The holiday season for most people is a fun time of the year filled with parties, celebrations, and social gatherings with family and friends.

However, for many people, it can be a time filled with sadness.

While there’s a lot of information out there about how to increase joy in your life, renowned happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky has found that just 15 minutes of meaningful conversation can turn the tide.

Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside and the author of The How of Happiness. She says that the best way to be happier is to “feel more connected to other people,” according to CNBC.  And the best way to make that connection is to have a 15-minute conversation with someone, even if it’s not a relative or friend.

“If you have a 15-minute or a 30-minute conversation with a stranger,” she says. “You’re going to be happier.”

Avoid making that conversation superficial, she warns. The key is to engage the person with meaningful topics such as how they’re feeling this time of year. Other topics include:

• What’s the best thing that happened to you this year?

• What’s the worst thing to happen to you this year?

• What are you looking forward to in 2026?

• What mistake did you make this year that turned out to be a good thing?

Lyubomirsky and her fellow researchers found that these conversions don’t even have to be in person to be effective. Half hour Zoom sessions also made folks happier.

“So basically after 36 years of research, my lab, my students and I have landed on a cliche, which is that what we’ve discovered is almost everything that works in randomized controlled trials to make people happier works because it makes them more connected somehow to other people,” she says in a podcast by the American Psychological Association.

“In our studies, basically connection is the key to happiness. There’s lots of ways to connect, but the most common way in our culture to connect is by talking.”