Ingrid Fetell Lee

And so they set out to create

an apartment building that they believed would reverse aging.

It's a real place, just outside Tokyo.

I spent a night there, and it's a lot.

The floors undulate, so you don't end up walking around so much as kind of bouncing around the apartment, and there are bright colors in every direction.

I'm not sure I left any younger, but it's as if, by trying to create an apartment that would make us feel youthful, they ended up creating one that was joyful.

And yes, this is a bit much for everyday life, but it made me wonder, what about the rest of us?

How do we bring these ideas back into the real world?

So I started finding people who were doing just that.

For example, this hospital designed by the Danish artist Poul Jern.

or these schools transformed by the nonprofit Public Color.

What's interesting is that Public Color has heard from school administrators who say that attendance improves, graffiti disappears, and kids actually say they feel safer in these painted schools.

And this aligns with research conducted in four countries, which shows that people working in more colorful offices are actually more alert, more confident and friendlier than those working in drab spaces.

Why would this be the case?

Well, as I started to trace back our love of color, I found that some researchers see a connection to our evolution.

Color, in a very primal way, is a sign of life, a sign of energy.

And the same is true of abundance.

We evolved in a world where scarcity is dangerous and abundance meant survival.

So one confetto, which happens to be the singular of confetti, in case you were wondering, isn't very joyful.

But multiply it, and you have a handful of one of the most joyful substances on the planet.