Nostalgia Can Trigger Healthy Emotions

Nostalgia has become a more frequently used word in our daily life, playing a more and more important role and influence.

Studies have shown that among college students, the higher the overall degree of nostalgia, the more worried they are about their health, and the easier it is for them to have pleasant emotional experiences. Thus, nostalgia has a positive effect on our physical and mental health. In addition, nostalgia can also stimulate people's experience of positive emotions, improve positive self-evaluation, enhance social connectedness, enhance the sense of meaning of existence, promote prosocial behavior, and even improve pain tolerance to a certain extent.

Nostalgia is a kind of longing for the past, and this kind of memory is idealized. It is not an absolute reappearance, but a rearrangement and combination of different memories. In this process, negative emotions and negative impressions are deleted. Therefore, negative emotions such as doubt and dissatisfaction, anxiety and fear can trigger individual nostalgia experience, and nostalgia can repair and compensate these negative emotions in a certain sense, so that people can get emotional satisfaction and comfort. Some researchers have also found that a high degree of negative emotions and loneliness are likely to trigger nostalgic experiences by manipulating individual emotions.

Each of us exists as a member of the society, so the individual nostalgia will be generated in interpersonal communication: on the one hand, people will talk with friends or mention the old nostalgia; On the other hand, the sharing of nostalgic topics also enhances the intimacy between people. For example, when we attend the classmates' reunion, we all miss the green days in school.

The results of a study show that nostalgia is very complex, but there are more positive emotions than negative emotions, especially people in nostalgia more from negative emotions to positive emotions, less from positive to negative emotions, which is conducive to people's mental health.

Nostalgia, like any other emotion, affects cognition and behavior. Many studies have shown that nostalgia has great influence in the aspects of mass entertainment, leisure life, psychological intervention and so on. In particular, nostalgia psychology is widely used in daily life as the potential consumption motivation and consumption preference of consumers.

In the field of psychological counseling and treatment, nostalgia is regarded as an effective psychological intervention means, in the actual psychological counseling has been widely used. For the elderly's depression, in the process of nostalgia treatment, by letting the elderly look at old photos, old things, listening to classic songs and other ways to arouse the elderly's memory of the past, encourage the elderly to talk about their past things, help the elderly to maintain positive attention to themselves, promote self-thinking. Nostalgia therapy can effectively prevent or reduce depressive symptoms in the elderly, and help depressed elderly people cope with crisis and life changes. Nostalgia therapy can also be used to help people of all ages feel less lonely.

Nostalgia has a positive effect on mental health because it connects the self to others, the present me to the past me, strengthens the connection with family, friends, etc., enhances the sense of belonging, and the affirmation and support received from others can also maintain and improve the self-concept. Nostalgia also makes the past self and the present self unify. For example, although the present is not successful, nostalgia and re-experiencing the sense of achievement and pride brought by the past success can also help individuals increase their confidence. By reviewing the past successful experience, it can also help individuals cope with new difficulties and adapt to the new environment. The study found that the adaptability of college freshmen increased by triggering nostalgia for past experiences of overcoming difficulties. Overall, nostalgia therapy was effective in maintaining people's self-concept, reducing anxiety, and improving self-esteem and happiness.

For each of us, there are too many unknowns in life, but that doesn't mean life is blind. The past years are gone, but it doesn't mean we can't remember again. Nostalgia has echoes, and a healthy dose of nostalgia helps everyone's physical and mental health.

(The author is associate editor of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)