We know that joy and happiness are both positive emotions. However, the terms are often used interchangeably. The difference is, joy tends to be a deeper, more lasting feeling that comes from within, while happiness is more frequently linked to external events and circumstances.

Happiness tends to be fleeting, and is often dependent on achievements, possessions or situations. Joy, on the other hand, is often a more enduring state of being and can persist even amid life’s challenges.

At some point in life, it’s likely that you’ve felt a great deal of happiness; perhaps when you first fell in love, achieved a goal you thought you wouldn’t or won a hard competition.

But for how long were you able to sustain that feeling? The intensity of happiness or even the momentary gratitude you feel for a particular goal or wish having come true fades once the moment passes, or once the extraordinary becomes ordinary.

As life moves forward, the very things you once longed for and finally achieved can start to feel normal. In this shift, you might even end up forgetting the joy of having had them.

This is where the concept of “joyspan” comes in. The term was coined by Dr. Kerry Burnight, a professor of geriatric medicine and gerontology at the University of California, Irvine. She uses it to highlight how living a long life or even a healthy life is not enough if you don’t actually enjoy it.

Your lifespan is about how many years you live, and your healthspan is about how many of those years you live in good health. Your joyspan is about how much of that time you truly experience joy.

It reflects the quality of your life measured by your ability to sustain and savor joy, even as circumstances and challenges change with time.

Here are two ways you can grow your joyspan to experience a more enriching life.

1. Strengthen Your Positive Memory Recall

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory clearly explains why cultivating joy matters. The theory highlights how positive emotions such as joy, love and contentment don’t just feel good in the moment, but also help in expanding awareness and encouraging openness to new experiences.

Eventually, these broadened states build your own reserve of personal resources, such as stronger relationships, better problem-solving skills and even greater resilience in the face of stress.

Negative emotions, in contrast, tend to narrow your focus toward survival responses like fight, flight, freeze or fawn, which aren’t likely to help you move forward or prioritize personal growth in those situations.

So, treat expanding your joyspan like an investment in yourself. Each joyful moment enhances the present while also strengthening your capacity to thrive in the future.

One way to enhance your joyspan is by recalling positive memories. Research published in Nature Human Behaviour explains this well. Researchers investigated how reminiscing about positive memories buffers acute stress responses.

They conducted two studies where participants were exposed to an acute stressor and then asked to recall autobiographical memories that were either positive or neutral in content.

The findings showed that people who recalled positive memories after a stressful event had a smaller spike in cortisol, which is the body’s primary stress hormone. They also reported lower negative feelings just 20 minutes later. In fact, their stress response looked much closer to people in the non-stressed control group.

In contrast, those who recalled neutral memories showed the typical sharp rise in cortisol. This finding highlights that recalling positive memories actively reduces the body’s stress reaction and helps restore a calmer and balanced emotional state.

In moments when life feels overwhelming, you might zoom in on everything that feels wrong. These moments make it easy to lose sight of what’s still going right. Recalling positive memories is a simple way to reset. It can be a gentle reminder of times when things worked out, when you felt loved, supported or capable.

Consciously shifting your attention from what feels wrong to what has felt right trains your brain to return to the awareness that things can get better. It brings a sense of appreciation for the good that still exists even in tough times.

Gradually, this small shift helps you create a wider emotional capacity and makes joy easier to sustain.

2. Train Your Mind To Notice Everyday Joy

As you move through life, it can feel easier to spot what’s going wrong in your day-to-day. Whether it’s complaining about the traffic or your messy kitchen, fixating on what’s not going your way often comes from habit. And this very habit can quietly train you to overlook the small but ordinary moments of joy that are happening right alongside those frustrations.

Your brain is wired to confirm what you pay attention to. So, if you’re constantly tuned into what’s irritating you, you’ll keep finding more of it everywhere you look.

The same is true for joy. When you make the effort to intentionally notice the good, your mind starts to catch it more often, and eventually this can become your default. Over time, it stops feeling like extra mental effort and your mind will automatically look for what uplifts you instead of what drags you down.

A 2019 study published in Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications explored a 21-day intervention. A program called “Picture This!” was developed by the researchers, which was based on positive psychology principles. They tested it in a rigorous randomized control trial (RCT) with young adults, with the goal of learning whether intentionally noticing positive emotions and experiences could reduce depressive symptoms and enhance overall well-being.

Over the 21-day program, participants reported their mental health at the start and end. They also logged their daily experiences of positive emotions. Researchers were particularly interested in whether the program shifted their attentional bias, which refers to what participants tended to notice, as well as their cognitive style, which refers to how they interpreted daily events.

Researchers found that intentionally focusing on daily positive experiences, for instance by taking and reviewing photos that elicit joy, gratitude or awe, can have a strong positive impact. It can improve well-being, reduce depressive symptoms and strengthen social connections in young adults.

Focusing their attention toward positive moments made participants experience immediate boosts in mood and a shift in cognitive patterns and attentional habits in ways that reinforced these benefits over time.

The takeaway from this study is simple. Joy isn’t always something that just happens to you. It’s something your mind can be trained to notice. All it requires is making a consistent effort to focus on what uplifts you. The impact of this goes beyond what you will feel momentarily. You slowly learn to look at life through the lens of possibility and gratitude, and this only brings you more joy.

Shifting From Survival Mode To Joyful Living

Not everyone experiences — or even knows how to experience — joy in a sustained way. Your ability to experience joy and expand your joyspan depends on several factors. Some people tend to naturally savor and amplify positive experiences, while others unconsciously limit them through a constrained mindset or the absence of intentional practices that cultivate it.

For many, past experiences, including trauma, chronic stress or repeated emotional setbacks, can leave the nervous system in a heightened state of vigilance. When the body is constantly stuck in patterns of hyperarousal, it becomes difficult to notice moments of joy, hard to believe that you deserve them or even allow yourself to feel safe in positive experiences.

These patterns can shape the way you perceive the world and interpret life events. They end up reinforcing feelings of fear or unworthiness.

So, it’s crucial to work through what’s holding you back. This often begins with deeper self-reflection and recalibrating your nervous system, which helps restore a sense of internal safety. When your body is feeling more regulated, your mind can fully savor joy.

Ultimately, expanding your joyspan allows you to move through life with greater ease and resilience. This shifts your experience of life from mere survival to truly flourishing.

Are you moving through life on autopilot or truly thriving? Take the science-backed Flourishing Measure to find out.

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.