Endorphins: 10 Research-Backed Ways to Lift Your Mood

The activities that lift your mood mostly involve other people. Here are 10 of them, and the research on why the group version does more.

The same workout feels easier when somebody is suffering through it next to you. Researchers put twelve rowers through an identical 45-minute session¹ alone, then in a synchronized crew of six. Afterward, the jump in how much discomfort the rowers could tolerate was roughly twice as big in the crew version.

And these were no weekend rowers: the study used the University of Oxford’s boat squad, the crews that race Cambridge every spring. If world-class athletes get twice the lift from doing the exact same thing together, what do you think it does for the rest of us?

Most endorphin advice goes straight to the chemistry. The company matters more.

What People Mean When They Say “Endorphins”

Pop quiz: what causes the runner’s high? If you said endorphins, you’re in good company. That’s been the answer for decades. But when researchers tested it directly in people², the euphoria after a run turned out not to depend on the body’s own opioids at all (hint: the current best guess involves endocannabinoids, which are exactly what they sound like).

Wait, what?

The chemicals themselves are real, I promise. In everyday use, though, the word has stopped meaning a chemical and started meaning a feeling—the lift after a hard run, a long laugh, or a concert where the whole room sang the chorus.

That’s good news, honestly. It means you can stop chasing a molecule and look at the part you can actually change: what you were doing, and who was in the room while you did it.

The Together Effect

The design is what makes the rowing result convincing. The same twelve people rowed the same machines for the same 45 minutes, one week apart. The only thing that changed between sessions was whether five others were pulling in time with them, which rules out the tidy explanation that sociable rowers were simply happier to begin with.

The papers themselves rarely track mood directly, which is worth knowing if you ever go looking them up. They track how much discomfort someone can stand afterward, which researchers use as an indirect marker. It’s a proxy, and that’s what the numbers describe.

In sync matters here. The rowers were matching each other stroke for stroke, and that distinction runs through most of what follows.

The pattern turns up away from the water on a different measure entirely. Adults who joined a seven-month singing class grew closer to their group faster than adults who joined craft and creative-writing classes run by the same adult-education charity³. The researchers called it the ice-breaker effect. What the singing added was unison. (The crafters were making perfectly nice things. They just weren’t making them at the same time as anybody else.)

Whatever the habit, do it with somebody.

We are so honored to help you find authentic connections! If you are struggling to find the help you need, please note that all content found on this website is not to be considered professional medical advice. It is always best to consult a doctor or licensed therapist with any questions or concerns in regards to your physical or mental health. For a good resource for therapists, you can check out Mental Health America’s helpful list.

Move Your Body in Sync With Someone

Now, I’m not saying you need to move to Oxford and try out for the boat squad. What the rowing result points at is matching—doing the same movement, at the same time, as somebody else. That’s most of what a group fitness class is actually selling, and it’s the difference between going for a run and joining a running club that holds one pace.

Here are some good exercise options:

• Cardiovascular exercise: running, swimming, dancing, kickboxing, HIIT.
• Strength training: weight lifting, squats, lunges, push-ups, deadlifts.
• Team sports: basketball, softball, tennis, soccer, pickleball.
• Outdoor activities: hiking, walking, trail runs, biking.
• Yoga, Pilates, or martial arts: movement with breathing and strength.

Any of them improves with a person attached. The ones done in time with a group are where the research is strongest.

Coordination pays off away from exercise too. In one study of randomly assigned teams, social skill predicted team performance about as much as IQ did⁴.

Action Step: Block at least 30 minutes of moderate to intense exercise two to three times a week. Bonus: Get a bigger boost by doing one of those sessions alongside somebody—a class, a workout buddy, or a team!

Chase the Laugh You Can’t Have Alone

Laughter is the cheapest thing on this list. Across six studies, some in a lab with video clips and some at live stage performances, the rise in discomfort tolerance tracked specifically to the laughing⁵, a result the researchers separated from general good mood. That distinction matters: a film that leaves you smiling warmly is a different thing from one that makes a room laugh out loud.

Laughter is also stubbornly social. It’s hard to manufacture alone with a screen, and easy in a room where other people are already going. (If you have ever laughed out loud on your own at a video and then felt faintly strange about it, you already know the difference.)

