift in attention is enough to reset the emotional tone of a conversation.
4. Choose laughter on purpose: Seek out things that reliably make you smile and laugh. Watch a comedy instead of another heavy drama or crime documentary. Read a funny book. Listen to comedians. Tell the funny, exaggerated story. Watch silly videos. Share memes with friends. Research even suggests that anticipating laughter boosts dopamine before the event itself (Berk et al., 2008). Planning something enjoyable gives your brain something hopeful to anticipate.
5. Create your own joy playbook: We often assume we’ll remember what restores us. In difficult seasons, we usually don’t. Create a list of the people, places, activities, traditions, and experiences that reliably bring you joy. What makes you laugh every time? What leaves you feeling energized rather than depleted? What makes time seem to disappear? Who fills your cup? Write them down and return to your list when you need a lift.
6. Lean on your signature strengths: Jessica wears a bracelet with two of her signature strengths, humour and kindness, and looks at it before she walks into a new situation or a room. It is a small, physical reminder of what she wants to lead with. What would it look like to name your own strengths and let them set the tone before you walk into a hard conversation, a new room, or a busy week?
7. Reconnect with your favourite self: Think about a time when you felt most like yourself. Perhaps you were laughing easily, feeling curious, playful, calm, or deeply connected with the people around you. What were you doing? Who were you with? What qualities were you embodying?

The Importance of Sitting With What’s Hard

None of this is about forcing positivity or minimizing the hard. I do not believe everything happens for a reason or that every hardship comes with a silver lining. Some things just suck.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is simply acknowledge that something is difficult. We do not have to rush someone toward gratitude. We do not need to solve every problem. Sometimes sitting beside someone and saying, “This is hard,” is enough.

One of my favourite questions to ask is: “Is there anything I can do that wouldn’t make this worse?” Holding space for someone’s pain is one of the greatest gifts we can offer.

Final Thoughts

The same season that stretches us can also surprise us with moments of kindness, beauty, and unexpected laughter. Stay curious enough to notice the funny, open enough to receive the joy, and hopeful enough to believe another good moment is still coming.

This week, ask yourself:

What brought a smile to my face?

Who helped me laugh?

What gave me hope?

What made today feel a little lighter?

Sometimes resilience isn’t built through one extraordinary breakthrough. More often, it grows through the ordinary practice of noticing that even while carrying the hard, there is still goodness to be found. Every hope-filled moment, every shared laugh, every act of kindness, and every glimpse of joy becomes evidence that the hard is never the whole story. And when we share those moments with others, we help them notice what they may have overlooked and remind one another that we were never meant to carry life’s challenges alone.