Someone once said that it should be required by law that high fives must be redone if the first one was not good enough! Okay, so maybe it isn’t strictly true that this should be a legal issue, but it is definitely a moral one!
The “High Five” is a sacred tradition that has been used to celebrate remarkable events in people’s day to day lives for many years.
It is required by law to redo high fives if the first one was not good enough
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Get the garbage into the can on the first throw? High Five! Just get that promotion you’ve been gunning for? High Five! Did you propose? Did she say yes? HIGH FIVE! Did you just get an excellent grade on a paper? HIGH FIVE.
Seriously, high fives can be used to celebrate just about anything! That’s why National High Five Day exists, just one more reason to use that universal gesture of excellence, the high five.
How To Celebrate National High Five Day
Try some of these fun ways to celebrate high five day:
Give and Get High Fives
What’s the best way to celebrate this day? Well, it’s obviously super simple. Spend it giving out high fives. Give a High Five for every conceivable reason. In fact, you deserve a High Five just for reading this article, so give yourself a High Five!
Got up and out the door to work in the morning?Good job! High Five! Manage to make it through the day without high five-ing someone in the face… with a chair? Congratulations! They live to see another day!
Spend the day appreciating and encouraging (and also, perhaps, slightly annoying) coworkers, friends and family members with high fives for any and every reason.
Raise Funds for a Worthy Cause
While you’re doing this, see if you can start a fund-raiser to support the fight against cancer. One good way to do this is to get sponsorship to collect as many high-fives as possible throughout the day, and setting different donation levels based on how many are achieved!
High Five to you for supporting this most important of fights!
Celebrate with Virtual High Fives
Not into giving actual high fives in person? Feeling uncomfortable with touching so many people’s hands? Or maybe you’re working from home and not around people to give them high fives? That’s okay! There are other options so just get creative.
Some people who work from home choose to snap a picture of themselves giving a high five to their pets. Others might post a pic or meme of a high five on social media to get the word out. Still others might choose to make a donation to the National High Five Day charitable cause.
Whatever activities are chosen to celebrate this day, be sure to spread the word and raise awareness of this most important day by giving as many high fives as possible!
National High Five Day Timeline
“Low Five” Spreads in Jazz and Black American Culture
The palm‑slapping “low five” becomes a popular greeting and sign of camaraderie in African American communities, particularly among jazz musicians and entertainers, and appears in films like the 1927 movie “The Jazz Singer.”
High Five Enters College Basketball Culture
By the late 1970s, the high five was being used regularly in college basketball, with players like Magic Johnson at Michigan State adopting it as a celebratory gesture, helping spread it across the wider basketball world.
Top Gun Popularizes the “High Five / Low Five” Combo
The blockbuster film “Top Gun” features an energetic mid‑air high five followed by a low five between pilots Maverick and Goose, cementing the gesture’s place in pop culture and making stylized high fives widely recognizable worldwide.
Study Shows High Fives Boost Team Performance
Research by psychologist Michael Kraus and colleagues analyzes NBA games and finds that teams whose players engage more in touches like high fives, fist bumps, and chest bumps early in the season tend to cooperate better and perform more successfully.
High Fives Linked to Kids’ Sense of Belonging
A study led by Laura K. H. Bowers and others reports that small positive gestures from teachers, including high fives and pats on the back, can strengthen elementary students’ feelings of connection and inclusion in the classroom.
Sports Psychology Highlights Motivational Power of High Fives
Commentary and applied research in sports psychology emphasize that brief physical affirmations such as high fives and fist bumps can enhance motivation, reinforce effort, and help build cohesion among athletes at all levels of sport.
History of National High Five Day
National High Five Day is a reminder that every little success in life deserves a bit of celebration, and the high five serves as a universal form of celebration at every level of success!
The High Five, for those who have somehow gone their whole lives without knowing this, is when two people slap hands together, palms facing each other, over their heads. (Not to be mistaken for the ‘Low Five’ which traditionally takes place at waist level or lower). Did you already know that? Well, now you do! High Five!
The origin of the high five is really hard to trace, as many grassroots trends like this one can be. One story goes that the high five should be credited to Lamont Sleets Jr., who was a basketball player at Murray State University in Kentucky in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
At one point, famous basketball player, Magic Johnson, suggested that he may have invented the high five when he was a student at Michigan State University in the late 1970s.
