How to have fun

It’s a weird time in history to be thinking about having fun. We’re still chugging along through a worldwide pandemic, a lot of us are depressed and anxious from years of social isolation, and “having fun” may not even sound appealing anymore. But the reality is, there’s a ton of research out there showing that fun and play are healing. If you need more proof, Catherine Price has recently written a whole book about the importance of fun and how to have more of it.

So here are some tips for having more fun, even when fun sounds like the last thing you want to do.

Photo: Steve Wollkind, taken at a Skip the Small Talk

1. Accept your skepticism. When you’re not having much fun in your life, it’s totally normal for that to make you skeptical that you’ll have much fun in the future. In fact, there’s an entire field of social science called affective forecasting that shows just how reliably bad we are at predicting the future, in part because we tend to base our assumptions of the future on how we’re feeling right now. And feelings change!

   So it makes sense if you’re feeling crappy now, especially if you’ve felt crappy for a long time, that you might have a hard time imagining having fun in the future. And that might mean that you’ll have a (metaphorical) naysayer voice in your head whenever you try to do something fun, perhaps telling you that it’s pointless to try rollerskating, or telling you that a party you’re interested in might be awkward because you don’t know anyone, or that you really “should” be doing work/chores/etc. instead of doing anything that would bring you joy.
   
   Be prepared for the potential of that naysayer voice. You don’t even need to disagree with whatever it’s saying— instead of trying to fight it, you may want to try meeting it with something like the following: “Hey there, Naysayer Voice. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me. I’ve been listening to you for a long time and I know what my life looks like when I listen to you, but I don’t yet know what happens if I try something different. So I’m going to experiment with a different approach. And if it turns out you were right, I can always leave/ try something different next time/ make time for work another time.”
   
   
   

2. Set the stage for fun; don’t force fun. It totally sucks when you put a lot of work into something and then you end up not having fun, but the reality is that that’s going to happen some of the time. In fact, forcing fun will often lead to you being too stressed out to have any fun.
   
   So, instead of going for “I am going to have fun tonight even if it kills me,” you may want to go with, “I’m going to set myself up to have as much fun as possible, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll have more information about what I find fun and what I don’t find fun.” Consider everything you try to do for fun as an “experiment in fun,” not as a guarantee for fun. Even in the worst case scenario where you try something that you think is fun but you actually have a bad time, that’s great information that you can use to inform your next “experiment in fun.”
   
   And remember: there’s no “due date” where you have to know exactly what is most fun for you— it’s a lifelong project that you just get to be better and better at over time!
   
   
   

3. Do new things, in new places, with new people. Okay, you don’t have to do those all at the same time, but novelty is often a shortcut to fun! Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for the experience of “fun,” and one way to activate it is by experiencing new things.
   
   Even if you can’t leave the house, can you play a new game? Can you start a new art project? Can you invite someone you just met for a walk? Often, fun things can feel a little risky because they’re new. That contributes to the experience of fun! And yes, it may be inconvenient that often the most fun things are the ones that take a little courage to try. But that also means that if you’re feeling a little unsure about whether to try something or not, as long as it’s safe and unlikely to be harmful to you or others, that might actually serve as a helpful compass toward what may have the biggest “fun payoff” for you.
   
   
   

4. Try dopamine fasting. You can’t ever completely “fast” from dopamine because then you’d be dead and that’d be no fun, but you can try to limit the amount of overstimulation in your life! There’s a lot of interesting science behind it, but the gist is that if you limit the amount of time you spend on social media and Netflix and whatnot, it opens you up to a lot more time and a lot more brain space for having fun.
   
   The idea is that limiting the things in your life that give you big bursts of dopamine allows your brain adjusts to lower baseline levels of dopamine. Over time, you’ll actually need less stimulation for you to find something “fun.” So basically, if you limit screen time aside from work hours, over time, it’ll be easier for your brain to find more joy in the little things.
   
   Don’t be surprised if you try to stop scrolling on social media or watching Netflix and find yourself with some mild (or not-so-mild) withdrawal symptoms, though. A lot of us would probably qualify as having technology addictions, so it’s normal for you to feel crummy for a few days after limiting your after-work screen time. But if you make it through those few days, it’s quite likely that you’ll notice it’s easier to experience fun in your everyday life.
   
   Just make sure not to take it too far. Some people take this to the extreme where they’re not making eye contact with others, they’re eating as little as possible, they’re avoiding exercise, and they’re not even exposing themselves to flash photography, but there’s not any good evidence that those strategies are effective. We’d recommend just focusing your efforts on screen time, as that’s what the science really supports so far.
   
   
   

5. Have fun wherever you are. This can be difficult if you’re not used to having fun yet, so be patient with yourself! But if you’re feeling up for the challenge, you can try having fun with whatever you’re doing. Try to find and really savor the little joys in your day. For example, the next time something makes you smile or laugh, really milk that for all it’s worth. One way to do that is to intentionally think about it later in the day.
   
