How to Use Nostalgia to Your Advantage (Instead of Getting Stuck)
Nostalgia – a sentimental emotion that often makes us paraphrase our youth on YouTube – is psychologically a beneficial emotion that helps us cope with loneliness and loss. But if you’re not careful, you might get stuck in the memories instead of moving forward.
How nostalgia affects you
Before we dive into the details, let’s define what nostalgia really means. When the term was first coined by Swiss doctors in the late 1600s, it was called a homesickness-like illness . Of course, nostalgia is not a disease, and since then we have come to terms with our tendency to retell the good old days from time to time. In an article for Scientific American, social psychologist Dr.Clay Rutledge defines nostalgia as follows:
Take a look in the dictionary and you will find a rather general definition of nostalgia as “sentimental longing or longing for the past.” But what does it mean to be nostalgic? My colleagues and I explored this issue by asking participants to write in detail about their experiences of nostalgia. Then trained programmers analyzed these nostalgic stories. The results of these coded narratives have shown that nostalgic memories tend to focus on important or personally meaningful life events that are visibly associated with loved ones (e.g., friends, family, romantic partners). Family vacations, trips with friends, weddings, graduations, birthdays and celebrations with loved ones are examples of those cherished experiences that people experience, experiencing nostalgia … Nostalgic memories are happy memories.
Basically, nostalgia is an emotion that we all experience, probably countless times a week. This could be because you heard a song from your youth, a special smell at the grocery store, or bumped into an old friend. As for why we tend to feel nostalgic, a study published in the journal Memory and Knowledge suggests that this often happens during our formative years – from 12 to 22 years old – because this is usually the time when you start to develop yourself. -image.
How nostalgia can help (or harm) your view of the present
Recent research has shown that nostalgia has many benefits. It can boost self-esteem, help you find meaning in life, and even fight loneliness. Research published in the Bulletin of Personality and Social Psychology shows that nostalgia can make you more optimistic about the future. Another study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that nostalgia is often used to overcome negative mental states, which researchers summarize as follows :
Thus, nostalgia seems to be one of the ways to cope with various negative mental states or “psychological threats”. “If you feel lonely, if you feel like a failure, if you feel like you don’t know if your life has a purpose [or] if what you do has value, you can get to this is a reservoir of nostalgic memories and comfort yourself, “says Rutledge.” We see nostalgia as a psychological resource that people can dive into to conjure up the evidence they need to make sure they are appreciated. “
It all depends on what kind of memories you bring up and when. Nostalgia is great for certain moments, especially when you remember positive moments. Thinking back to the past with friends over a beer is great, but you can still lock yourself in these moments for too long. It’s also possible to focus too much on negative memories, and a small study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology indicates that habitual anxious people may not see the same benefits of nostalgia as others.
So, as a rule, nostalgia is viewed by science as a positive moment, but this is not the end of the story.
How to use nostalgia correctly: connect the past with the present
There are some obvious dangers of nostalgia, namely the exclamation of a poetic image through rose-colored glasses about the past instead of taking a serious look at the present. The benefits of nostalgia diminish when you focus on the wrong things or don’t understand how those moments have shaped you today. Psychology Today recommends monitoring your current condition to avoid the following types of pitfalls:
For some people, memories of good times can trigger painful emotions. Looking back on a career triumph can make you feel like you’re in the past, and memories of a cozy weekend with your grandmother can be a poignant reminder that she’s gone.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. “This is what you focus on,” says Lubomirsky. “Are you focusing on how positive it was then, or that it’s over now?” People who see every good experience as an indelible enrichment are more likely to cheer up. But the person who mainly focuses on the contrast between the past and the present curses every good experience, believing that nothing in the future can ever match it.
To avoid this kind of cyclical negativity, Psychology Today recommends linking the past to the present rather than comparing the two. Instead of thinking about how amazing that career triumph was, think about how it got you to where you are today. Use this past experience to savor or deal with the present instead of yearning for the world before. Instead of saying, “Those were the days,” and stopping there, think about it from a more existential perspective, asking a question like, “What has my life been like since then?” Focus on the positive instead of thinking that you will never feel it again.
Keep exploring new things for which you feel nostalgic
Of course, nostalgia is not only about happy memories of pleasant moments with other people. It’s also about the things we used to love before. We’ve all had moments where we were referring to old music, movies, places, fictional characters or games. That’s okay, and great for a night where we revel in the past. However, if you go too far, there is a danger of getting stuck there.
Slate analyzed why we feel so nostalgic for certain songs, and while music has its own capacity for nostalgia , this certainly applies to almost all media. In short, our memories are associated with music in two ways. First, the songs themselves become memories when we remember the first time we heard the song, along with the memory of the song itself. Second, music ultimately shapes the soundtrack to a specific moment in our lives and to how we felt in those moments. In a sense, we will never love new songs as much as the songs of our youth, because nostalgia for those moments will always outweigh the (usually) more intellectual tastes of adulthood. If the box is not checked, it may prevent you from exploring something new.
In an interview with the BBC, writer Damian Barr sums up the nostalgia for things beautifully:
You don’t have to come back to it to avoid the present or not think about the future. If you spend too much time thinking about the past, you simply won’t be ready for the future, either socially or emotionally.
When you revisit your past to avoid the present, you are not creating new experiences. This is problem. As we know, new experiences are important, and staying fresh is good for the brain . The inherent danger of nostalgia comes from refusing to move on to something new. After all, why watch new films when there were clearly all the best films in the 80s? Why go to new restaurants when the old ones have the perfect menu? Why find a new band to love when it seems like all your old favorites are going on reunion tours?
The problem with nostalgia arises when we stop creating new memories because we are too busy thinking about the past. This creates a cycle in which you don’t do new things, create new memories, spend time with new people, or learn new lessons. In an interview with The New York Times, researcher Dr. Sedikides notes that despite the benefits of nostalgia, you still have to create new memories:
“I don’t miss the opportunity to create nostalgic memories,” he says. “We call this anticipatory nostalgia and have even started a number of relevant studies.”
If nostalgia serves as a repository of positive memories to trigger when you feel depressed, then you need to create new ones before that repository runs out. It’s easier to go back to the old days, but breaking out of that comfort zone is well worth the effort.