Why Are We Nostalgic?
Day Back to the Childhood
June 1st — Children’s Day.
July 8th — Day Back to Childhood.
These are significant days, at least in my home country — if we are to return to the origins. Elsewhere, I am not sure.
It’s June 8th, and I’ve been trying to escape the news about Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital being bombed by immersing myself in a book — exactly what I would do in my childhood after a school day anyway — so I suppose I was unconsciously celebrating it.
No matter how old we get, we tend to remain most nostalgic about our childhood. We get a true “warm and fuzzy” feeling when recalling those memories.
The first common explanation for why some people feel nostalgia is loneliness, feeling disconnected, or going through periods of stress.
For me, nostalgia often surfaces when I am in a positive state of mind, especially during weekends. Sure, mainly disconnected from social media and missing Sunday dinners with an extended family (already abandoned a childhood wish to be born into a huge Italian family!) But seriously, when I am content with my current life, enjoying long sleep, coffee in bed, and unrushed weekend days, I am most likely to think back on the other happy and nurturing periods of my existence.
These feelings can be bittersweet, but to me, they are overwhelmingly beneficial, giving me an extra boost as I remember how lucky I was to have those times.
Nostalgia, the experience of lovingly recalling and longing for your past, saturates our culture, especially in movies and TV. From Barbie and Indiana Jones to It’s Me, Margaret, and And Just Like That, media makers bet big on nostalgic fare. So far, it’s proven to be catnip to the masses. I don’t watch TV, but think of Barbie! I even started considering whether I should watch it…
“Consuming nostalgic media of all types gives us a way of thinking about who we are and helps us make sense of our purpose in life,” says Krystine Batcho, a psychology professor at LeMoyne College.
Ziyan Yang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Psychology, explains that experiencing nostalgia gives people a sense of warmth, fondness, and belonging, and even a sort of mental time travel, all of which drive people to seek out nostalgia. Yang asserts that movies and music easily trigger these feelings.
“Times of adversity can trigger nostalgia because remembering who we were helps with our identity continuity.”
If you get nostalgic, remember that nostalgia serves several important psychological purposes. One is the need to feel that we are in control. Even if our circumstances are largely out of our control: uncertainty about work, and political and economic situation, nostalgia can help us feel like we at least have some control over our personal development…