Check out this video to find out what your laugh says about you:

Ideas if you’re looking for a laugh:

• Buy the ticket to the live show.
• Host a game night; playing generates more of it than watching.
• Send the clip to the friend who’ll send one back.
• Spend time with people whose sense of humor you actually share.
• Put on the funny movie when somebody else is home.

Action Step: Mark Fridays as fun days, and pick the version of the plan that puts other people in the room!

Join In on the Chorus

Music is the activity most of us have already automated. Participating is the upgrade.

Researchers compared a small community choir with a 232-person “megachoir”⁶ and singing together held up at both sizes. The enormous group had no advantage over the modest one, so the barrier isn’t finding enough people. What the research tested was groups, though, which makes this the one tip where joining something genuinely beats improvising with a friend.

Okay, you might be wondering: don’t you have to be able to actually sing? You don’t. The megachoir result puts the emphasis on the singing together, which is a relief for anyone who sings FLAT and enthusiastically. (Also, there were 232 of them. Nobody can hear you.)

This already happens all over the place without anyone planning it. Congregations, football terraces, and school assemblies all put people into unison for reasons that have nothing to do with anybody’s mood. Nobody in a football stand is there for the bonding. They get it anyway.

Other ways to move from listening to participating:

• Join a choir, a chorus, or a community singing group.
• Learn an instrument, badly, in front of somebody!
• Host a karaoke night!
• Go to the concert and sing the chorus.
• Write new lyrics to a song everyone already knows.
• Play music out loud when other people are around.

Action Step: Find one group near you that sings together and turn up once!

Eat the Meal With Other People

How many meals did you eat alone last week? The number is usually higher than it feels. Eating is one of the few things everybody does several times a day, which makes it the habit with the most conversion opportunities hiding in it.

You see, you WOULD eat with people more often. It’s just that somebody has to do the inviting, and everybody is waiting for somebody. (Host a dinner where everyone shares something they’re grateful for, and a simple meal can turn into four hours of heartfelt conversation.)

A UK national survey found that people who eat socially more often report being happier and more satisfied with life, more trusting of the people around them, more engaged with their local community, and more likely to have friends they can lean on⁷. A path analysis in the same work suggests the direction runs from eating together toward feeling bonded. It’s survey data, so treat it as a strong association.

Small conversions:

• Move one desk lunch a week to a table with somebody at it.
• Eat what you were going to eat anyway, at the same time as a housemate.
• Reinstate one shared meal that quietly disappeared.
• Host the potluck dinner party or a BBQ.
• Explore new restaurants with people.

Action Step: Look at tomorrow’s calendar, find the meal you were going to eat alone at a screen, and invite one person to it!

Put the Standing Plan on the Calendar

Every idea above dies in the same place. Getting three adults into the same room takes somebody deciding, on a Tuesday night, to send the text, and the deciding is the part that doesn’t happen.

Recurring plans remove the decision, which is why a standing Thursday walk outlasts six months of we-should-really-get-something-in-the-diary. The same goes for a monthly dinner on the first Sunday, or a weekly call that happens whether or not anyone has news.

The classic failure mode is the “perfect” solo morning routine: meditation, journaling, exercise, reading, and a healthy breakfast, all before 7 a.m. It rarely survives the first bad week. A recurring plan with one other person in it tends to outlast it, because you can quietly quit on yourself and you can’t quietly quit on a friend.

Boring and automatic is the goal here. A good recurring plan needs no enthusiasm to survive a bad week, and it gives you somewhere to put the conversations that don’t fit in a text thread.

Think about your week. What’s the one plan you’d actually keep if it repeated? Write it down: ________________________

Action Step: Pick one thing on this list and make it repeat. Same day, same time, no agenda, no confirmation text required.

Do the Kind Thing Where You’ll See It Land

Kindness lifts the mood of the person doing it. A meta-analysis pooling 27 studies and just over 4,000 people found the effect held across age, sex, and type of intervention⁸.

Where it gets interesting is who you aim it at. When people recalled spending money on someone close to them, they reported more positive feeling than when they recalled spending it on an acquaintance⁹. The closeness of the relationship mattered more than whether the person was family or a friend.

Ask yourself: whose week could you turn around for the price of a coffee? Somebody came to mind just now. That’s the one.

• Pay for the coffee of the friend who’s had a hard week.
• Surprise someone with a kind note.
• Volunteer somewhere you’ll go back to, so the faces become familiar.
• Support a small local business and leave a positive review.
• Clean out your closet and donate what you don’t wear.
• Leave an encouraging comment where the person will actually see it.