   In fact, intentionally thinking of something multiple times is a brain phenomenon called rehearsing, and it basically makes it easier for you to remember that thing in the future. The cool thing is that you can also rehearse emotions; if you put more focus on certain emotional parts of your day, like the fun parts, you’ll likely start getting better and better at noticing and savoring those fun moments. This tends to work quite well, because when left to its own devices, brains tend to focus on negative stimuli more than positive stimuli. So in order to see the world more accurately, brains often need a little help focusing on the positive things.
   
   One way to rehearse fun memories is to keep a “fun journal” at the end of every day. Try to write down three things every day that delighted you or made you smile. Over time, you’re likely to get better at noticing and enjoying those moments. You’ll also get the benefit of learning what sort of things you find delightful— you might be surprised at what you find!
   
   
   

6. Lean into shenanigans. To our knowledge, there isn’t a ton of research on “shenanigans,” (the research on play comes close, but isn’t quite what we’re talking about) but we’ve found silly shenanigans to be an anecdotal predictor of fun. Since the idea of a shenanigan is difficult to define and varies from person to person, it might be most helpful to share some real-life examples of shenanigans that people have shared when we’ve asked them about some of the most fun moments they can remember:
   
   

   1. On a college campus, someone hid in a large, person-sized box with a friend and tried to slowly move it across the quad without anybody noticing that it was moving.

   2. A group of roommates at the beginning of the pandemic wondered what it would be like to (consensually!) gently slap each other in the face, and they went for it.

   3. Somebody wondered aloud to a friend what it would sound like to change the vowels in every Ivy League university to “oo,” and they couldn’t stop laughing trying to say words like “Hoorvoord” and “Prooncetoon.”

   4. Someone played a Dungeons and Dragons campaign where they decided to use a funny voice whenever they were talking as their character.

   5. The internet stopped working right before a couple was going to watch a movie, so one person just told the other the entire plot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie by memory, and just made up the parts of the story that he forgot.

   6. Somebody asked a group of people if they identify more as a werewolf, a witch, or a vampire.
      
      

   Some things that unify these experiences include: they don’t actually harm anyone, they’re a little irreverent/ they don’t abide by predictable norms or rules, they’re creative, they involve more than one person, they’re silly, and they all began with someone wondering, “What if…?” and then actually seeing it through.
   
   Another thing to note about all of these is that if you tried to convince someone else to do any of those things, there would be a decent chance that someone might say, “That’s stupid.” Or, “That’s pointless.” Or, “That’s weird.” But in all of the above real-life anecdotes, others decided to say, “That’s weird…. let’s do it.” So if you’re about to initiate a shenanigan and the naysayer voice that lives in your head starts to say, “But other people might think it’s weird!” Then that’s a really great sign that you may have found yourself the perfect shenanigan.
   
   You don’t need to just come up with a shenanigan out of the blue, but you may want to start noticing when opportunities for shenanigans arise, and you may want to try leaning into shenanigans when possible. If you’re not used to initiating shenanigans, it can actually feel pretty vulnerable and maybe even weird, but like quite a lot of fun things, a small moment courage can take you a long way. And also like other fun things, it can help if you see it as an experiment, not as a commitment to making this your new way of life!
   
   
   

7. Be honest with yourself about how you feel. You may have some preconceived notions about what you find fun, but as mentioned above, humans tend to be pretty bad at making accurate predictions of how they’ll feel!
   
   So, try things out and be honest with yourself about whether they were fun or not, or if you’re not sure yet. It’s okay not to know! And it’s okay not to find “stereotypically fun” things kind of boring! Just because you think you “should” find something fun doesn’t mean you will. And that’s totally normal.
   
   So go into new things with an open mind, and don’t beat yourself up if you got all dressed up to go to a fancy dinner and then left feeling like you wanted something more. It’s a learning process, and disappointing experiences can be a particularly useful part of that process. And likewise, things that you would never have expected to find fun might actually end up being more fun for you than you could have imagined.
   
   
   

8. If you’re having trouble, get help. If you’re doing everything you can to have fun but you’re just not feeling it, you might be experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, or other disorders. Of course, it’s totally possible to have fun when you’re experiencing symptoms of depression or other disorders, but the bar for how fun something has to be before you feel it will be much higher than it might otherwise, and that can make it really hard to figure out what feels fun to you.
   
   A more effective strategy if you’re having trouble experiencing fun can be going to therapy and talking to a prescriber about whether medication might be a good fit for you. Because if your brain just isn’t producing dopamine even when you do things that would otherwise usually produce dopamine, you’re going to have a really tough time experiencing joy in your life. Conveniently, they make medications that help your brain hold onto more dopamine, and even if you can’t take prescription medication for any reason, there are lots of effective alternative therapies available.
   
   So if nothing feels fun anymore, it might be time to get some help. You deserve to live a life where fun and joy are attainable.

We hope you found some tips that help you have more fun in your life! What’s the most fun you can remember having? Let us know in the comments!

Photo: Steve Wollkind, taken at a Skip the Small Talk