It seems to be a more likely story, however, that the high five was invented by Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke back in 1977. Rumor has it that these two Los Angeles Dodgers baseball players were celebrating a particularly important success in a game on October 2, and it just seemed appropriate to clap their hands together over their heads.
As it turns out, the world must have agreed that it was a good idea, because since that time the high five has become a generally ubiquitous sign, appearing in every culture all over the world.
This day began unofficially in 2002, when some college students from the University of Virginia decided it would be a great idea to enjoy giving and receiving high fives (without the opportunity to say no!). The day was set to be the third Thursday in April.
Give people high fives just for getting out of bed, being a person is hard sometimes
Kid President
But National High Five Day is representative of something more important than just a good success in a baseball game.
Although National High Five Day was originally developed just as something fun to do by a bunch of college students, eight years later in 2010 the founders decided that they should do something good with the hype that had been created by the day.
So they turned into a charitable organization and started choosing different worthy causes to partner with. They began providing college scholarships, raising awareness for cancer research, working to help those affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy and promoting school-based nutrition programs.
The organization continues to partner with companies and individuals who support them in raising funds for various worthy causes.
2020 saw the first 100% virtual National High Five Day, but that didn’t keep people from sending out good vibes and enjoying the spirit of the day!
The Power of a High Five: Small Gesture, Big Impact
A simple high five might seem like a quick moment of celebration, but it carries surprising psychological and social benefits.
From boosting performance and strengthening relationships to encouraging motivation in children, this small gesture plays a powerful role in human connection.
These facts reveal how something so simple can have a lasting impact.
High Fives and Social Touch Can Boost Performance
Studies in sports psychology have found that simple celebratory touches such as high fives, fist bumps, and chest bumps are linked with better team performance.
An analysis of NBA teams during the 2008–2009 season showed that teams whose players engaged in more positive physical contact early in the season tended to cooperate more and perform better later, suggesting that high fives and similar gestures may help build trust and cohesion.
High Fives May Strengthen Relationships Through Oxytocin
Positive forms of social touch, including brief hand contact like a high five, can trigger the release of oxytocin, sometimes called the “bonding hormone.”
Research on social touch shows that even short, friendly contact can increase feelings of closeness, reduce stress responses, and enhance prosocial behavior, helping explain why shared gestures of celebration can make people feel more connected.
High Fives Help Signal Success to Children
In developmental psychology, researchers have found that the type of praise adults give children matters.
When adults respond to effort and persistence with specific, process-focused praise accompanied by gestures like high fives, children are more likely to develop a “growth mindset” and keep trying after setbacks. This shows how a simple high five can reinforce effort-based praise and motivation.
Glenn Burke Helped Make the High Five a Symbol of Pride
Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Glenn Burke is widely credited by sports historians as one of the key figures in popularizing the modern high five during a 1977 game.
Burke, who was one of the first openly gay former Major League Baseball players, later described the gesture as an expression of both joy and personal pride, and his role has turned the high five into a small but meaningful piece of LGBTQ sports history.
The High Five Quickly Jumped from Baseball to Pop Culture
After appearing in Major League Baseball in the late 1970s, the high five spread rapidly into other sports and television.
By the early 1980s, it was turning up in college basketball, pro football celebrations, and TV sitcoms, where characters used it as shorthand for friendship and victory.
Media historians point to this period as the moment when high fives shifted from a locker-room ritual to a mainstream pop culture symbol.
High Fives Distinctly Communicate Enthusiasm and Solidarity
Research on nonverbal communication has shown that specific emotions and social intentions can be recognized through brief physical gestures alone.
Experiments where participants received different kinds of touch through a barrier found that people could accurately identify emotions like encouragement and gratitude.
A high five, which combines eye contact, movement, and sound, functions as a compact signal of enthusiasm and solidarity that can often be understood without any words.
Celebratory Gestures Are Common Across Cultures, Even If High Fives Are New
Anthropologists note that while the modern, over-the-head high five is relatively recent, almost every culture has developed its own brief celebratory contact gestures, such as clasped hands, quick hand slaps, or raised-hand greetings.
These rituals help mark shared success and belonging, serving a similar social function to the high five, even when they look a bit different from one place to another.