Action Step: Think of someone in your circle having a rough stretch, and do one specific thing for them this week that they’ll know came from you.

Take the Walk Outside With a Person

No study behind this one: walking is just too easy to leave off the list.

It earns its spot, though. Walking is the cheapest conversion here: you already go, and the only thing that changes is sending one text before you leave. It’s the same route and the same half hour, with one more person in it. And if you want a reason to go further than the block, geocaching turns the same walk into a two-person treasure hunt.

Make Something With Another Person

Quick question: what was the last thing you made with another person? If you had to reach all the way back to a group project in school, this one’s for you.

Creative work defaults to solitary, and the version that does the most is the one where the thing itself is shared: a duet, a co-written scene, a build where you each own a half.

The ice-breaker study points the same way. The singers, who were making one thing together, pulled ahead of the crafters, who were making separate things nearby.

• Take up a duet, where neither part works without the other.
• Co-write one thing with one person: a song parody, a short story, a wedding toast.
• Upcycle a piece of furniture with a housemate, one end each.
• Join an improv group, where the whole form is built on somebody else’s last line.
• Take a class that ends with the work shown to the room.

Action Step: Sign up for one class in something you’ve always wanted to try, and pick the version where you make something jointly.

Send the Thank-You You’ve Been Drafting

People skip expressing gratitude because they’re bad at predicting how it goes. Across three experiments, people who wrote gratitude letters underestimated how positive and how surprised the recipients would feel, and overestimated how awkward the whole thing would be¹⁰. Recipients were more moved than senders expected.

If you have been composing a thank-you in your head for three weeks, it is likely to land better than you expect it to. (Go ahead and send it. I’ll wait.)

• Send the message you’ve been drafting mentally. Today.
• Write the note by hand and hand it over in person.
• Tell somebody the specific thing they did.
• Say it in front of other people, where it lands on the room too.
• Build a gratitude collage or vision board with the people who are in it.
• Keep the gratitude journal to notice what’s worth saying.

Action Step: Pick the person whose thank-you you’ve been putting off, and send it before you close this tab!

Trade the Solo App for the Group Class

Meditation is the one habit here with no research behind the together version, so take this as a practical suggestion. If you started with a free app and quit the week your mind wouldn’t settle, you’re in good company.

The case for the group version is attendance. An app waits for you to choose to open it, every day, which is the same decision problem that kills standing plans. A class hands you a fixed time you didn’t pick, a room that makes leaving awkward, and a teacher who notices whether you came. Weak forces, and they beat willpower most weeks.

• Try a drop-in class at a local studio.
• Sit with a friend for ten minutes, same room, no talking.
• Join a guided session your workplace or community center runs.
• Keep the app for the days you can’t get to the room.

Start by working out which meditation style suits you, then find one place nearby that teaches it in person.

Where the Together Effect Runs Out

The pattern is real, and it has edges.

Chosen beats assigned. People in most of these studies chose to be there. They joined the choir, the crew, the class. An activity somebody else put on your calendar for your own good is a different thing, and it tends to produce a different result.

Solo still counts. Not everyone has a room full of people available (some weeks, nobody is), and plenty of good hours are spent alone on purpose. If your best hour of the week is a run by yourself with headphones on, nothing here says to give it up. The together version is an upgrade where it’s available.

And the evidence is messier than the headline. The measures don’t all move in the same direction. That singing class which bonded faster than the craft class showed no difference on the physical measure the researchers also took³. What’s happening underneath is still being argued about. The behavioral findings are the sturdier half, and they’re the half this article is built on.

Endorphins FAQ

Endorphins Takeaways

1. Pick one activity already in your week and add a second person to it. Start with the one you’d miss least if it got a little more social.
2. Make it repeat. A standing time nobody has to agree to each week survives bad moods better than good intentions do.
3. Move one meal off your desk. It’s the activity you repeat most often and the easiest one to convert.
4. Send the thank-you you’ve been drafting. Recipients react better than senders predict.
5. Where you can choose between doing something near people and doing it in time with them, take the second.
6. Keep the solo practice that works. The together version is an addition to your week.

A couple of these mean joining something new. Most of them only change who else is inside what you already do: the run, the meal, the walk, the playlist. That change usually starts with a text message.

Pick the one you’d enjoy most with company, and send that message today. When you’re ready for the next piece, here’s how to bond with anyone.